Page 77 of Romancing the Artist

“You are both too young to understand anything of the world and how it works,” Mr. Everly snapped. “You cannot go, Edward. I forbid you wasting time and funds. There is nothing for you out there that you cannot find at home. You may take a wife of your choosing, and you will settle down. Whether that is Miss Clapham or someone else, I care not.”

“I asked Caroline for her hand in marriage,” Edward said coolly. “You were there. She said yes. There is no one else.” Caroline was right. He had to stand up for himself. For his dreams. And for hers, too. “I will not trap her here when she holds the same desires to experience new cultures and ideas as I do. We are young, as you say, and we will not postpone our dreams until we are too tired to enjoy them, on your say-so. You are content to be where you are, but I want to see what else is out there. And I will not need your help to do it.”

Claude chuckled and raised his hands to applaud Edward, a twist to his lips that wasn’t at all complimentary. “Well said, cousin. Such an impassioned speech.” He looked at his uncle. “I wonder, though, if your father will appreciate it? He has fought so long to prove he and his offspring are nothing like our grandfather. Nothing like my father. When my father made a similar speech in favor of adventures found far from English shores, what did you do to him, Uncle?”

A chilling silence fell, and Edward’s father stared at Claude as though he wished him to drop into the depths of the sea at that moment. “You will not speak of that in front of my son.”

“You mean your heir doesn’t know where the fortune that will be his came from?” Claude’s smile curled slowly upward. “I thought you were proud of both paying the family debts and filling your coffers.”

Edward looked between both men. “My mother’s dowry paid our grandfather’s debts,” he said, looking at Claude with confusion, then to his father. Bits and pieces of conversation he’d overheard, of words spoken that didn’t make sense, came forward in his mind. Trying to connect to one another. “And there was the investment.”

“Yes. The investment.” Claude looked down at the floor. “The investment made the same morning my father told his overbearing older brother that he wouldn’t bow to his wishes anymore. That he had a way out from beneath Samuel Everly’s thumb at last.” Claude smirked at Edward, a chilly note in his tone as he spoke. “Your side of the family has always been so perfect. So honorable. You’ve been dedicated to maintaining that facade as long as I’ve known you. Bowing to all of your father’s demands to ensure everything remained just so. What if it is all a lie, Edward? Would you want to know? Ask him what he did to my father, if you do.”

Mr. Everly said nothing.

“What is he talking about, Father?” Edward demanded, looking from his cousin’s cold fury to his father’s shameful frown. The contrast in the two men made Edward’s blood run cold. “What did you do to your brother?”

“Nothing,” his father muttered, not meeting Edward’s gaze. “I did nothing to him.”

“You stole from him,” Claude accused, the heat and snarl back in his voice. “You tricked information out of him then used it for your own benefit, and you left him with nothing.”

“He owed me money,” Edward’s father protested, though his voice was weak.

“Ten pounds.” Claude glowered at him. “And the information he gave you was worth five-hundred times that.”

Edward sucked in a sharp breath. “Five-thousand pounds,” he said quietly. He’d heard the story. A story that occurred when his father was young, about to marry a woman whose dowry would pay off the debt left by his father. Edward’s grandfather. “A return on a wise investment is what you called it.”

Edward’s father sank into his chair behind the desk. “My brother had many vices,” he said. “And I knew them all, because they were the same as our father’s. They were both reckless. Heedless of everything except their own entertainment and pleasure.”

“And you were so righteous, were you, Uncle?” Claude demanded, leaning against the window frame. “What did it matter that you took advantage of him?”

“He would’ve gambled it all away.” Edward’s father mustered up enough indignation to glare at his nephew. “That money would’ve slipped through his fingers the way it always did. Until he joined the navy, your father was a worthless drunk.”

“Hurrah for the navy,” Claude said with a mock salute. “They did what his own brother wouldn’t do. Showed him how to be a better man. Gave him a sense of worth. And he thrived. Despite your greed.”

“What happened?” Edward asked, though he suspected he had enough information to guess. He needed to hear it. From his father.

Claude didn’t wait long for his uncle to break the silence. “My father was acting as secretary to a well-informed member of parliament,” Claude said, each word spoken with ruthless sincerity. “A member of Lords with lots of money and enough connection and investments to manipulate trade on a national level. And he meant to use his information to quietly purchase several shares of stock in a shipping company. The risk was high. But my father knew it would be a matter of days before the reward came in.”

“How did my father get the information?” Edward asked, no longer looking at his parent but at his cousin. A man he’d hated he suddenly trusted more than he did his own father.

“He bought him a drink,” Claude said with deliberate slowness. “Then another. And another. All while lying to him. Flattering him. Telling my father all the ways the two of them could use an enormous amount of money to explore the world together. They would put their differences aside and build new bonds of brotherhood. A thing which had always been my father’s dream, since he suspected his older brother hated him.”

Edward’s heart dropped. He ran a shaking hand through his hair and looked at his father again to find the old man had dropped his face into his hands with his elbows upon his desk.

“Once my father was drunk enough, my uncle bought him a room for the night. He left a note. My father kept it with him his whole life. Did you know that, Uncle? I nearly buried him with it.” Claude reached into his coat and pulled out a small case, the size of a snuff box. He opened it and drew out a yellowed piece of paper. He stormed to the desk and threw it on the surface. “Do you remember what it says, Uncle? I have it memorized.”

It was like watching a play unfold in front of him. A tragic, horrible play that was all too real.

Edward’s father reached a shaky hand toward the small square of paper, its edges dark and ragged. He laid his hand atop it but said nothing.

“‘Consider your debt paid, Matthew. Be comforted in knowing you saved our family’s home and reputation.’ That was all. The comfort of saving your inheritance was supposed to make up for what you cheated him out of. While my father slept off the alcohol you had given him, you went to a bank and borrowed against your wife’s dowry. Using the marriage contract in your possession to secure a loan of five-hundred pounds. And you bought every single stock you could. There wasn’t anything left for my father when he arrived at the Subscription Room after it had closed. The next morning, the news was out. The price rose. My father didn’t have enough money in his pocket for even one share.”

“Father.” Edward couldn’t move. His body had turned to stone. “You didn’t keep it all. Surely not.” He sounded like a child begging for comfort after a nightmare. Comfort that wouldn’t come.

Claude slammed his fist into the desk, making Edward’s father startle. “Tell Edward the truth, Uncle.”

“I didn’t give Matthew anything,” he admitted at last, voice raw. “And he disappeared. For months, I didn’t know where he’d gone. And one day, someone came on his behalf. An old friend. Another younger son. He asked if I would give him the money to buy a commission for Matthew.”