The Governess (Wicked Wallflowers, #3)(104)

His hand went slack, and he released the slipper he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding. That emerald shoe landed on the tip of his boot and then with a thump hit the floor. Air hissed through his teeth. “You did what?”

“Do pay attention, Broderick. I explained to her that as my Season was officially concluded, I no longer required her to serve as my companion, and—Broderick!” she shouted as he tore past her, thundering for his horse.

She’d simply left. She’d lain in his arms, given herself to him, and all along, it had been nothing more than a damned goodbye.

Anger pumped through him. Fueling his strides. By God, she didn’t get to simply make love and leave without talking about . . .

What had happened.

And what became of them from here.

He bounded down the stairs. A servant stood in wait with the door held open. Ignoring the cloak he held out, Broderick snatched his top hat and jammed it on his head. Gathering the reins of his mount, he climbed astride.

Nudging Chance on, he set off through crowded streets at a breakneck speed that earned shouts and cries of fury from the respectable gents who claimed Mayfair as their own.

They could all go hang. Regina had opened his eyes to the truth: a person’s worth wasn’t decided by blood or wealth or connections.

But then, Regina Spark had always possessed a remarkable sway over his thoughts and the decisions he made in the name of the club and oftentimes fairness.

She eventually had helped him to see the narrow view he’d had of the world, and his place in it. She’d opened his eyes to the truth that rank and title and wealth mattered next to nothing when compared with how a man lived his life and treated others.

And she’d simply left.

Without even a damned goodbye.

He fixed on that. His fury. That turbulent swirl of emotion that roiled under the surface. It kept him from focusing on this latest betrayal, how easy it had been for her to simply leave him.

That bloody establishment he’d stolen out from under her came into focus. Where in the past, this end of the street and that building had been quiet, now activity vibrated, with men carrying boards atop their shoulders through the double turquoise doors that hung open.

Broderick was jumping off Chance before the mount had even come to a full stop.

“You, there,” he barked. A tiny lad came loping over. “There’ll be more when I return,” he promised, handing over the reins and purse to the wide-eyed lad.

Doffing his hat, Broderick skirted the crowd of workers milling about the pavement and climbed the handful of steps.

He stopped at the entranceway.

Since the last time he and Reggie had met in this hall, the broken furniture had been carted off. A loud banging now filled the room as workers ripped up rotted floorboards; the din muted his footsteps as his arrival went unnoted.

And then he found her.

Seated at the sole table to have been left, head bent over a stack of sheets, she pored over the documents laid out.

Broderick narrowed his gaze on the brawny figure who sat at her shoulder. Head close to Reggie’s, his jacket off, the man’s physique marked him as one accustomed to hard work.

Periodically, Reggie would nod. She chewed at the end of her pencil in an endearing hint of her focus. She paused and gestured to the page.

Whatever her reply, she earned a booming laugh from the stranger, whose frame shook with the force of his amusement.

And then Reggie joined in. Giving that nameless bastard her laugh. Unrestrained, clear, and bell-like, as she’d once laughed with him. A blinding red fury fell over his vision, sharp enough to taste and volatile enough to tense all the muscles in his body.

The tawny-headed stranger glanced up, and his gaze landed on Broderick. The bounder leaned back in his chair and said something to Reggie.

She picked her head up.

And there was no joy there. No pleasure at seeing him, but rather confusion that stretched across the room.

The smile that had previously dimpled Reggie’s cheek immediately withered, replaced with a question.

And he found himself hating with a vicious intensity the figure at her side even more for the fact that he’d become a recipient of that warmth.

His skin pricked with the attention paid them by the small army of workers. All activity immediately ceased as they glanced over at Broderick . . . and then back to the bounder who couldn’t even be bothered with a proper jacket.

“What is the meaning of this?” he boomed.

A frown puckered between her crimson eyebrows. “I am working.”

That is what she’d say. I am working.

As though his mouth hadn’t been on hers. All over her. As though the scent and taste of her weren’t seared in his mind and wouldn’t haunt him happily as he took his last steps to the gallows and swung with the memory of that one night in the music room they’d shared.

His neck heated as she turned all her energies back to the tawny-haired stranger and the builders resumed their previously abandoned tasks.

And Broderick, who’d forever been in control of any and every situation, found himself . . . an interloper in Reggie’s world and the world she now sat there building with another man. How easily he’d been displaced. Nay, how easily you’ve allowed yourself to be displaced. He’d spent the past week resenting her for her plans instead of supporting her as she’d deserved.

“May I have a word with you, Miss Spark?” he asked quietly when her attention remained wholly focused on the brutishly large figure.