"Out!" she screeched, calling him every single foul name she could think of. "Get off me and get out! And don't you dare ever speak to me again."
Adam was even more livid. He was so furious he punched his brother right in the mouth.
"What are you hitting me for?" Oliver snarled, clutching his jaw. "I'm not the one who nabbed her right out from under you!"
"You should have bloody well tried harder, then! At least one of us would have ended up with her fortune!"
"I never had a chance with her. You gave it a run for your money, and you lost. Blame yourself." He spat blood as he looked at him furiously. "You're really getting beyond the Pale, you know."
Adam scowled blackly, but decided he could use all the allies he could get. "I'm sorry. I just can't believe-" He nearly choked on his own fury. "Who the hell stole our prize? That bastard Philip Marshall?"
"No. The one who had it to give in the first place."
Adam shot him a look of incomprehension. "What are you talking about?"
"Blake himself, of course. Who else?"
"No! No! No!" He brought his fist down on the table so hard it smashed right through the timber. "No! I'll bloody kill him! I'll kill them both! They've played me for a fool! All of us for fools! Guardian indeed! He's been swiving the little tart all this time right under our very noses! Well, they're both going to pay! I don't care how or when! As soon as I see a chance, they're going to wish they'd never been born."
Oliver looked at his brother's puce face in alarm. He was out of control, had become more and more foul-tempered ever since the accident that had damaged his spine.
Oliver knew Adam was in a lot of pain, though he tried to hide it. The support strapping for his back helped keep him upright, but the grinding of the damaged vertebrae had to hurt like the very devil. He wondered how much opium and laudanum he was using these days.
But for Oliver his brother's violence was even more worrying. "Listen, I know this is a blow to our hopes. But there are plenty of other heiresses. The Jerome girls, for one.
"Ellen and Georgina are lovely little things, and we've been accepted like family in that house. We keep in with them, we can move in like a pair of wolves amongst the lambs.
"Don't do anything foolish. Our situation is still recoverable. They are not as pretty, it's true, nor as rich. But they all look the same in the dark, and their dowries will be good enough to pull us out of Queer Street. A bit of luck with the gambling, and we shall be home free.
"Malcolm Branson plucked his family out of the gutter not so long ago with his luck at the card table. He got high up enough to have been engaged to Emma Jerome before she died. We can do the same. Just tell our creditors we need a bit more time, and put a brave face on it. Get invited to the wedding, escort the girls, and we shall take it from there. You can be very charming when you want to be," Oliver said.
"Compromise one of them and all our problems will be over," Adam decided with a leer. "I'll even make a bet as to which one we futter first. I reckon little Georgina will be hot enough for it."
Oliver held out his hand and dared to touch his brother's still-bunched fist. "Please listen, Adam. You need to pull yourself together. Shrug this off as if you couldn't care less. Otherwise people will suspect something. Know we're desperate. Pray, calm yourself. I know it's a blow, but we'll get over it. Smashing up me or the furniture is not going to help."
Adam's eyes narrowed. "No, but I know someone who might. A couple of people, actually."
"Where are you going?"
He snorted with laughter. "To see a lady about a stallion."
Adam Neville wasted no time in seeking out Rosalie Stanton. She had just risen from bed after kicking out the hapless chap who had given her the bad news about Blake's engagement.
"Well, well," she said, eyeing up the handsome young man whom she had heard all sorts of interesting things about. He seemed a lad after her own heart, if all that was rumoured were true. This could be interesting… Especially since she was still desperate for a good swive after this morning's debacle. "What brings you here, sir?"
"I take it you've heard about Blake and Arabella?" he asked.
"Indeed. Most remarkable, and disgusting, if you ask me."
"Not good for either of us, as I'm sure you'll agree."
She was startled by his directness. "But not much we can do to prevent it in only a couple of days."
"True. But perhaps we don't want to. I understand that you cleverly engineered your own marital separation by ensuring your husband and his, er, friend were caught in flagrante delicto. Surely a woman with your powers of persuasion could manage the same thing with Blake?