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“Most will wish they’d done that themselves,” Hector added.
Minty cleared her throat. “What about Elspeth? Ossian will tell her Vivian came back.”
Rupert inhaled deeply and I felt a familiar warmth cross my pelvis at the sight of his shirt filling out. “I’ll tell her first.”
“What will you say?” Hector asked.
Rupert’s gaze panned to me and he held mine firmly.
“I’ll tell her I asked you to come here. I wanted to see you one last time.”
Minty’s fingers twisted together. “It will break her heart, Rupert,” she said, quietly. “After everything she’s done.”
Rupert’s eyes finally released mine and he looked at Minty. “You’ll be surprised. She doesn’t truly want me. She certainly doesn’t love me. She’s married me because it’s what her father wants – she’s been conditioned to think this is the only way she’ll make her parents proud. At worst she’ll feel humiliated.”
“Can you promise her Blackcap Hall as a consolation prize? That thing’s worth millions and it will fall to us when Father… fuck… Sinclair passes. If anything’s going to cut through the humiliation and appease her parents, that will be it.” Hector said.
Rupert’s gaze roamed over the three of us, slowly. “Blackcap Hall will never be ours to give.”
Minty sucked in a breath and Hector frowned. “What are you talking about? It will be left to the three of us, won’t it?”
Rupert shook his head slowly. “There’s a note on the back of the papers from Adele. She found Sinclair’s Will. Nothing is left to us – only Ossian. And in the event of Ossian’s death, it will be left to Iris.”
“That can’t be right,” Hector replied. “It was all Pops’ money originally, and he would never have allowed that.”
Rupert shrugged. “Pops is gone. There’s nothing we can do about it. The wealth we have, Hector, it’s all an illusion. Everything we do for a so-called living – the labs, the distillery – it doesn’t belong to us. We work for the Thorns you and me. We’re just compensated differently. There’s absolutely nothing to stop Sinclair, Iris or Ossian from kicking us out of the family and leaving us with nothing. But most importantly, with no access to anything. We could be locked out of every business and residence they own, without a penny to our name. If we want to finish off the pharma business, we can’t let on that we know their little secret.”
“Who knows about this?” Hector turned to me. “Does anyone in the Consortium know we were stolen?”
I nodded. I’d memorised the names Adele gave me and could only hope my memory hadn’t short-circuited itself since the crypt.
“Bertie and Angeline Barrington know, and Dexter Lamont, obviously. That’s it.”
Rupert’s face darkened. “Hardly anyone knows…”
“I can’t believe it,” Hector whispered. We just turned up out of nowhere. Iris wasn’t even pregnant. Did nobody notice that?”
“I vaguely remember Aro saying she went through periods where she was a recluse. That may have explained why no one saw her before we arrived on the scene.” Rupert’s eyes dropped to the carpet; he seemed to be suddenly consumed by a thought. He looked up and directed his focus at me, pushing everyone else into the shadows. “Aro… Uncle Aro. Does he know?”
This was the one piece of information I dreaded relaying the most, because I knew how close Rupert and Hector were to their so-called uncle. I held Rupert’s gaze. I couldn’t back down like a coward when he was accepting this world-shattering message so bravely.
“Yes,” I said, quietly. “He knows.”
The room was still and silent for a few seconds, then Hector bent down, put his head between his knees and yelled out every curse under the sun. We all waited until his gasps became breaths, then Minty turned back to Rupert.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
Rupert sighed, pensively. “I don’t know yet. All I know is Sinclair and Iris are going to pay for what they’ve done to us, Hector. What they’ve done to our real parents. They’re going to not only wish they’d never stolen us; they’re going to wish we’d never been born.”
Rupert
Blackcap Hall loomed dark and dreary as I crunched across the gravel towards it. Even the glow of the fairy lights and the burning candles couldn’t warm the sight. Not now.
With every step, the realisation deepened: this was never meant to be my childhood home. I didn’t belong here. The blood baked into its stone wasn’t mine. The people behind the door were strangers. The pang of anxiety was fleeting, quickly replaced by a surge in the quietly bubbling anger that had taken root behind the wall of my chest.
Hector and I had barely spoken the whole drive back from Minty’s. Both of us trying to make sense of our individual realities, somehow knowing we had all the time in the world to speak to each other about it. For now, we just needed to get through tonight.
Tonight.
