Roarke clenched his hands at his sides. God, but they were like vultures, waiting for him to deposit a carcass to pick. But he would not feed them. Not even if it meant denying his own supper. He could starve a little. He could find some other way to protect his mother.
“I’ve investigated the dowager extensively,” he said. “And despite what you three think of her, she is not doing anything untoward or secretive. There are no gentleman callers, let alone clandestine lovers who darken her hallways. She is just as she seems, an independent woman living her life as best she can.”
For a moment the room was dead silent as his cousins digested his statement. The three of them stared at him, color leaving their wretched cheeks all at once. He almost smiled at their horrified expressions, as they fully grasped that they couldn’t steal the inheritance her husband had rightfully set aside for Flora, after all.
“You’re lying,” Gertrude whispered at last, her lips trembling and her eyes filling with tears.
“Shemustbe doing something,” Thomas hastened to add, shaking his head as if he were thoroughly confused by the news.
Philip, though, began to pace the room, almost like an animal. “She’s a manipulator and a thief and a…awhorewho…who spins men around her finger—those truths will not change.”
It took everything in Roarke not to snap at the assessment and the cruelty that went with it. He shook his head. “Just becauseyouall would deceive in order to obtain an inheritance doesn’t mean she would.” Gertrude let out a gasp, but he didn’t allow her or Philip to speak again. Instead, he glared at Thomas. The new duke was the one who mattered. The other two would just follow along with whatever he said. “Now I did what you asked,Your Grace. This is over. Leave her alone.”
Thomas stepped closer, tilting his head to look closer at Roarke. “You are defending her rather strenuously,cousin. I wonder why that is.”
Roarke had wanted to punch his cousin multiple times over the years. Mostly when they were children and Thomas had bullied him or those around them. But he never had. And he couldn’t rise to the bait and do it now, either. It would only make things worse, even if the crunch of his fist against Thomas’s cheek would be infinitely satisfying. But he had more than just himself to think about.
Through gritted teeth, Roarke said, “I found Her Grace to be charming and honest. And it’s clear that she truly loved your father, which is what one would hope you would have wanted for him in his last few years. You waste your time plotting against her when you should just move on with your lives.” He shook his head. “God’s teeth, you three have everything you have ever wanted, don’t you? The title, the money, the entail, the homes?Move on. And I shall do the same.”
He turned but before he had taken one step Thomas’s voice stopped him. “You want your money, don’t you?”
He shut his eyes and groaned. The fucking money. He’d love to just storm out in a display of strength, but there was two-hundred-fifty pounds on the line. Once he’d fixed the window and the mantel in his mother’s home and given Hilde a little extra for all her hard work, there was nothing left of the first half of his blood money. He couldn’t afford to turn away.
He turned back, his stomach roiling with self-disgust. “You can deposit it in my account.”
“And what if it could be more?” Thomas asked softly. “Say twenty times more.”
Roarke stared, and Gertrude and Philip both pivoted to Thomas. Roarke struggled to do the math his cousin was suggesting in his head. Simple math made impossible by shock.
“You want to give him fivethousand?” Philip shrieked, filling in the number Roarke couldn’t find. His face was turning red and his fists shook at his sides in what seemed to be pure rage at the idea. Gertrude had been standing next to him, but she took several steps away at the reaction as Philip continued, “What couldpossiblybe worth that? Whatever it is, I’ll take care of it myself and you can give me the blunt.”
Thomas waved his hand at his brother, silencing him with a glare. “This is between our cousin and me. Sit down and shut up.”
He did so, or at least Roarke assumed he did. He couldn’t see Philip or Gertrude anymore because he couldn’t tear his dizzy gaze away from Thomas. His voice cracked as he asked, “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I know you despise coming to me, being beholden to me,” Thomas said. “You may think me a fool, or yourself a good actor, but I see your disgust, your disdain written all over your face, Roarke. Even as you try to be polite while you beg me to support you. To support your darling, desperatemother.”
Roarke turned his face, bile rising in his throat. His cousins never asked about his mother. She wasn’t related to them by blood, so they didn’t care about her. It was for the best, really. He didn’t want them to be interested in her.
And now Thomas was. But Roarke said nothing because there was nothing to say. He wouldn’t deny the truth, he had lied enough in the last week.
“Five thousand pounds is a tidy sum,” his cousin continued with a smirk. “Half of what that bitch would inherit if sheistruly maintaining a pure widowhood.”
Roarke winced at the wordpure, as if Flora’s desire were filthy to be ashamed of. The woman had loved and supported her husband, she had remained alone for nearly three years after he was gone. Had she not earned pleasure and fun and love? It wasn’t wrong or dirty for her to desire those things.
“You could get your mother out of the hovel she currently lives in,” Thomas said. “Have more care for her in her declining years. That matters to you, doesn’t it?”
Roarke nodded slowly. “Yes,” he choked out.
“And when it’s all done and she’s comfortable,” Thomas went on, almost seductively. “You could even get yourself out of the mud. Perhaps even invest again and see if it would turn out better for you this time.”
Roarke thought of Grayson Danford and his offer to let him invest in his steam engine. He believed in the project, believed in the payout that could come from it down the line. And yes, five thousand pounds would allow him to both take part in that possibility and create a real future for himself. And more importantly, for the last years of his mother’s life.
But at what cost?
“And why would you give me that?” he croaked. “You are so protective of the funds, I can’t imagine you’d just give me half.”
“I don’t wantherto have the money,” Thomas continued, his eyes flashing with intense, almost frightening animosity briefly. “She’s gotten enough. I’d be willing to part with half in order to make sure she never gets another hay penny.”
