How the Scoundrel Seduces by Sabrina Jeffries Read Free Book Online

husband.”
    “Perhaps among the ton ,” Dom said kindly, “but not necessarily among more sensible gentlemen.”
    Her grateful smile was tinged with sadness. “Yet if I marry a man of my choosing and the truth comes out later, who knows how my husband would handle it?”
    “Excellent point,” Tristan snapped. “You wouldn’t want any scandal tainting your husband’s reputation.” Because of course she would marry someone rich and important and appropriate to be consort to the prospective Countess of Olivier. Someone just like Father.
    Though she stiffened, she conceded the point with a nod. “I wouldn’t want him to be affected by any of it—scandal, or the loss of the title for our children, or the loss of my wealth. It wouldn’t be fair to spring that on a man after he’d married me with certain expectations.”
    That certainly put him in his place. He grudgingly admitted that no man deserved to be taken by surprise in his choice of wife.
    She went on. “And I’d still have the problem of my cousin’s inheriting a property he couldn’t handle. I can’t risk that, even if it means marrying a stranger.”
    “But you prefer not to marry a stranger, I take it,” Dom said. “You hope that your aunt is lying about the Gypsy woman, so you can marry whom you please.”
    She smiled at him. “Absolutely. And even if she’s telling the truth, but you and your fellow investigators learn that this Gypsy woman and her husband have taken my secret to their graves, I’m still safe. Because if our servants had known of it, they certainly would have revealed it by now. Aunt Flo only told me under duress.” Her expression turned haunted. “Either way, I have to be sure, don’t you see?”
    Dom steepled his fingers. “I suppose the matter is even more urgent now that your cousin is coming to London.”
    The grateful smile she bestowed on him scraped Tristan’s nerves. “You understand me perfectly. In a few days, Mr. Keane will be here, and I must know how to proceed. I’d hoped for more time to prepare, but we only learned of his impending visit a month ago. Then I had to convince Papa to bring us here well in advance of it, so I could find a way to consult with you and your men. It wasn’t a matter I dared broach in a letter.”
    “Certainly not.” Dom tapped his fingers on his desk. “Let me make sure I understand you correctly—you wish to hire us to find out if your mother really bore a child on that voyage from America. If we learn that she didn’t, you want us to hunt down the Gypsy womanwho actually bore you. And possibly her husband as well.”
    “You’ve summed it up brilliantly,” she said.
    Perfectly . Brilliantly . His brother got the gushing compliments, while she raked Tristan over the coals. He wasn’t used to that, even from her sort.
    Women like her did sometimes turn up their noses at him on the few occasions when he frequented “good society.” But when no one of their class was around, they were perfectly eager to smile and bat their eyelashes. Many a married lady of rank had tried to seduce him, and even the unmarried ones flirted with him, practicing for their more serious pursuit of lords.
    But, ever conscious of their reputations, they only showed their true colors privately, in the dark. Give him an honest actress or opera dancer in his bed any day over some bored baroness. They knew what they wanted, and they went after it with gusto. They didn’t hide their desires behind hypocrisy.
    Lady Zoe knows what she wants and is going after it. She just doesn’t want you. And she’s being perfectly honest about it.
    True. Damn her. It shouldn’t annoy him that she was apparently the one female immune to his flirtations. But it did.
    “Have you any information that will help us with the search?” Tristan demanded. “Do you even know what ship your parents traveled on?”
    Drawing a sheet of paper from her reticule, she placed it on the desk. “I wrote down everything about