Love's Price (Lord Trent Series) (32 page)

Miranda gasped again. “You will not disobey me, or I’ll have your job!”

The butler was imperturbable, his dislike of Miranda very clear.

“Perhaps you should discuss the matter with you fiancé.”

Helen frowned. Wasn’t Westwood her fiancé? On the journey to town, Helen had wondered if their speedy wedding hadn’t already occurred. But no. The butler had specifically referred to Miranda as
Miss
Wilson.

“If you suppose,” Miranda fumed, “that I have to fetch Mr. Harcourt to make you behave as you ought, you will be sorely disappointed.”

The butler snorted with disdain. “Pardon the interruption, Miss Stewart. If you’ll come with me...?”

He started walking again, ignoring Miranda, and she shrieked with outrage and grabbed Helen by the arm.

“Get out, you pathetic hussy!”

Her voice was rising, the situation escalating, when suddenly, a man appeared at the end of the hall.

For the briefest instant, Helen froze, certain it was Westwood, but then she noted the differences. He had many of the same features, but he wasn’t James Harcourt.

Was he Tristan Harcourt? Miranda had said he was dead.

“Harriet?” he breathed. “Is it really you?”

He knew Harriet?
As he hurried toward her, Helen was even more confused.

“No, I’m not Harriet.”

“Not...Harriet? Gad, you look exactly like her.”

He staggered to a halt, assessing her, scowling and touchingly crushed that Helen was the wrong sister.

“You’re Helen Stewart, aren’t you?”

“Yes. Are you Captain Harcourt?”

“I am. What’s going on? Who was shouting?”

The butler answered. “We’re having a dispute, sir. Miss Stewart wishes to speak with your brother, but Miss Wilson is insisting that she can deny the earl a visitor.”

“Honestly, Miranda,” Mr. Harcourt said. “You know better.”

“How are you acquainted with Harriet?” Helen queried.

“How?” Mr. Harcourt inquired. “My goodness, Miss Stewart, have you been living in a cave?”

“What do you mean?”

“He means,” Miranda bit out, “that your sister is a whore—just like you.”

“Miranda!” Mr. Harcourt scolded as she burst into tears and fled up the stairs.

The butler raced off too, so Helen and Harcourt were alone.

“I’m sorry to stare”—Helen was gawking at him—“but Miss Wilson had informed me that you’d perished.”

He sighed. “As you can see, I’m very much alive.”

He held out his arms and spun from side to side, letting her examine him.

“She also claimed that—since you were deceased—she was about to marry Lord Westwood.”

“Yes, there have been rumors to that effect.”

“So...they didn’t wed?”

“She’s still
Miss
Wilson to all of us.”

“Yet you’re proceeding with your betrothal?”

“As of this moment—yes.”

Helen couldn’t decide if he was crazy or extremely foolish—though he didn’t seem to be either. She pondered whether she should warn him about Miranda, but she didn’t.

The Harcourts and their marriages were none of her business.

“You mentioned Harriet, Captain Harcourt.”

“Do you truly not know about her and me?”

“No, but I’ve been in the country, so I wouldn’t have heard any gossip. How are you connected?”

“It’s a long story. Let’s sit down.”

He led her into the parlor, and he recounted the chilling tale of Harriet stowing away on his ship, of the pirate attack, and their sojourn on the island. Though he was vague as to the details, she understood that Harriet had been his mistress.

If Helen had had time to waste, she might have mused about fate and how she and Harriet had been tossed into the two brothers’ paths, but she was on a mission, and she didn’t have the luxury of philosophical contemplation.

“I’m embarrassed to admit,” he said, coming to the end of his narrative, “that I was awful to her after we were rescued.”

“What did you do?”

“I left her at the dock without a goodbye. I made no plans for her, even though she had no money and nowhere to go. I’ve regretted my lapse ever since, and I’m very ashamed of how I behaved toward her. Can you tell me where she is?”

“No, but I know who can.”

“And who is that?”

She studied him, curious if she could rely on him as she hadn’t been able to rely on his brother. He seemed to have been fond of Harriet, and he had kind eyes.

“She’s been taken hostage by a man named Bentley Struthers.”

She pulled out the flyer and watched as he read it. He frowned.

“She told me about this,” he muttered, “but she claimed
you
were the one in trouble with Struthers.”

“No, it’s her. She was working in his home when he assaulted her. She fought him off and ran, and I haven’t seen her since.”

“And you think Struthers knows where she is?”

“I’m sure of it. I recently learned that she was captured shortly after she debarked.”

“Dammit!”

“Someone recognized her and turned her in for the reward.” Helen didn’t disclose Nigel’s part in the debacle. Her cousin’s duplicity was too mortifying to divulge. “Struthers’s men made off with her, but I have no idea where they took her.”

“Struthers...” he fumed. “That horse’s ass!”

“I realize I’m imposing on you horridly, but could you...could you talk to him for me? I’d intended to ask your brother, but I’m—”

“Would you excuse me?”

Abruptly, he rose, and as he stomped out of the room, he looked very, very angry.

She hurried after him.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m off to find Harriet, and Bentley Struthers had better pray that she’s all right.”

Miranda hovered on the landing, listening as Tristan concluded his conversation with Helen Stewart. He stormed out, so distracted by his quest that he didn’t stop to grab a coat.

Stewart dawdled, acting as if she’d stroll back into the parlor and continue to wait for James.

How dare she! How dare she come into the house and assume she’d be welcome! How dare she humiliate Miranda by sending Tristan off after her sister!

If people discovered that Tristan was chasing about the city, searching for Harriet Stewart, the teasing Miranda had endured would escalate to unbearable proportions. She wasn’t about to stand for it!

She marched down the stairs, and as Stewart glanced up, she appeared worried and nervous. Good! Stewart was all alone now, with no male to protect her, and they both knew it.

“Get out of here,” Miranda seethed. “I told you before, and I’m telling you again: Get out!”

“I need to be here when Captain Harcourt returns. If he locates my sister, I have to speak with her.”

“You have the gall to ask
me
if you can stay?”

“I’m not hurting anybody. If my presence bothers you, go up to your bedchamber. Once Harriet arrives, we’ll leave, and you’ll never hear from us again.”

“Is that what you suppose? You urge my fiancé to ride to her rescue, and you imagine that afterward, he’ll allow the two of you to waltz off into the sunset? Are you insane?”

“No.”

“He is in love with her, you fool. If he brings her back, he’ll never let her out of his sight again.”

“You’re being absurd.”

“I will not lose my fiancé to her! Nor will I sit by and permit the two of you to insinuate yourselves into this family as you have.”

“We’ve done nothing to you.”

“You’re married, yet you come here anyway, trying to glom on to James, but I see through your ploy.”

“Married?” Helen said. “I’m not married.”

“You don’t need to pretend. Your cousin was very thorough in explaining your
situation
to James. You must be aware that—in his opinion—betrayal is the worst sin a woman can commit.”

“I haven’t
betrayed
Westwood.”

“Ha! And you with his babe lodged in your belly!”

“What?”

“You think I don’t know who you really are? You think I don’t know your ancestry?”

“My mother was a gentleman’s daughter. My father was a wealthy landowner.”

Miranda scoffed. “Lie to yourself, but not to me.”

She seized Stewart’s wrist and shoved back the sleeve of her dress to reveal the birthmark on her arm. It was in the shape of a figure-eight, and Miranda would have bet a hundred pounds that her twin had one exactly like it. The birthmark was called ‘The Mark of Trent’ because Trent’s illicit children usually inherited it.

“You carry the stain of Trent’s paternity,” Miranda sneered. “You have the blond hair, the green eyes. You resemble him in every way.”

Stewart blanched and yanked away, an indication that she recognized Charles Sinclair to be her sire, but she quickly shielded her reaction.

“I have no idea what you mean,” she claimed.

“Don’t you? By your very existence, you insult Tristan and James, yet you dare to beg them for assistance. Have you no shame?”

“What are you talking about?”

“James’s mother left her husband and two young sons and fled to Paris with her lover, and you can’t fathom why we view your conduct as outrageous?”

“Who was her lover?”

“Your father, Charles Sinclair.”

“That’s not true,” Stewart said. “You’re lying.”

“Ask anyone in the city. They’ll be happy to tell you all about it.” Miranda grabbed the doorknob and wrenched open the door. “So you see, Miss Stewart, every time we gaze upon your pathetic face, we see your father’s green eyes, and we are reminded of what he did to our family.”

“I have to wait for Captain Harcourt,” Stewart mutinously declared.

“You are Trent’s child!” Miranda shouted. “All those months, you thought James adored you, that he might wed you, but he knew who you were.”

“No, he didn’t.”

“Who do you imagine told
me
about your father? James has spent years trying to revenge himself on Trent, and you were dropped into his lap like a gift.”

“What are you saying?”

“At this very moment, James is arranging a card game with Trent where he intends to brag about how he ruined you.”

“What?”

“He will announce that it was in retaliation for Trent’s affair with James’s mother.”

Miranda had wrangled Stewart into the threshold and pushed her onto the stoop.

“Helen Stewart—bastard daughter of Charles Sinclair—you are not wanted here. Now go away and don’t come back.”

Miranda slammed the door in Stewart’s stunned face.

Tristan leapt off his horse and raced up the steps to Struthers’s door. He kicked at it, and it swung open and banged against the inside wall.

A shocked, elderly butler gaped at him.

“Where is Bentley?” Tristan demanded.

The butler gulped. “Captain Harcourt?”

Tristan flew by him and down the hall, glancing into each salon as he passed and finding Bentley seated in a chair in the one at the end.

A rough-looking man was over by the window.

As Tristan marched in, Bentley scowled.

“Harcourt? What the devil are you doing here? Was that you making a ruckus in my foyer?”

Tristan approached until they were toe to toe.

“Where is Harriet Stewart?”

“Harriet...Stewart?”

“If you pretend you don’t know her, I’ll kill you.”

“You must mean the little tart who stole my mother’s jewelry, then attacked me when I caught her in the act.”

“No, I don’t mean
that
Harriet Stewart. I mean the Harriet Stewart who is about to be my wife.”

“Your...wife?”

Bentley chortled with glee.

“What’s so funny?” Tristan queried.

“You—marrying Harriet Stewart. She’s a whore.”

On the ride over, Tristan had been hoping Bentley would be stupidly offensive. It gave Tristan an excuse to be violent.

“What did you call her?” he asked very quietly.

“She’s a whore. Everybody knows—”

Fast as a snake, Tristan pulled a pistol out of his boot and stuck it under Bentley’s chin, wedging it into his jowls.

“Where is she?”

“My God, Harcourt,” Bentley screeched, “have you gone mad?”

“Where is she?” Tristan bellowed.

“Radley,” Bentley whined to the other man, “don’t just stand there. Do something.”