“Whatever you think we’ve done—” Thomas began, effecting a tone of boredom.
She waved her hand to interrupt him, fully embracing her role as duchess for as long as she retained it. “You asked Roarke to sleep with me in order to withhold an additional inheritance I knew nothing about.” She arched a brow. “Come now, own your behavior proudly. I’ve heard you did so before you were looking me in the face.”
Thomas pursed his lips. “My father was under a spell when he made that amendment to his financial arrangements. We were only trying to protect what is ours.”
“Of course you were,” Flora said. “And you would go so far as to send an attacker after me in the countryside.”
“You’ve accused me of attempted murder twice, Flora, and I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Thomas said. “Did I have intentions to stop you? Yes. But not through those means. If you are being dramatic for effect—”
“How do you think your cousin got those bruises? That cut across his forehead, which will scar?” she snapped. “Defending me, as he is twice the man either of you has ever been.”
Thomas glanced at Roarke, who nodded. She could feel him leaning forward, she could feel him just barely keeping himself from beating both his cousins to a pulp. She reached back and took his hand gently.
“He was going to stab her,” Roarke said, his voice shaking, “when I came flying out of the woods to stop him. The brute nearly killed me instead.”
“That…that cannot be true,” Thomas said. “I didn’t arrange such a thing.”
“Philip did,” Gertrude said, hardly over a peep.
The group looked at her en masse. Her cheeks were bright red, her hands were shaking and she wouldn’t look at any of them.
“I-I heard him making the plans,” she continued.
Philip moved on her, striking her across the cheek with the back of his hand so quickly that no one could stop him. “Shut your mouth, Gertrude,” he snapped.
“That’s enough!” Callum barked, moving from the other side of the room toward them, Theo on his heels.
Philip watched them, then looked at Thomas, Roarke and Flora. He seemed to weigh his options, and then he grabbed his sister and tugged her hard against his chest, wrapping an arm around her neck as she squealed and scratched to get free.
“You’re going to lay this on me, are you?” he asked, glaring at Thomas. “You told me to do anything necessary to get rid of the problem.”
“I didn’t mean murder!” Thomas gasped out. “Let Gertrude go, Philip. That’s enough.”
“Shetook everything,” Philip continued, backing around the edge of the room against the wall so he couldn’t be taken from behind. “That whore took everything from us, and she won’t take another thing. I did the right thing, Thomas. And when I found out that bastard failed? Well, he had to be handled too.”
Roarke reached forward and caught Flora’s arm, gently pushing her behind him. “You killed him?”
“He was expendable,” Philip said. “I’ll have to find someone else.”
“No!” Thomas said, his face a true mask of horror. In that moment, Flora believed him that he hadn’t intended for this kind of physical harm to come to her. Other kinds, perhaps, but not murder.
“Let your sister go,” Theo said evenly.
“Yes, please, Philip,” Roarke said softly. “You must not want to hurt your family.”
“Look at the duke,” Philip sneered as he glared at his brother. “He’ll throw me to the wolves now. Just like he always did when we were growing up. Asked me to do his dirty work and then ran to our father the moment it looked like there would be consequences. I won’t suffer them, not for you.”
Thomas glanced at Flora and she shook her head as she said to him, “Tell your brother that you’ll protect him. Tell him we’ll work it out.”
Philip barked out a laugh. “God, even the whore is defending me. But not you, eh? You just wanted to benefit from my work, not claim it to get your hands dirty. Well, I’m about to solve your problem,brother. Only I know it will create a great many more issues in the end.”
He had been moving the entire time he was speaking, and now he positioned himself right in front of the huge window. With a wild smile, he lunged backward and crashed through the glass.
Roarke lunged as he did so, catching Gertrude around the waist, and the three of them staggered and jerked through the broken window toward the hard paved squares of the garden patio beneath, with its statuary scattered throughout.
Flora screamed and jolted toward Roarke, but Callum and Theo reached him first, catching him, catching Gertrude before Philip’s grip slipped and he tumbled out of view and landed with a horrific crunching thud beneath. Without his weight to pull them, the others fell back into the room, panting and grunting with the exertion.
Immediately Gertrude began to weep, and Thomas kept drawing in heaving breaths as he and Flora stepped to the edge of the broken window and looked down at the twisted, unmoving body below.
