Page 97 of Blame It on the Earl (The Duke's Estates 3)

“Good. We will ambush her there.”

The choice of words was not reassuring. Kenver felt that he was walking at the side of a force of nature. The trouble was, they were approaching another of equal or greater weight. What was the saying from that old Greek tale? Between Scylla and Charybdis, that was it. There’d been an illustration in the book, full of writhing tentacles and teeth. Sarah would like it.

The footman did not follow them, and so they barged into his mother’s private parlor unannounced.

She was sitting at her writing desk, a pile of papers before her, and looked more annoyed than surprised at the interruption.

Tamara folded her arms, raised her chin, and said, “Hello, Mama.” Her voice held a trace of triumph, possibly at the successful invasion.

Their mother said nothing. She simply stared at them, face impassive, eyes cold. She could draw out a silence until one couldn’t bear it any longer.

Tamara held Mama’s gaze and very slowly began to smile, as if she found her amusing.

They were like spark and tinder, Kenver decided. Any minute, there would be flames, and no evading them. He looked from one to the other. The resemblance was more marked now that they were in the same room.

Mama actually spoke first. “What are you doing here?”

“I was on a visit to Kenver, and I thought I should see my dear family,” Tamara replied with falsely sweet sarcasm.

“So you’ve suborned Kenver, have you?”

“Suborned?” Tamara repeated mockingly. “Is someone on trial here?”

“You were always an insolent child.”

“And you were always a dreadful parent.”

“What would you know about it?”

Kenver blurted out, “You have a grandson, Mama.”

Tamara made a slashing gesture, and he realized that she’d been saving that information as a concealed weapon. Now they were both looking at him with very similar, angry faces. He took an involuntary step back.

“You’ve come to beg money for the boy then?” his mother said to Tamara. “Has your weakling ‘husband’ come a cropper?”

He could see the fury wash over his sister. She flushed bright red. Her hands closed into fists. Her eyes glittered with rage. “I’vecometo tell you what I think of you.”

Their mother shrugged. “I care nothing for your opinion.”

She sounded sincere. And Kenver could see that this affected Tamara.

“It is a mistake for you to take her side, Kenver,” their mother added.

“Her side in what?”

“Tamara’s efforts to extort money for the product of a match we never approved.”

“I don’t need your money!” Tamara shouted. “I didn’t ask for it. I don’t want anything from you!”

But she had, Kenver noted. She’d wanted an apology or at least an admission of wrongdoing. Perhaps some vestige of affection. She was not going to get any of those things.

“Then I do not see why you are here,” Mama replied without emotion.

Except for a flicker of triumph in her eyes, Kenver thought, as if she’d won a point by making Tamara lose her temper. He understood then that Mama enjoyed winning more than anything else. Anything. He moved to take Tamara’s arm. “We should go,” he murmured. It was a measure of his sister’s defeat that she allowed him to lead her away.

“You would be advised to remember what I said to you, Kenver,” their mother threw after them. “Taking her side against us is unwise.”

No reply was better than anything he could think of to say.

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