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

then traveled by coach to York. They were headed home to Highthorpe when they met up with Drina. That’s all I know.”
    Tristan glanced at Dom. “Many of the Romany winter in major cities like York or Edinburgh or London. Some even take houses for those months.”
    Lady Zoe began to tremble so violently that she had to sit down again. “My aunt’s tale might be true, then.” Her gaze, oddly unfocused, met Tristan’s. “I might indeed be a Gypsy by birth.”
    “Not necessarily,” he said, inexplicably alarmed by her distress. “There are things about the tale that don’t make sense. Why would this Drina have been on the road in January? The Gypsies who used to camp on my father’s land left for town in early November, not two or three months later, when there was more likelihood of snow.”
    She swallowed hard. “Still, you must admit that I look like a Gypsy, with my coloring and my hair—”
    “Nonsense,” he said.
    Granted, she looked unusual, rather like a Russian princess he’d once met. But not so unusual as to provoke suspicion about her heritage. Her skin was the creamy hue of marzipan, and her hair wasn’t dark enough. Though she did have a Gypsy’s high cheekbones, her eyes were pure English—green as the wolds of York in summer.
    “You look half-Gypsy at most.” As something occurred to him, Tristan searched her features again. “Perhaps the Gypsy story is only partly true. Perhaps you really aren’t your mother’s child. But you could still be your father’s.”
    Her eyes got huge in her face. “What are you saying?”
    “Nothing,” Dom put in with a look of caution.
    Tristan ignored him. “Perhaps Drina was your father’s mistress.”

3

    F OR HALF A second, all Zoe could do was gape at the wretch. Then she leapt from her chair. “That’s impossible. Papa would never have shamed Mama so. They were in love!”
    Mr. Bonnaud cocked his head. “So were Dom’s parents, yet his father— our father—took my mother as a mistress fairly early in their marriage. He claimed to love her as well. That sort of thing happens in England more than you think.”
    “Don’t drag our family into this, Tristan,” Mr. Manton warned.
    Paying him no mind, the dratted devil began to pace before her. “It would explain all the inconsistencies—why a Romany woman was alone on the road to York without her people. Why your father took you in so readily, even though your mother could still have borne him children. Drina might have been waiting for him when your family arrived at Winborough. Perhaps hewas just hiding the truth from your mother when he said that he’d bought you.”
    Zoe glowered at him. “And the fact that Drina was beaten, what of that? I suppose you’re going to blame my father for that, too.”
    “Certainly not,” he said.
    Her pulse steadied a little.
    “But Gypsies have a stricter morality than Englishmen realize. All rumors about them to the contrary, they don’t allow adultery or fornication. If Drina had shared a bed with your father, then her husband—or her own father—might have beaten her for it.”
    “You claimed that Gypsies don’t abuse their women,” she pointed out.
    He shrugged. “They don’t generally, but it’s hard to know what a husband might do when faced with his wife’s adultery.” He paused in his pacing to shoot her a meaningful glance. “Or what an English husband might do to cover up his own.”
    Heat rose in her cheeks. She’d had quite enough of this. “You are a vile, vile man. To cast aspersions on my family with nothing more than a few facts—”
    “I’m merely trying to get at the truth.” His eyes glittered at her. “That is what you want, isn’t it?”
    “Not from you.” Turning on her heel, she approached the desk. “Mr. Manton, I want you to promise that your brother won’t be involved in this investigation. He’s clearly biased against my family, for no reason that I can see, and I don’t want his bias to affect his