His smug expression didn’t waver. “Oh, I think you will, Georgie. To protect the family’s reputation. Because let me tell you, I’m up to my ears in debt. Quite drowning in the River Tick, as they say.” He gave a hapless shrug, as if none of that were his fault. “I have moneylenders hounding me day and night—quite unpleasant fellows some of ’em—and debts I can’t repay. If I don’t settle them soon, I don’t doubt I’ll be challenged to a duel or thrown into debtor’s prison.” His expression grew crafty. “And we can’t have the family name dragged through the mud, can we? Not while Juliet’s still trying to land herself a title.”

Georgie gritted her teeth and cursed his uncanny ability to hone in on the very things she cared about most. His roving gaze felt like an assault and raised goose bumps on her arms. It was nothing like the pleasant, warming sensation she felt when Wylde looked at her.

He uncrossed his legs and stood. “You’re going to write me a bank draft, Georgie. For five hundred pounds. Because if you don’t, I’m going to tell everyone in the ton you’re married to a sailor.”

Georgie mirrored his stance, but inside she was shaking with fury. Wylde had told her not to give her cousin a penny, but she had no doubt that Josiah was telling the truth about his debts. He might be bluffing—his own precious reputation would be blackened by association if he told the ton about her marriage—but she couldn’t take the chance and risk hurting Juliet or Mama. Josiah certainly seemed desperate enough to do as he threatened. He’d be ruined anyway, if he didn’t pay his debts, so what did he have to lose?

“Very well.”

He raised his brows at her ready answer and watched closely as she crossed to the drop-front escritoire in the corner. Her writing was shaky with suppressed fury, but she managed to sign five hundred pounds over to him. He snatched the paper from her hand and studied it suspiciously, as if she might be cheating him somehow.

“It’s good,” she said bitterly. “But this is the last time I will ever give you any money, Josiah.”

He folded the bank draft into his inside jacket pocket, patted it, and sketched her a sarcastic bow. “Nice doing business with you, Cousin. I’ll see myself out.”