The Governess (Wicked Wallflowers, #3)(22)

A frown pulled between Broderick’s brows. “Reggie?”

She gave her head a slight, clearing shake. “I am honored that you have confidence in my ability to accompany your family to ton events.” Whether he detected the sarcasm in that reply, he gave no outward indication. “However, you would be best served by finding a proper young lady to steer you.” Oftentimes, she wondered if Polite Society would recall the young woman they’d condemned as a whore. Reggie had no intention of truly finding out the answer to that question.

Broderick lifted an eyebrow. “Ah, yes, but Gertrude wants you.”

That he himself concurred with Reggie cut deep in a way that she despised. Restless, she shoved to her feet, desperately in need of some distance between them. “You’ve not thought this through,” she clipped out, needing to make him see reason.

“Careful,” he warned.

Unsettled by the ice in his eyes, she forced herself on anyway. “Honored though I am that Gertrude would choose me as the one to accompany her about Polite Society, it would be ruinous for her.” That statement was not driven by purely selfish reasons to be spared the duties, but rather by a cold, unyielding fact that came from her time amongst the ton. “Everyone will know one of your gaming hell employees has been tasked with caring for your sister, Broderick. And what will they say? Hmm?” Even if she hadn’t thoroughly blackened her own reputation, her moving freely amongst lords and sailors alike inside the Devil’s Den had done so enough where what Gertrude wished, and Broderick requested, was an impossibility. “Do you think that is how you’re going to secure the ton’s approval?” she asked, her voice pitched even to her own ears.

“Let me be abundantly clear,” he said, flashing a cold smile. He slowly stood. And blast if he, with his nearly six inches over her, wasn’t the only man capable of making her feel small. “I do not seek anyone’s approval.”

“So what is this really about, then, Broderick?”

His eyes hardened as he came slowly to his feet. “Don’t presume you’re entitled to more than I offer about my decisions.”

Reggie swallowed hard, and an unfamiliar disquiet swept through her. For as long as she’d known him, had seen his ruthlessness carried out or displeasure turned on cheats, thugs, and ineffectual workers, it was also the first time she’d been the recipient of it.

Pride, however, brought her shoulders back. “Your single-minded determination to connect the Killorans to the nobility goes back far beyond Stephen. So do not suggest this venture to be vastly different. It’s not.”

They locked gazes in a tense, silent battle.

And then, as quickly as he’d turned that merciless edge on her, it was gone. “Gertrude wants you there, Reggie. She knows you.” He caught her hand, giving it a light squeeze, and heat radiated from the point of his touch. Her heart tripped several beats, and she glanced briefly at their interlocked fingers. “She trusts you,” he said in a melodious murmur that could convince a saint to sin. “And you understand her.”

Her pulse quickened. That appeal on behalf of his sister, evincing such devotion to his family in a world where that gift was so lacking, reminded her all over again why she’d first lost her heart to him.

Reggie wanted to do this not only for Gertrude . . . but also for Broderick. She owed him her very life. And a lesser man without his honor would have hurled that, and the security and safety he’d provided Reggie, in her face. But God help her . . . she couldn’t. “I am so very sorry for Stephen,” she said softly, disentangling her hand from his. “For all of you.” In the end, every Killoran would be stricken with the loss of their brother. “But I cannot help you in this.”

Broderick’s mouth fell agape, that shock surely a product of Reggie not having said no to one request or order he’d put to her through the years.

“You cannot?” he finally said. Not even for Gertrude . . .

It hung there, unspoken and unfinished, but as clear as if he’d shouted it.

For Gertrude asked nothing of anyone. Reggie briefly closed her eyes.

How she wished she could be at Gertrude’s side, and if Gertrude needed her anywhere else, including hanging by her fingernails at the edge of the world, she’d be there.

She shook her head, once more.

“I . . . see.” His tone indicated he saw anything but.

Nor could he. Her secret shame was hers alone. Despite the close bond of their friendship, she’d never shared her greatest mistake. How could she have, to one who’d so masterfully built himself up to be the person he was—one reliant on no one but himself. “I’ll remain behind and oversee the club while you join Gertrude,” she said in a bid to soften her rejection.

“MacLeod has already been appointed to that role.”

His statement should not have surprised her. Though he’d provided his sisters and Reggie a role in the club, at the end of the day, men always chose other men to oversee their most important of business—Broderick included. Reggie arched an eyebrow. “Because you don’t trust that I’d be capable?” He might trust Reggie implicitly enough to share the greatest secrets about Stephen and offer her his ledgers and records to freely study. He’d not, however, ever put his establishment in her, or any woman’s, hands. “MacLeod, who barely looks at your books, and who’s not had a single meeting with a vendor, is more capable than me?”