Roarke swallowed. “How?”
Thomas tilted his head and gave an ugly smile devoid of all warmth, laced with vicious intent. “If you won’t, Roarke, then I’ll hire someone else to seduce her. By whatever means necessary. So you will sit in your squalor alone, knowing your failed your family and wondering how exactly my minions will accomplish what I want.”
“Thomas!” Gertrude gasped, stepped forward.
He glared at her. “Stay out of it.”
Roarke swallowed back the bile that rose in this throat. He pictured some piece of shit going after Flora. Bothering her, tricking her, even hurting her in order to fulfill Thomas’s demands.
He was left at a crossroads. If he agreed to this, he was the worst kind of bastard. He would use her desire for him against her and take what was rightfully hers as the payment.
But if he refused his cousin, he endangered his mother and Flora. He would fail them both rather than protect either one of them.
“You best answer faster, cousin,” Philip said with a half-chuckle. “I can tell when my brother is serious and I already have some ideas in mind if you refuse.”
Roarke glared at him. “I know he’s serious.”
Thomas’s face was flat and emotionless. Like he felt nothing about this cruel suggestion. It was the same to him as demanding a servant do a better job at making a bed. The lives at stake, the destruction he would create…none of it mattered as long as he got what he wanted.
Roarke’s mind spun. If he accepted Thomas’s terms, at least he’d have time. Options.
“I want a thousand pounds up front,” he croaked.
Thomas threw back his head and laughed. “Bold. But no. You can have another two-hundred fifty up front. And five hundred with your first progress report to me. The rest you won’t see until you give me proof you’ve bedded her.”
“Proof,” he whispered. “What kind of proof do you think I can generate?”
“You’ll think of something,” Thomas said with a detached smile. “So what is your answer? I’m running out of patience.”
With a small amount of money in his pocket up front, Roarke had breathing room. He could draw everything out, decide how to tell Flora the truth if it came to it.
At least that was how he justified it in his head.
“Fine,” he whispered.
Philip pulled a face, as if he’d wanted to solve what the three of them considered a problem on his own. But he said, “I knew you weren’t a fool.”
Roarke was a fool for putting himself in this situation. But he said nothing.
“Excellent,” Thomas said. “Now why don’t you join us for the party. We can celebrate this partnership.”
“Celebrate?” Roarke repeated. “There’s nothing to celebrate. I’m leaving.”
He turned on his heel, hearing his cousins’ laughter behind him as he strode from the room, from the house and rode away. For now he had done enough to protect his mother. To protect Flora from his cousins.
But he had no idea how he would proceed. Because while the idea of seducing her, being close to her, was bewitching, the lies behind it shattered him. And yet he had no choice. Not anymore.
CHAPTER 9
Two days had passed since Flora’s day at the museum with Roarke, since the near kiss that had never left her mind for one moment in the intervening time. She hadn’t spoken to anyone about it. Bernadette and Valaria had asked questions about her museum day, probably suspected something when she was evasive in her answers, but she couldn’t bring herself to say anything out loud about it. To admit everything that happened with Roarke, more to admit what she’d wanted to happen and dreamed about happening, was speaking out loud something wicked into the world. She wouldn’t be able to take it back then. To explain it away.
So she kept it secret. And dreamed of Roarke even as she tried to accept that she might not see him again. He hadn’t reached out after he left her on her drive. Hadn’t come to call or bumped into her at the park, where she shamelessly looked for him. Even now she stood at her parlor window, looking out across the lane into the green expanse and…not seeing him lurking there.
“You are being ridiculous,” she muttered to herself as she turned from the window and marched across the room to the sideboard to make herself a cup of tea. She had mooned enough over the man. It was time to regather herself and go back to her regular life.
But just as she lifted the teapot, she heard Hendricks clear his throat from behind her. She turned. “Yes?”
“A letter was just delivered, Your Grace.” He held out the envelope on a silver platter and she took it.
“Thank you,” she said with a smile as he exited the room.
It was probably from Bernadette or Valaria, inviting her to some gathering with Callum and Theo. Where she would be the odd one out. The only one without a gentleman to take her arm or look at her meaningfully. That had hardly ever bothered her before, but now…well, now it made her ache just a little.
She turned the envelope over and frowned. Her name was not written in either woman’s hand. Her breath caught, hateful hope filling her chest as she broke the plain seal and unfolded the pages.
Your Grace,
May I call on you soon? I have something of importance to discuss.
Sincerely,
Roarke Desmond
She read and re-read the message several times, analyzing the swoops of the letters, the confidence of his hand. It hit her then, the fact she’d been trying to pretend away, suppress: she liked him. She wanted him. She didn’t want to never see him again, she didn’t want to pretend that he hadn’t nearly kissed her. Perhaps she couldn’t have put into exact words what she wanted him to do now, nor what she wanted, herself. But she needed to see him.
She scribbled a note asking him to call the next afternoon and handed it over to Hendricks before she wrapped herself in a shawl and made the short walk down Kent’s Row to Valaria’s home. When she was allowed in, she could hear her friend in the parlor, laughing with Bernadette. Good, they were both here. She needed them both, even if she might die of humiliation.
Valaria’s butler led her to them and the ladies smiled as she entered the room.
“Oh, excellent!” Valaria exclaimed as she got up from the settee and crossed to kiss Flora’s cheek. “You’ve decided to stop hiding in your house.”
“Was it that noticeable?” Flora said with a shake of her head since she couldn’t deny the truth.
Bernadette patted the seat Valaria had vacated, and Flora took it while Valaria moved to pour her tea. “It was,” Bernadette said, rather apologetically. “Your excuses as to why you couldn’t join us over the past few days have been rather forced.”
Valaria gave her the tea. “Do you want to tell us what happened? Or would it be best to ignore it?”
Flora sipped her tea and girded up all her strength. “I’d love to ignore it. But that doesn’t seem possible now. I…I need your help. So here I am.”
Valaria took a place in a chair across from the settee, her brow furrowed. “That sounds dire. Are you well?”
“I’m not even sure,” Flora whispered. “I can’t even tell anymore.”