Love's Peril (Lord Trent Series)

by Holt, Cheryl

  The Crown wanted Jean Pierre dead, but that was because he’d put so many affluent men’s noses out of joint. He’d scuttled their ships and stole their cargo, causing untold financial losses to numerous aristocratic families.

  But the common people were agog over his bold attacks and thrilled by his bravery and daring. They cheered his antics as if he was a modern-day Robin Hood. He took from the rich, but didn’t give to the poor, and they didn’t mind. He was very deliberate in relieving the wealthy of what they had, so he was a hero to many.

  Could he be persuaded to stop before he was caught and hanged? Or before his luck ran out and he was killed in a melee? How could Phillip dissuade him?

  He rode to Fanny’s house, figuring she’d be busy with planning her party. She and Michael had been married for two years, and she never missed a chance to celebrate.

  He predicted that Helen and Harriet would be with her. The half-sisters were the same age—twenty-three—and born the same year, providing stark evidence that Charles had the morals of a dog. They were fast friends and closer than any full-blooded sisters could ever be.

  He entered without knocking, and as he’d suspected, the trio was in Fanny’s front parlor. They were lounged on the sofas, drinking tea and debating supper menus and entertainment. Whenever he walked into a room, they chirped with delight, which always had him smiling. They made him nostalgic for the decades they’d lost as children, when they hadn’t known of one another, when they hadn’t realized they had family.

  “Weren’t you off to visit Charles?”Fanny inquired once they’d calmed and settled.

  “Can’t a man have any secrets from you three?”

  “No,”they replied in unison.

  “Anne stopped by,”Helen admitted. Anne was Phillip’s wife. “She spilled the beans.”

  “I must remember to tell her to be more discreet about my business.”

  They laughed at his foolishness. No one could tell Anne anything—especially Phillip.

  “What did Charles want?”Helen asked.

  Phillip had known Charles his entire life, so he was used to Charles’s odd proclivities. Fanny, Helen, and Harriet had been acquainted with him for a year or two, and they were fascinated and perplexed.

  In light of Charles’s title and reputation, it was an incredible shock and burden to learn that you were his child. It was the sort of parentage that caused people to stare and whisper when you went by on the street.

  “He told me the strangest story,”Phillip said.

  “About what?”Fanny asked.

  “Brace yourselves—particularly you, Harriet—but it appears Jean Pierre might be in England.”

  There was a collective gasp, then Helen asked, “What makes you think so?”

  “A woman at a country estate out near Dover wrote to Charles. She claims Jean Pierre won their property in a card game. Supposedly, he’s on the premises and threatening to foreclose.”

  “Why would she write to Charles about that?”

  “The man confessed to being Charles’s son, and she wants Charles to intervene and force him to give the property back.”

  “Good luck with that,”Harriet muttered. “Jean Pierre is insane. It’s not easy to reason with him.”

  Harriet had had an up close and personal violent encounter with Jean Pierre—when he was at his most lethal, his most vindictive.

  When he’d wrecked Tristan’s ship and set Tristan and Harriet adrift, he hadn’t known that Harriet was his sister. But he’d definitely known that Tristan was his brother, and he’d tried his best to murder Tristan.

  Harriet still had occasional nightmares.

  Phillip moved over to sit next to her. He took her hand.

  “Charles has asked me to ride there to see if it is Jean Pierre.”

  Harriet frowned. “You believe it’s true?”

  Phillip shrugged. “He’s going by the name John Sinclair, and he seems to be an Englishman.”

  “The Jean Pierre I met was very, very French.”

  “Perhaps he’s a skilled actor,”Fanny mused.

  “Perhaps,”Harriet murmured. “He’s capable of any nefarious conduct. Why not acting, too?”

  “I need your opinion, Harriet,”Phillip said. “If he really is our brother, Charles wants me to persuade him to come to London.”

  “Why?”

  “He wants Jean Pierre to meet all of you. He agrees with you that if Jean Pierre discovers he has a family, it might make a difference. He might stop being so angry.”

  Fanny chuckled miserably. “You give us an enormous amount of credit that’s probably not deserved.”

  “It might eventually save him from the hangman’s noose.” Phillip studied each sister, letting the ramifications sink in. “That would be beneficial, wouldn’t it? If we could keep him from being executed? And if we could convince him to cease his rampaging, we could keep others from being harmed in the future.”

  “It’s worth considering,”Helen said, and Fanny nodded.

  He gazed at Harriet again. “If I locate him, should I invite him to return to London with me? Would you meet him?”

  Harriet shook her head. “You’re asking an awful lot, Phillip.”

  “I realize I am.”

  “He meant to kill Tristan. He meant to kill me, too.”

  “Yes, but you were just talking about him the other day. You were saying that you were worried about him.”

  “It was idle banter, Phillip. It never occurred to me that you might bring him to supper, that I might have to look him in the eye and chat. He’s very dangerous—in a way you could never understand unless you’d seen him leap over that ship’s rail. He slew several of Tristan’s sailors, then he toppled the mast and left the others to starve and die.”

  Her voice trailed off, and she stared at the floor, lost in painful memories. Phillip doubted she and Tristan would ever fully recover from what had happened to them at Jean Pierre’s hands.

  Could a person forgive such despicable conduct? Could a person ever move past it? Could a sister find it in her heart to have mercy when her own brother had tried to murder her?

  “If you don’t want me to invite him, I won’t,”Phillip said.

  Harriet was silent, pondering, and they watched her, hating to have the anguish of that horrid episode revived.

  Helen rested a palm on her twin’s shoulder and asked, “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,”Harriet replied, “but…ah…I should go home and speak to Tristan about this.”

  “I’ll go with you,”Helen said.

  “There’s no need,”Harriet insisted.

  She stood and staggered out. As a maid fetched her cloak and bonnet, as she headed for the door, Helen whispered, “She’ll be fine. Don’t fret over her.”

  “I won’t.”

  “And as to me, I’d love to meet Jean Pierre.”

  “So would I,”Fanny added. “Bring him to us if you can.”

  Helen hurried out to join Harriet, and Phillip and Fanny were left alone in the ornate parlor.

  Fanny grinned. “You sure know how to ruin a party.”

  “It’s my most endearing trait,”Phillip sarcastically retorted.

  “Can you really suppose Jean Pierre would risk setting foot in England?”

  “The man is insanely daring so anything is possible.”

  “Would you like me to ride with you to the coast?”

  “To locate the world’s most wanted pirate? Are you mad? Michael would skin me alive.”

  “We wouldn’t have to tell him.”

  “Yes, we would, and no, you can’t come.”

  “Spoilsport.”

  “In this matter? Yes, I admit it. I’m an absolute spoilsport.”

  “To make it up to me, you’ll have to stay and write out invitations. You chased off my helpers.”

  He could have refused, could have pled pressing business and departed. But Fanny was the first sibling he had found, the first sibling he’d rescued. Their bond was dee
per than he would ever have with any of the others.

  “I would be delighted to stay,”he told her.

  He picked up the guest list and began to read the names.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “I was thinking.”

  John glared over at Raven. “Don’t injure yourself.”

  “Very funny.”

  “What were you thinking about?”

  “Bramble Bay.”

  They were in John’s bedchamber, which had been Bernard Teasdale’s. Hedley hadn’t ever claimed it after his father died, so John had figured he might as well have it. His occupancy only underscored his new ownership.

  His decision had caused an enormous stir, with Mildred furious about the change and the servants caught between John’s orders and Mildred’s handwringing. Once it was over, John had moved in.

  Mildred’s room had been in the adjoining chamber, so she’d been relegated to a lesser suite in another part of the house. She’d refused to go and had bellowed that he couldn’t boss her, but in the end, she’d glumly observed as her possessions were carted away.

  Clearly, the ramifications were finally settling in for Mildred, the results of Hedley’s rash conduct crashing down with stunning effect.

  John had been waiting so long to seize Bramble Bay that he’d thought he’d revel in the moment. But she and Hedley were both so unpleasant that he couldn’t enjoy himself. He was glad he was leaving, glad he was taking Sarah to France.

  By the time he returned, a month would have passed, and Mildred and Hedley would be ejected. He’d never see them again.

  “This is a beautiful spot,”Raven said.

  “It is.”

  “And there’s a deep-water inlet around the north headland.” Raven raised a brow. “It would make a fine harbor for certain sailors needing a port in a storm.”

  John nodded. “It would.”

  “So…I realize you wanted to scuttle the property and let it fall to ruin, but maybe we shouldn’t.”

  “What should we do with it instead?”

  “Keep it? Live in it?”

  “Live in it?” John scowled as if they were talking about a filthy, rat-ridden alley rather than a well-tended estate on the English coast. “Why would I?”

  “It would be a good haven on this side of the Channel. If circumstances required it, we could rest and nurse our wounds.”

  “We could.”

  “The place usually has an excellent income. It’s dropped a lot, what with Hedley’s mismanagement, but we could hire a competent overseer and get the farm producing. It would mean more money for your already fat bank account.”

  John was an avid saver. He’d spent too many years watching his mother suffer, watching how poverty ate away at her. The lack of wealth signified the lack of all that mattered. He never intended to be hungry or cold ever again. The bulk of the motive driving him was his determination to be so rich that he could never be poor.

  “We’d have to put in our own man to run things,”John said. “We couldn’t hire just anybody—not if we had to hide here when we were having difficulties.”

  “Bring Reggie over from France when you come back.”

  Reginald—Reggie—Thompson was John’s clerk and accountant, an annoyingly vain Brit who’d been a trial to his parents. After finishing school, his exasperated father had banished him to Europe. But left to his own devices, Reggie had been drawn to the seedier underbelly of the continent.

  He’d been drugged and kidnapped from a disreputable brothel in Paris. The kidnappers had been slavers, and they’d been taking him to Tripoli to sell him on the sexual market where perverted Arabian libertines liked to dabble in pretty boys.

  John had stumbled on him when he’d boarded the slave ship. Reggie had begged rescue, and when John agreed, Reggie had been so grateful that he’d sworn eternal loyalty.

  He humored John with his fussy ways, but John kept him because he was an absolute wizard with numbers. He also had the heart of a criminal, so he was the perfect employee for John.

  “Yes, I could bring Reggie,”John said, “if I can convince him to set foot in England again.” Reggie’s family believed him deceased, and he was in no hurry to enlighten them as to his true condition.

  “He could administer the property for you. You wouldn’t have to wreck it.”

  John went over to the window and stared at the sloping lawn that led to the rocky beach. Raven was correct: It was a beautiful spot. Yet John had wanted to destroy it for so long. How could he persuade himself to change course?

  He glanced back at his old friend.

  “This matters to you?”he asked.

  Raven shrugged. “I like it here.”

  “You’d stay on?”

  “I’ll stay with you, John. You know that. Wherever you go, that’s where I will be. But I’d enjoy living here occasionally, too.”

  John had met Raven when he was ten and Raven fifteen. Florence had moved them to a village on the coast in Normandy where the costs were much cheaper than Paris. She’d foolishly hoped she might bump into someone heading for England who would pay their fare so they could go, too.

  But Florence had never had any kind of luck.

  Raven was British, too, and had been in France for years. His father had been a sailor, his mother a vicar’s daughter who’d been disowned when they’d eloped. Both his parents had died in France, leaving Raven an orphan.

  He’d grown up sailing with his father, and he was the one who’d taught John about wind and waves and water. He’d also taught John to lie and steal and cheat and fight, providing most of the skills that were valuable to their current situation. John was a fast learner and had absorbed and improved on every lesson Raven had imparted.

  They were a deadly duo, of like mind and purpose. There could never be two better friends. There could never be two more loyal partners.

  “Tell me the real reason you wish to stay,”John pressed. “You’re not a farmer, and my home in France is much grander. Why are you enthralled by Bramble Bay? It can’t be for the scenery.”

  “I’m smitten by Caroline Patterson, and I’m not ready to be finished with her.”

  “You’ve seduced her?”

  Raven hemmed and hawed. “I’d say she seduced me.”

  “You like her enough to risk visiting in the future?”

  “It’s not a risk. Who knows our identity? Who could tattle?”

  John smiled grimly. “You might be surprised. Never trust anyone, remember? You taught me that.”

  “I did.”

  “We should come back so you can fornicate with an Englishwoman?”

  “Yes.”

  “French women are prettier.”

  “I’m broadening my horizons. I’m trying new things.”

  John snorted at that. “Let me think on it.”

  “Think hard, would you?”

  “I will.”

  Annalise strolled in. She was ensconced in the adjoining suite, in what had been Mildred’s bedchamber. It was the worst insult John could have leveled at Mildred, and Annalise was the sort of bad sport to rub Mildred’s nose in it every chance she had.

  Annalise’s vanity and Mildred’s irritation were stirring trouble, and he was definitely irked that he’d given Mildred an extra thirty days to vacate. The entire affair would have been much easier if she’d left when he’d originally planned.

  John hated discord and quarreling, and he especially detested women’s hysterical moods, so Annalise was the ideal mistress. She knew better than to nag, which would inflame his temper.

  “Must you leave, Jean Pierre?”she asked.

  “Yes, I must.”

  He was departing shortly—with Sarah. He was sailing with her to France, to shield her from her despicable kin, but to seduce her, too. To claim his prize. He had no intention of ignoring what he had won.

  At the moment, she was resistant, but he would charm her into changing her attitude. There would be no force involved. She was all alone in the worl
d, without funds or friends. She needed his protection, and they enjoyed a strident physical attraction. Most relationships started with much less.

  Eventually, she’d grasp the reality she faced, and he was happy to help her financially. They would get on fine.

  “I’m weary of England,”Annalise said. “May I return to France with you?”

  “You and Raven must keep an eye on things for me. I can’t rest until Mildred and Hedley are evicted. You serve me best by remaining behind.”

  “Please?”she persisted. “I should go with you. My place is by your side.”

  She snuggled herself to him, making sure he felt her breasts, her enticing hand firmly planted on his backside. Her goal was clear. She was vehemently opposed to him taking Sarah to France, because she’d begun to view his house as her own.

  It was the true reason he was leaving without her. He was eager to be shed of her, though he hadn’t fully realized it until he’d considered his pending liaison with Sarah. He wanted Sarah and no longer wanted Annalise.

  When he was in France, he would devise a new situation for Annalise. He would buy her an apartment in Paris, would settle an income on her. She wouldn’t like the ending, but she’d walk away as a propertied female. It was much more than she could ever have expected to receive from him, and ultimately, she’d be grateful.

  “No, Annalise,”he told her. “You’re staying.”

  “I won’t stay!”she venomously hurled.

  “And I won’t argue about it.”

  “But I don’t understand this.” Her temper flaring, she tossed her magnificent hair, looking aggrieved and livid. “It’s your English virgin, isn’t it? You’ll welcome her into my home. You’ll seduce her in my bed—while I’m not there to stop you.”

  Raven calmly scolded, “It’s not your home, Annalise. Remember yourself.”

  “It’s as much mine as anyone’s,”she fumed. She peered at John, her eyes pleading. “Haven’t I given you everything, mon ami? Haven’t I been the woman you desired? Every single second, haven’t I been all that you wished me to be?”

  “I’ll see you in a month,”was John’s reply. “Help Raven with Hedley and Mildred. That is what I need from you right now.”