Outfoxed (The Fox Witch #1) - R.J. Blain Page 0,109
so I turned to him.
“Don’t look at me, Miss Tamrin. She’s my idiot sister, and the only reason I’m married is because our mother did the same damned thing to me. Our mother is very methodical, and she married us all off that way, and did so in such a fashion we couldn’t refuse. Our mother is not just methodical, she’s ruthless, so the instant one of us idiot children of hers showed interest in someone, well, off she went. Being an idiot, just like everyone else in the family.”
“Methodical?” I asked, at a loss for what that could possibly mean. The ruthless part I understood, as there was something rather ruthless about marrying off a child to someone purchased at auction.
What I didn’t understand was how everyone seemed so damned happy about it.
I’d been able to handle my situation in a calm and rational fashion so far, but I lost my feeble hold on my delusions the longer I spent with them. With a few more pushes, would I become as crazy as them? I stared longingly at the door, recognizing I lacked the energy to make a run for it.
“Determined to partner us with somebody capable of whipping us into shape, for we are useless Morettis, much like the boy you get to handle,” Theo replied in an amused tone.
Crazy rich people. I dealt with crazy rich people. Crazy rich and possibly hopeless people. Before the auction, the whole damned situation had seemed absurd, but I had been able to determine benefits when I squinted and made plans involving the South and those hurting Tulsa. The only reason I didn’t panic involved a damned good idea of who ‘the boy’ they discussed was, how Sandro would react to the situation, and how I could use the situation to my advantage. Somehow.
Assuming their crazy ways weren’t contagious.
Maybe I really did need to rescue Sandro, and we could run away to the South, kill the assholes hurting my home in the Alley, and pretend the auction had never happened. I drew in a slow and deep breath, controlling my expression so I didn’t wince at the pain in my ribs. “You spent how much for me to handle a useless… boy?”
“The boy is not all that useless, so you won’t have to whip him terribly hard. Don’t worry. He’s quite the gentleman. Unfortunately. He is in need of refinement, he has a complete lack of finesse with women, and would rather be studying magic and reading than preparing himself to take over the family. Too gentlemanly. I need him to be a little more ruthless, especially when it comes to the family businesses. As such, I’ll be preparing you to take over the family businesses while he rots his brains playing with magic and reading his books. Foxes are cunning. You might make up for my idiot son’s weaknesses, of which he has many.”
Did Sandro’s mother love or hate him? I couldn’t tell. “Is this boy useless or not, then?”
“Well, he’s a quadrant master, so if anyone annoys you, I am sure he can handle things on that front. He’s quite handsome, so you can make good use of him during the winter. All of my sons are handsome, but he came out a little more handsome than the others. Our family is large, so if you need help with any children, that is not an issue. Theo loves children, and he whines that his wife limited him to five.”
“Menopause limited us to five,” he muttered. “Never have I hated a word so. Number six will be adopted, and we’re thinking this year right before Christmas. Patricia’s already fallen in love, and I can’t tell her no.”
“How old?” Sandro’s mother asked, sitting straighter in her seat.
“There’s a little girl, aged five, that’s caught her eye. At the local school near our vacation home. She’s shy, so she’s always overlooked, which makes her perfect. We’ll just bring her home, and it’ll take the rest of them at least a week to figure out she’s there. That’s plenty of time for her to adapt to the insanity.”
I wondered if it made any difference that the crazy rich people acknowledged their impaired state.
“And you love them best right when they’re old enough to truly start talking back.”
“I do!” Theo agreed, grinning from ear to ear. “I think we can coax her into talking back a lot. We’ve already submitted the paperwork, but we want her to finish out the next school year there,