How the Scoundrel Seduces by Sabrina Jeffries Read Free Book Online Page A

my birththat I could glean from talking to servants, tenants, and villagers over the past few months. I had to be careful, though. I dared not risk rousing suspicions in anyone.”
    “That must have been difficult,” Tristan quipped. “Clearly subtlety isn’t your strong suit.”
    To his surprise, a rueful smile crossed her lips. “It certainly isn’t. Still, I did my best because I also couldn’t take the chance of my questions getting back to Papa. He tends to be overprotective.”
    “Which makes sense, when you consider that you’re his only heir.” Dom picked up the paper to look it over.
    “True,” she murmured. “Not to mention that he keeps forgetting he’s no longer in the army.”
    “The army?” Tristan echoed, taken aback.
    Dom glanced up from the sheet of paper. “Don’t you remember hearing about the Keanes of Winborough? The estate is near the town of Highthorpe, only a couple of hours away from home.”
    Home. Tristan hadn’t thought of Rathmoor Park as home in a very long time. It reminded him too powerfully of what he’d lost. “Might as well have been a couple of days away if her family wasn’t keen on racing.”
    “Good point. Father’s friends did tend to be exclusively from that set. In any case, Lady Zoe’s father was Major Keane before his elder brother died, leaving him to inherit the title.”
    “And Mama and Aunt Flo were the daughters of a colonel,” the young woman put in. “Father runs our family the way he used to run his regiment. Or so I would guess, since I wasn’t even born then.”
    A certain vulnerability flashed over her face, and Tristan realized how young she must be. Based on what she’d said about her coming-out and her mother’s death, she couldn’t be more than twenty-one, barely into her majority.
    The thought of a woman that age facing a fight for what was rightfully hers unsettled him. It reminded him of how easily he and Lisette had been deprived of their own inheritance. Dom, too, because of the vagaries of English law. In France, Dom would have inherited a portion no matter what George did to prevent it.
    Still, Lady Zoe had a father who cared about her and meant to give her a tidy inheritance, regardless of whom she married. It was why she felt free to act recklessly. Unlike Tristan, she’d never had to risk paying for her reckless behavior with her life.
    “Unfortunately,” she went on, “when Papa is being the Major, he saddles me with one of our fiercer servants as a gaoler, who dogs my every step. I could never have come here today if Papa had realized what I’ve been up to.”
    Instead, she’d coerced her pup of a footman into doing her bidding. No wonder her father felt compelled to give her “fiercer” servants as gaolers.
    Dom held up her paper. “I see no information here about the Gypsy woman. Can you tell us anything else about that?”
    “I do have a name for her,” she said with a sideways glance at Tristan. “She called herself Drina. Apparently she didn’t mention a surname.”
    Drina was actually a popular Romany name. Perhaps her aunt’s tale wasn’t entirely spurious. Still, it wasn’t much to go on. It would require several forays into the different Gypsy camps, and there were quite a number.
    As it finally dawned on him what this could mean for him, his blood raced. Lady Zoe wanted someone to talk to the Romany; he wanted to find Milosh. He might actually get paid for doing what he’d been itching to do for months.
    “Did your parents know where Drina’s people had camped?” Dom asked.
    She furrowed her brow. “Mama told Aunt Flo that Drina was headed west for York when they encountered her. Perhaps she was going to join her family.”
    This was getting better and better. With both Winborough and Rathmoor Park near the road to York, Tristan could easily investigate them both.
    But he was getting ahead of himself. “What time of year was this?”
    “January. Mama and Papa disembarked the ship in Liverpool,