A Duke's Wicked Kiss (Entangled Select) (30 page)

She sat down with a thud. Jeremy clung to the folds of her sari. “I…I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything.”

She gazed up at him as he stepped around in front of her. “Did John know?”

He nodded. “We’ve been friends for years.”

“Do they know?” She nodded toward the house. “I mean, how can they not know something is awry? You showed up as an Indian by anyone’s measure, but now you look the epitome of a respectable Englishman.”

“Respectable Welshman,” he corrected. “And yes, they are aware of my status. At least the adults are. The men in the household are all recruited spies. May I sit?”

Confusion reigned and her face heated. “Yes. No. I don’t know…”

She shook her head, trying to clear it, and clutched Jeremy to her with one hand while she pressed the other to her hot cheek. She stared at Tanush…at Trent as though trying to discern who he really was. “Why didn’t you tell me when you found me strapped to a tree? For heaven’s sake, there was no need to hide the truth then.”

He moved to sit on the opposite side of her from where Jeremy sat, but she held up her hand. He paused in front of her and regarded her with somber eyes. “Ah, but there was. Had we been cornered and you knew the truth, you could have innocently given the ruse away. It was better you trusted me to see you through by thinking I was Tanush and Tanush only.”

He tilted his head back and studied her through veiled lids. “Actually, I was Tanush at the time. Completely. Now I’m not. I mean, I’ve slipped in and out of the disguise for so long, he’s become my alter ego.”

Her head swam with all the realizations bombarding her. “How? I mean, are you a kind of warrior like John said or was that, too, a falsehood?”

“He spoke the truth. My father was the commissioner for the East India Company in Calcutta several years running, which is where I was raised.”

“Traehaern.” Her eyes widened. “Your father was Commissioner Traehaern? Knighted by the queen for bravery when he saved an entire battalion from decimation?”

He nodded. “My father saw to it that I was trained in the Indian martial art of
dhanurveda
. Much to his pleasure, I turned out to be an excellent student. What he didn’t know was there were government spies reporting my progress to the Foreign Service.”

“Why were there spies around him after all he’d done for his country?”

“They…we’re everywhere.” He lifted a shoulder in a small shrug. “I was a perfect specimen with my black hair and coloring, my command of the languages, my ability to blend in having been raised here. Not to mention the skill by which to kill a man with a single blow of my hand or foot. They recruited me after I was sent off to Cambridge. Which was where I met Ravenswood, by the way. Blame me for enlisting him and his brother in this bloody mess.”

That quiver of pain that had threatened to sprout in Suri before Trent arrived suddenly bloomed to the trembling point. Then the terrible hurt coalesced with anger watered by unshed tears. A swirling mass of emotions she couldn’t identify rose up until she quaked inside. Gently, very gently, she set Jeremy aside and stood.

A quizzical look flashed through Trent’s eyes. He tilted his head again. “Suri?”

A storm of anger, hurt, and pain railed inside her and broke loose. “How
dare
you show up here like nothing whatsoever has happened. All dressed up in your…your finery as if you’re ready to board ship and forget any of this nightmare ever happened. As if…as if…”

He gave a bare shake of his head and shot a meaningful glance at Jeremy and then back at her as if to say,
Stop. Think of the boy.

She caught herself. He was right—he was no longer Tanush. That blank-faced, hard-eyed unreadable man who’d guarded her with his life was no longer. This man spoke volumes with a mere blink of an eye.

Suddenly, the pain whipping through her heart and soul did her in. She caught her lower lip in her teeth to keep it from trembling. Lord have mercy, she’d been taking everything she’d locked inside herself out on him—John’s death, Harry, Jeremy, her sister…her own pain.

Her own foolishness with Ravi Maurya that had led everyone into a trap.

And worst of all, she’d refused to wed John.

Her beloved.

She feared her heart might stop altogether just then. Too late, she realized that had she agreed to marry him, their union would have set them on sacred ground. And just as he’d tried to tell her, she was certain now they’d have formed a powerful force, one that would have withstood any storm that came along.

Another insight battered her as if she were being stoned—had she married him, there would have been no attending that ill-fated wedding with Ravi-ji, no need for John to have chased after her.

Dear God in Heaven, if it weren’t for her, he’d still be alive today! Spots danced before her eyes. Her world tipped on its axis and her balance wavered.

Trent grabbed her by the arms. “Suri?”

It was hard to see him through the sheen of tears. She was going to cry. She couldn’t. Not with Jeremy here.

“It’s all right,” Trent said, as if reading her mind. “Jeremy is a strong young man. He knows everyone weeps now and then. Don’t you?” He glanced at the silent and withdrawn boy. Pain shot through Trent’s eyes and swam in the dark pools of remorse. “If it’s any consolation, Ravenswood was like a brother to me. Your father was a best friend. I understand your pain.”

Suri didn’t know if he spoke to Jeremy or to her, but his honest display of emotion proved to be her undoing. Her knees buckled and she fell against him. His arm went around her to break her fall, and then he extended his other hand to Jeremy.

Jeremy’s small, trembling hand found Trent’s. He gathered the boy against him and Suri. “It’s all right for the both of you to grieve your terrible losses,” he said. “Perhaps we all need to.”

Suri wept into Trent’s shoulder, soaking the fine cloth of his jacket while a dry-eyed Jeremy silently buried his face in the folds of her sari. She broke into sobs. “All those times you stood by my door guarding me,” she said, “I never had any idea you were a Welshman doing the bidding of your best friend. You would’ve gone to your death for him. For me. Oh, God!”

His arm tightened around her shoulder. “I’ll see you safely to England, like I promised Ravenswood, but I had best do it right and proper.”

Suri sniffed and pulled away. “What do you mean?”

He reached into his pocket and handed her a handkerchief. “I’ll be two and thirty next month. By any chance do you have a brother in my age range?”

She shook her head, confused. “Rupert is four and thirty. He’s the Duke of Bridgeford now that my father is gone. Why?”

“He won’t do. Is there another?”

“Yes, my next oldest brother. He’s nearly thirty.”

“His name?”

“George.” She sniffed again and wiped her nose on the cloth he’d given her. “Lord George Thurston.”

Trent arched a brow and his mouth crooked in a half-smile. “Then you’d better get used to calling me George.”

…

“Blast it all!” John was a day late for the last ship to sail. And Suri was on board. He sat in the same settee as she had not twenty-four hours earlier—so he’d been told—his fingers buried in Shahira’s thick fur behind her ears. He cursed the weather and his misfortune. Every ship, boat, or piece of wood that resembled anything an Indian might fish from was moored and battened down. The westerly winds had sprung up this afternoon, churning the sea’s water to a muddy brown and acting as a deadly force that would drive the monsoons inland, turning everything into a mass of knee-deep mud for weeks. And the blasted weather wasn’t about to relent until August.

He rubbed his sore shoulder and stared at the curtain of rain. Well, damn it, he couldn’t sit around on his arse all summer long waiting. Monsoon mud or not, he’d make his way back to Delhi and find Suri’s sister. Yes, that’s what he’d do—he’d locate Lady Marguerite and see her home.

Providing she was still alive.

C
HAPTER
S
IXTEEN

B
RIDGEFORD
H
ALL—
B
EDFORDSHIRE,
E
NGLAND

Suri collapsed into a leather chair, her heart beating high and fast.
My inheritance gone? This cannot be!

Straining for a modicum of composure, she opened her mouth to speak. Nothing. Why could she not assemble her words? Silence hung in the air like a heavy fog.

Pressing trembling fingers to her lips, she stared at her brother’s back. The pompous ass stood there in front of the library’s tall windows acting as though he’d announced the dismissal of an errant servant rather than delivering the news that he’d just destroyed his sister’s future.

Rupert cleared his throat twice. Papa used to do exactly the same when he was mad as a hornet. Her brother was angry? The nerve. He should be on his knees begging forgiveness for what he’d done.

He fisted his hands on his hips in an all-too-familiar manner and cleared his throat again. Twice. Since when had her brother decided to mimic her father? Sunlight outlined his bulky frame and created a white nimbus around him. Whenever she’d seen her father’s large body block the sun that way she’d thought he resembled a saint. But Rupert was Lucifer in all his sinister glory.

Anger, hot and foul, brewed in her stomach. She swallowed against the rising bile until she finally found her voice. “What do you mean, my inheritance is gone? Father left it to me, not for you to squander. Damn your eyes!”

Rupert whipped around and bore down on her in long, purposeful strides, his booted feet driving into the lush Turkish carpet, his eyes brilliant with challenge. He halted in front of her. A muscle along his clenched jaw rippled while his hate-filled eyes stared into hers. Then his fists shot up, just enough for her to shrink back reflexively. She blinked rapidly, as if he’d already struck her, but then she straightened and leaned forward, daring him to act out his hostility.

Trent stepped from the corridor and into her peripheral vision. He leaned a shoulder against the door jamb and folded his arms over his chest, his face a blank mask.

Tanush is back in service!

The muscles in Suri’s gut uncoiled and the blood pounding through her veins resumed a normal flow.

Rupert delivered Trent a duke’s setdown glare that might have thrown the fear of God into anyone else. When he got no response, he fixed his heated gaze back on her. “This is between you and me. Call off your hound.”

Despite the shocking news that he’d drained her finances, an insane urge to laugh in Rupert’s face caught hold of her. “Then you’d better step back and stop snarling at me or there’s likely to be a dog fight. And take my word for it, you would lose. Miserably so.”

Her brother straightened, clenched his hands on his hips again, and gave Trent an authoritative and demeaning once-over. He must have practiced that belittling maneuver in private, because Suri had never seen the likes of it before. Of course, he’d been away at school for years.

Rupert snarled at Trent. “Step back into the corridor and close the door behind you or I will have you tossed out on your arse.”

Trent stood rooted in the doorway. “No, I don’t believe I will,” he responded in a voice as calm as a windless sea, yet it carried an undertow of warning. “I’m curious to hear your explanation of how you siphoned off your sister’s funds.”

Her brother was either quite stupid or very naïve, because he sent another scowl Trent’s way and then swaggered over to his father’s desk—now his. Leaning one hip against the dark mahogany that had been polished over the years by her father’s similar stance, Rupert turned his glower on Suri. “I did not squander the funds. I appropriated them for the good of Bridgeford Hall and for all the tenant farmers. There were roofs to be repaired and taxes to be paid.”

Anger overrode shock and served to clear Suri’s head. She rose, stepped forward, and fired a blistering gaze at him. “Oh, for pity’s sake, Rupert. I gave you power of attorney over my funds while I was gone because I trusted you. How could you?”

His bark of laughter rang brutal. “How could I?” He arched a brow. “I withdrew your funds and spent them. That’s how.”

His words stung her ears and nearly stole what little reserve she had left. “But…but why? Father ran a profitable and well-oiled business. We never wanted for anything.” To emphasize her point, she swept her hand around the opulent library.

He curled his fingers on the desk on either side of him, sank his meaty neck into his wide shoulders, and leaned back, looking down his nose at her. “Or so we thought.”

Oh, how she’d love to slap that smirk off his face. Instead, she curled her fingers into the folds of her skirt. “So we thought?”

“There you go, repeating my words. Gads, I’d hoped you’d got over some of your loathsome habits.”

Despite her bravado, tears sprang to her eyes. Could she actually be hearing this? “What are you saying? You act as though you despised me all our growing years—”

His lip curled in a cold sneer. “I did.”

What?
A shaft of pain lanced through her chest
. Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.
She straightened her spine, drew in a long breath, and responded as if his words had not broken her heart. “And your reasoning,
dear brother
?”

He gave his head a slow shake and did nothing to hide his scorn. “
Darling
Suri. Papa’s little half-breed. Always his favorite. You may no longer refer to me as your brother.”

No longer her brother?
Her hand slid to her throat. Stoicism slipping, she raised her chin in defiance and forced calm down her throat. “Well, we can do little about that bit, can we?”

With another wicked arch of his brow, derision was back full force. “Not only are you a half-breed, Suri, you are a half-blood. Which makes you nothing. Not only in my eyes, but in the eyes of the courts. Legally, you are a child of no one. Father had no right leaving you an inheritance and nothing for the rest of us.”