The Governess (Wicked Wallflowers, #3)(80)

A delicate brush of knuckles along her jaw brought her chin up, a fleeting caress that brought her eyes briefly closed and gave her the strength to continue. “How did a baronet’s daughter come to be the governess in a duke’s employ?”

A panicky half laugh, half sob built in her chest. Bad luck. Desperation. “An old, distant cousin died, and the baronetcy passed to my father.” She stared at her belongings laid out; more items sat there than what she’d had in the whole of her life then. “Our journey to Kent was to be a grand adventure. I’d not even traveled outside of Manchester before that. We found ourselves in a new home, in a new place, and with a new distinction for my father. But nothing changed.” Her throat worked. Not truly. Not for her family anyway. But for Reggie? From that moment on, nothing had ever been the same. “As far as our fortunes were concerned, there were no more funds than there had ever been. Papa inherited a small farm that hadn’t yielded a proper harvest in the ten years before he arrived. We needed money.” My girl, my girl . . . you wished to see London and palaces . . . and now you shall . . . “And then I was presented with an”—her upper lip curled—“opportunity.” In the immediacy of Lord Oliver’s treachery, it had been so very easy to resent her father for having sent her on to the Duke of Glastonbury’s estates. As a woman grown, she acknowledged the truth. “My father knew I wished to see the world outside our little corner of England. He knew I craved . . . excitement.” She gave her head a sad little shake.

A primal growl rumbled from where Broderick stood. “And so he sent you away as the hired staff for a duke.” Such vitriol dripped from that statement, Reggie glanced briefly back at him.

A vein bulged at the corner of his eye. The evidence of his fury sent warmth coursing through her. She’d not, however, allow Broderick to lay her sins at the feet of her father. “What could be more exciting for a girl who’d only ever known a three-room cottage with one all-purpose servant than to find herself governess for a duke’s children?” From that, she’d learned danger, evil, and darkness, in spades. Unable to meet his piercing eyes, she wandered away, stopping at the windowsill.

Reggie pulled back the gilded silk curtains and dropped her forehead against the lead panes. The sun’s warmth left upon the glass acted as a balm, the illusion of a human touch. She stretched her fingers to the panels, trailing them along her own visage; the same freckles of her youth remained, but the faint lines at the corners of her eyes and the harshness of her mouth marked the passage of innocence. “I never thought to wonder at the sea of governesses who’d come and gone in the post.” Her mouth twisted in a wry grin. “Oh, the villagers talked. Naughty charges. That’s always the claim, isn’t it? Blame the children, while the sins of the gentlemen”—in this case, the brother—“are forever pardoned.”

What she wouldn’t give to go back and trade it all. To have remained behind, longing for a glimpse of the outside world, while remaining unknowingly insulated from the reality that was life. “I learned soon enough. It hadn’t been troublesome children to worry after,” she whispered, speaking the words aloud not for the man immobile in the spot she’d last left him, but rather, for the first time—for herself. “Or the stern duke and duchess.” There was something healing in breathing her sins in all their shame into existence. “Rather, it was the rakish heir I should have feared.” A lesson learned too late.

She briefly closed her eyes. What a fool she’d been.

And yet to undo any of it would mean she would have never known Broderick . . . or his siblings. And for all that had come to pass, including these past days of resentment between them and the broken heart she’d take with her when she left, she’d not go back, even if there were some magic that might change back the hands of time. She’d not trade the moments they’d shared as a family, or all the lessons she’d learned about strength, courage, and loyalty.

But, oh, how she’d miss him.



Broderick didn’t want to hear any more. He wanted to know even less. Reggie’s tale was a familiar one that ended with a lady ruined and a rake going unpunished for the crimes he’d committed.

And coward that he was, having had the blackhearted cad who’d stolen her innocence in his very home, stating intentions to court his sister, made the agony of her past all the more acute. More real.

It was the rakish heir I should have feared.

He fisted his hands and, in a bid for pretended calm, leaned against the wall. “He seduced you.” The words burnt his tongue.

“I fell in love with him,” she corrected.

That quiet utterance stuck in his chest, the unexpected sting as sharp as the dagger that had sliced through Broderick’s side fourteen years earlier. This was a feverish jealousy that moved through him in a primitive response that defied mere friendship and threw into tumult every understanding he’d previously carried of his relationship with Reggie.

She’d loved Glastonbury.

Suddenly, Broderick wished he hadn’t tossed the bastard out on his arse. He wished he had him here still so he might bury his fist in his face all over again, shattering that damned noble nose.

Reggie’s gaze caught his, and she must have seen something in his eyes. Some hint of the volatile sea of emotions roiling inside him. She shifted those wide aquamarine pools to the floor. “I thought I loved him. I realized I was so very much in love with the idea of being in love, and he was exciting and scandalous, and I’d never before met any man such as him and—” She abruptly cut off.