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 five thousand?” 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 could possibly be 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, desperate mother.”
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 she is truly maintaining a pure widowhood.”
Roarke winced at the word pure, 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 want her to 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.”
Roarke looked at the door. He needed to leave. He had to walk away. Nothing was worth this.
“At least hear me out,” Thomas insisted. “You might not hate what I will suggest so very much.”
“What would you have me do?” Roarke whispered.
Thomas smiled. “Seduce her.”
Roarke took a long step away as those two words hit him in the chest with the same power as a shotgun blast might have. “What?”
“Become her lover, thus helping her along so she will violate the terms of the second payout of the inheritance,” Thomas said. “It seems as though that wouldn’t be much of a chore if the way you look when you speak of her means anything.”
Roarke shook his head. The world was spinning. The idea of seducing Flora sent a dozen images through his mind, none of them unpleasant. But when he looked at the smug expression on his cousin’s face, that melted away. All he could see was rage. He stepped forward and grabbed for Thomas’s lapels. He yanked his cousin closer and shook him.
“Fuck you,” he hissed in Thomas’s face.
Gertrude gasped from the settee behind them and Philip lunged forward as if he would attack, but Thomas raised a hand to stop him, then he jerked free, smoothing his jacket. “Or you could get nothing further from us,” he snapped. “And starve like the pauper you’ll be.”
The world tilted. That suggestion would have consequences for more than just himself. But then again, he was tired, so tired, of groveling to these cruel animals who called themselves his family.
Perhaps this was the perfect time to walk away. To get out from under their thumbs, even if it meant more suffering for himself in the short term.
“I’ll get an occupation,” Roarke muttered, more to himself than to them. “I’ll find something I can do and pay my own way.”
He had no idea what that would be. He’d been raised with every advantage except competency. Men like him were told to shun employment, so he didn’t even know the first step. But he could make it. He didn’t know Theo or Callum well enough to beg them, but he could discreetly ask them to suggest him for a position. Perhaps even Grayson Danford would be open to using his talents, however small they might be.
“You’ll get nothing if I spoil the waters wherever you go,” Thomas promised with a slight smile. “Instead of giving that money to you, I’ll track your every movement with the resources that five thousand can pay for. I will create any rumor I can to ruin your prospects if you do not bend to me. Before I’m finished, I’ll make sure you can’t work at the docks gutting fish.”
Roarke stared at him, trying to find the boy he’d once known in the hard, spoiled man before him. “You hate me that much?”
“I hate her that much. With every fiber of my being, I hate her,” Thomas said.
“Why?” Roarke breathed.
Thomas blinked, and there was a brief flash of pain over his face. Then it was gone. “She might have tricked my father into thinking she was worthy of our money and position, but I know better. She never should have been allowed into our home, shared our name, replaced our mother. Never. You have a choice. I can use you to simply ensure she gets nothing further. It will hardly hurt her, will it? She has the original fifteen-thousand, I couldn’t take that if I tried. She won’t suffer for what she never had. Or, you can thwart me, lose everything—your mother can lose everything. And then I will choose to punish Flora, instead. Truly punish her.”