Page 62 of When the Rogue Returns
“I don’t care what you think of me!” She glanced to Isa. “I did it for you. Isavedyou!”
“From a happy marriage?” Isa said incredulously. “Don’t you dare take credit for anything we cobbled together from the ruins of your machinations. You didn’t do a blasted thing for me; you did it for yourself. Because you wanted to dress in fine clothes and drive a costly equipage and live like a queen in Paris!”
“And what’s wrong with that?” Jacoba crossed her arms over her chest. “Everyone wants that.”
“Not me!” Isa cried. “All I wanted was to be a good wife to Victor. To spend my days with the man I loved. Yet you separated us for your own purposes.” She slid her hand into the crook of his elbow. “Well, we’re together again, despite all your attempts. And there isn’t a thing you can do about it.”
Covering Isa’s hand with his own, Victor stared Jacoba down. “What do you want, anyway? Why go to all this trouble to find Isa? And don’t tell me any nonsense about missing her, because we both know that would be a lie.”
A bleak expression crossed her face. “You’re wrong.”
“Is he?” Isa’s cynical laugh seemed to rattle Jacoba. “Don’t eventhinkto come sniffing around me now, begging my forgiveness. Not after what you did.”
“Isa, please,” Jacoba said in a low voice. “Just give me a few minutes to speak to you alone.”
“Not a chance,” Victor cut in. “And if you won’t say why you’ve come, then it’s time for you to leave.”
Jacoba stepped forward to place her hand on Isa’s arm. “You would let him throw out your only sister?”
Isa jerked her arm away. “As far as I’m concerned, I don’t have a sister.”
“You don’t mean that,” Jacoba said in a pitiful voice that made Victor grit his teeth.
“Every word,” Isa said. “And Victor’s right. You might as well go.”
Victor let out a breath. Isa had certainly told the truth about one thing. She wasn’t a mouse anymore.
“Please, Isa—” Jacoba began.
“Now!” Isa hissed. “Before I throw you out myself.”
When Isa took a step toward her as if to make good her threat, Jacoba cried, “Gerhart is dying!”
Isa tensed.
God help him. Would his softhearted wife fall forthatploy?
“The doctor’s bills are enormous,” Jacoba went on hastily when she saw she had her sister’s attention, “and the money is running out. Youhaveto help us. You have to helphim.”
“Because the two of you took such fine care ofme?” Isa said in an acid tone.
When Jacoba looked taken aback, Victor wanted to crow. His softhearted wife was no longer a fool when it came to her manipulative sister, thank God.
“You have so much now, what with that fine shop of yours,” Jacoba complained. “And Victor is cousin to a duke! I don’t know why you can’t just—”
“Give you some of it?” Isa said in clear outrage. “After everything you did to us?” She narrowed her gaze on her sister. “My partner and I built that shop with the sweat of our brows. I worked foryearsto get to the point where I don’t have to worry about my next meal and the rent for this cottage. If you think I’ll give you and Gerhart a single penny, just so he can gamble it away, you’re out of your mind.”
Jacoba’s face flushed in shock. Then her gaze turned calculating. “I wonder what Mr. Gordon would say if he knew that you created a fake parure used in a crime. Or what Victor’s cousin the duke would say if he knew Victor’s wife had a criminal past.”
With a low growl, Victor lunged for Jacoba, but Isa grabbed his arm. “Let me handle this.”
She left his side to bear down on her sister. “You have the audacity tothreatenus?”
Jacoba blinked, then backed away as it finally dawned on her how angry her sister was.
Relentlessly Isa stalked her. “If you so much ashintto anyone what happened in Amsterdam, I’ll report you to the Dutch authorities myself, even at the cost of my own freedom. I’ll see you both hang before I allow you to blackmail me!”
Jacoba came up against the wall, and anger flared in her face. “And what will happen to your child then?” she said hotly. “Tell me that, dear sister!”
