As did the burning desire that seemed to consume her whenever he was near her. She didn’t want that to end. Whether he was her temporary lover or someone who could be more, she wanted to explore that passion without interruption from well-meaning friends.
“You used us to get to her,” Theo said, his hands shaking as he continued to half-block Flora like a shield.
Roarke got to his feet slowly. All the color was gone from his cheeks. “Please let me explain.”
She had been drawing a breath to defend him, but when he said those words she stopped and stared at him. He didn’t look upset or afraid or confused at this interruption. He looked…guilty.
“What do you need to explain?” she croaked, coming around Theo, batting his hand away when he reached for her again, like he could hold her back from whatever was happening here. Protect her.
She realized now, in a burst of horror, that she was likely going to need that protection. From Roarke. A man she had come to trust and desire and…and care about in a way she’d thought she would never feel again.
Roarke drew a breath. “How much do you know?” he asked. The question was directed not at her, but at them. She darted her gaze toward Callum, whose jaw was trembling with rage.
“All of it,” he growled. “So there will be no lying around it, Desmond. In fact, just to ensure it, why don’t I tell her?”
“No,” Flora said, moving forward another step. “If there is some secret, some lie to be revealed, I would hear it from Roarke. Please—” She met his eyes again, searching for some kernel of comfort there. Some little thing that would quell her growing fears. But there was none. “Tell me what is going on.”
Roarke shook his head. “I told you a little about my—my father today, but I left out one detail. He was…he had sisters, one sister in particular. Her name was Elizabeth. And when she was married, she was known as the…the Duchess of Sidmouth.”
The words hit her like daggers and she staggered back a step. Callum caught her elbow and she leaned against him for a brief moment when her legs wouldn’t hold her. Elizabeth, the first wife of her late husband. The mother of the stepchildren who despised Flora. The woman whose portrait had glared down at Flora the entire time she’d been married to Stuart.
“That isn’t possible,” she whispered. “Because if Elizabeth was your aunt, that would mean that you would have…would have known who I was all along. That you would have had some kind of relationship with my husband. That…that…”
“That I was…” Roarke sounded as sick as she now felt. “I was sent here by my cousins, Flora. By your stepchildren to spy on you. And later to seduce you.”
The blood rushed to her ears and Flora suddenly could hear nothing but those horrible words echoing through her head. From what felt like a great distance, she heard Callum cursing at Roarke. Saw through a fog that Theo held him back but was shouting at Roarke just as strenuously.
She forced herself to look at Roarke instead of them. Through the fog, moving in slow motion, his expression was crumpled, filled with regret and guilt and pain. He felt pain that this was happening. Even though he had caused it. He had done this.
She shook her head and came back into the room fully, the fog lifted. She stepped between the shouting men and Roarke and faced her friends. “I want to talk to him alone.”
That stopped Theo and Callum in their tracks. They stared at her for a fraction of a moment. She felt Roarke’s gaze on her back, as well, but refused to face him.
“That’s not a good idea,” Callum said, his tone gentle now.
“No,” Theo agreed. “He doesn’t deserve to spend time alone with you.”
She pivoted and now speared Roarke with a glare. She hoped it looked steadier than she felt. Inside she felt like wobbling jelly. “But I deserve the truth. Without witnesses to this further humiliation. I want to talk to him alone. Please, you can wait outside to insure he doesn’t do anything.”
Roarke’s eyebrows lifted at that caveat. His only reaction to her anger. And while she didn’t believe he would physically harm her—she knew it in her soul, actually—she had also thought she knew other things about him. To her soul. So perhaps she wasn’t the best judge of him, of anyone, even herself.
Callum and Theo exchanged a look and then Callum let out a long breath. “We’ll be just outside the door.” He gently squeezed her hand and then the two men left, closing the door behind themselves.
She stared after them. Closing the door so she and Roarke could be alone had always been a naughty pleasure, a daring grasp at her own desires. But now…now it was like a jail door slamming.
“Flora,” he said behind her, his voice laced with grief and heartache.
She pivoted to look at him, drank him in even now when she was so hurt and confused. “Was anything true?” she whispered.
He caught his breath. “Yes.”
She shook her head. He’d said the word she wanted to hear, but now it felt so hollow. “How can I believe you?”
“You can’t,” he said without hesitation, without excuse. “Not after what you just heard. Not after what more I’ll tell you. I don’t expect you to believe me. But I will tell you just the same that whatever my purpose was in initially pursuing you, every time we talked or touched or kissed, it was real. So real that I lost myself in it. In you.”
Oh, but those words were seductive. So was his expression, and she saw honesty and passion and emotion in his green eyes. And yet she could not be such a fool as to lean into that. “You seem to have every reason to lie, though, don’t you?”
He pursed his lips. “I deserve that. But if it wasn’t true, then I could have allowed us to be caught at the gallery for a scandal that would please my cousins. I could have taken you on that very settee behind me instead of pulling away when I did. I could have disclosed to my cousins what happened between us instead of telling my family that nothing had transpired.”
She shifted. Perhaps all those things were true. But she still didn’t understand the motivation. “Why did they send you after me?”
“The additional clause to my uncle’s will,” he said.
She blinked. “Clause?”
His eyes went wide. “You don’t know?”
She shook her head. “The will was resolved years ago. I know nothing else but what was revealed at that time.”
“Damn them.” He squeezed his eyes shut and took a long breath. “I-I know you received a settlement after his death, but it turns out there was more. If you hadn’t remarried or taken a lover by the three-year anniversary of his death, you would get an additional ten thousand pounds.”
For a moment it felt like the world had screeched to a halt. She struggled to find her breath. “I-I didn’t know.”
He bent his head. “Well, they thought you did. They cruelly assumed you would act as they would, and hide any lover you had waiting in the wings in order to collect on the inheritance next month.”
She flinched. She hadn’t exactly been thinking of the impending anniversary of her loss. For the first time since Stuart’s death, actually. This man’s doing, and now it was all a lie. Her newfound peace ruined by a few callous actions. “So they sent you to spy?”