How the Scoundrel Seduces

How the Scoundrel Seduces Read Free

Book: How the Scoundrel Seduces Read Free
Author: Sabrina Jeffries
Tags: Fiction, Historical Romance, Georgian
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to move in their circles? They only tolerated you because of Father.”
    “That’s not true!” Tristan cried, though he feared it was. “Everyone says I know a lot about horses. Father told me his friends were impressed.”
    “By your ability to pull the wool over his eyes, perhaps. But even if I did allow you to have the gelding, you have nothing else to impress them with.” George sneered at him. “Why do you think Father never had you educated beyond the Ashcroft dame school? He knew there was no point. You’re too stupid to do anything but live off his generosity, and I’m putting a stop to that.”
    Bile rose in Tristan’s throat. Without the annuity or even the horse, how would they survive? What would happen to Mother and Lisette? “I’ll tell everyone what you’ve done.” Might as well use the family hatred of scandal against George. “You won’t get away with it!”
    George laughed. “Who will you tell? The servants? The villagers? It’s your word against mine, and you’re naught but a bastard. Even if they did believe you, they know whose money pays for their very lives, so they won’t dare act on it.”
    “Dom would.” Tristan balled his hands into fists.“He’ll never stand for this. You burned up his inheritance, too.”
    “I’ll take care of my legitimate brother,” George said icily. “I would have fought the codicil legally anyway, and you would never have seen the money.”
    “Then there was no need for you to burn it,” Tristan shot back.
    George shrugged. “It saves me from waiting months for a court proceeding. That’s why Dom will side with me—because he needs my fortune to live. He certainly won’t defy me over the likes of you and yours.”
    “Forget the legalities! I’m still your blood. So is Lisette.”
    George went rigid. “Only because of an accident of birth. You are nothing to me. And I want you out of this house now!  ”
    When Tristan just stood there, George strode past him into the hall. “Hucker!”
    Tristan tensed. The brutish man of affairs was always at George’s beck and call, and John Hucker appeared in the doorway within moments.
    “The doctor ain’t arrived yet, master—”
    “It’s ‘my lord’ now, if you please,” George clipped out.
    That seemed to shake even Hucker. He glanced beyond Tristan to the bed and paled. “I see.”
    “Take this bastard,” George went on, “and get him out of my sight. I don’t want him within a mile of this place.”
    “Yes, m’lord.” Hucker squared his shoulders, then approached Tristan with a frightening deadness inhis features. “Come along now, boy. You heard the master . . . I mean, his lordship.”
    Tristan glared at George. “You haven’t seen the last of me. I’ll make you pay for this if it takes the rest of my life.”
    “Get him out of here, damn it!” George ordered Hucker.
    When Hucker took Tristan’s arm, Tristan wrenched free. “I’m going.” Then he marched into the hall.
    As he strode downstairs, each echoing step further fueling his anger, he could hear Hucker following him. To hell with George and Hucker! And to hell with Father, too, who’d neglected his duty to his children until it was too late.
    Instantly, guilt seized Tristan. What was wrong with him to be thinking ill of Father, who wasn’t even cold in the grave? None of this was Father’s fault. It was George’s, all George’s.
    Once outside, Tristan expected Hucker to let him go on alone, but the infernal arse fell into step beside him, swinging a lantern at his side.
    “You don’t have to dog my steps back to the cottage,” Tristan grumbled. “I can find my own way in the moonlight. Leave me be, damn it.”
    “If his lordship says he wants you a mile off, then I’m making sure you’re a mile off.”
    “Shall we hunt up a yardstick so you can measure?” Tristan snapped.
    Hucker said nothing, just kept stubbornly beside Tristan the whole way across the lawn.
    Hucker had once been a halfway

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