When Temple did not reply, Bourne continued. “I looked at Lowe’s file today. He’s lost everything that wasn’t attached to him by birth, and a fair amount of money that he’d earned, somehow. I’m surprised Chase hasn’t sent Bruno for the clothes from his back. Houses, horses, carriages, businesses. A fucking silver tea set. What the hell do we need with that?”
Temple smirked, working another long strip around his free hand. “Some people like tea.”
Bourne raised a brow and threw the file to the table. “Christopher Lowe is the unluckiest man in Britain, and he either doesn’t see it or doesn’t care. Either way, his dead father is rolling in his grave, willing to make a deal with the devil or worse to rise up and kill the stupid boy himself.”
“You take issue with a man losing everything at the tables? There’s an irony.”
Bourne’s eyes glittered with irritation. “I might have lost it all, but I earned it back. Tenfold. More.”
“Vengeance worked well for you.”
Bourne scowled. “I spent a decade dreaming of retribution, convincing myself that there was nothing in the world that would satisfy me more than destroying the man who robbed me of my inheritance.”
Temple raised a brow. “And you did just that.”
The other man’s voice grew soft and serious. “And I nearly lost the only thing that mattered.”
Temple groaned, and reached for the leather strap that hung from the ceiling of the room, using it to lean into a stretch. “If the men in the room beyond knew how you and Cross go soft every time you speak of your wives, the Angel would lose all power.”
“As we speak, my wife is warm and waiting. The men in the room beyond can hang.” He paused, then added, “Vengeance was my goal, Temple. Never yours.”
Temple met his friend’s gaze. “Goals change.”
“No doubt. But be prepared. Retribution is angry and cold. It makes a man a bastard. I should know.”
“I’m already a bastard,” Temple said.
One side of Bourne’s mouth twisted in a wry smile. “You’re a * cat.”
“You think so? Tell me that in the ring.”
Bourne ignored the threat. “It won’t end as you think it will.”
It would end precisely as Temple thought it would. Mara might have been the mastermind of his ruin, but her brother had played his part—weeping and wailing and feigning accusation and making all the world, Temple included, believe that he’d been dreadfully wronged.
Memory flared, Temple on the street five years earlier, in broad daylight, all of London giving him a wide berth. No one wished to cross the Killer Duke. No one wished to incite his anger. Christopher Lowe had exited a pub with his debauched friends, pouring out onto the road into Temple, so rarely touched in anything but violence or fear that he started at the contact.
Lowe had looked up at him, drunk and slurring his words, and blustered for the crowd’s approval, “My sister’s killer in the daylight. What a surprise.”
The crowd of idiot drunks had laughed, and Temple had gone cold, believing Lowe’s anger. Believing himself worthy of it.
Believing himself a killer.
He looked to Bourne. “She might have stolen twelve years, but he kept them from me.”
“And both of them should suffer. God knows he deserves a thrashing, and yes, you’ll feel as though you’ve exacted your revenge, and you’ll trot the lady out through London as the second half of your master plan, and she’ll be shamed, and you’ll be welcomed with open arms and chased by marriage-making mamas. But you’ll still be angry.”
Revenge does not always proceed as expected.
The lesson he’d taught her boys.
The one he knew was true. He knew that this moment could not be undone. That it would forever mark him. That it would forever change him.
Bourne sat in a low, leather chair. “I’m simply saying you’ve everything you want. Money, power, a title that is growing dusty from lack of use, but yours nonetheless. And let’s not forget Whitefawn. You may not be there, but the place has made you a fortune in its own right—you’ve been a better master to it than your father ever was. You could take it all. Return to Society. Find yourself a wallflower. Wallflowers love scoundrels.”
Bourne was right. Temple could take it all back. Funds and a sullied title were more than most men had. Someone would have him.
But anger was a cunning mistress.
“I don’t want a wallflower.”
“What then?”
He wanted someone with passion. With pride.
Temple met his friend’s eyes. “I want my name.”
“Lowe can’t give it to you. Losing to you in the ring only makes him a martyr.” Temple was quiet for a long moment before he nodded once. He wanted the conversation done. Bourne added, “And the girl?”
A vision of Mara came, auburn hair wild, those strange, compelling eyes flashing. Never wearing gloves. Why did he notice that?
Why did he care?
He didn’t.
“We’ve a score to settle.”
“No doubt.”
“She drugged me.”
Bourne raised a brow. “A long time ago.”
Temple shook his head. “The night she revealed herself to me.”
A moment passed while Bourne registered the words. Temple gritted his teeth, knowing what was to come. Wishing he hadn’t said anything.