The Governess (Wicked Wallflowers, #3)

The Governess (Wicked Wallflowers, #3)

Christi Caldwell


Prologue

London, England

Spring 1826

Killoran, I am coming for you . . .

Broderick Killoran, proprietor of the Devil’s Den, had survived falls from grace and violent battles in the streets. But this could be the one that destroyed him.

It was why he now stood in the heart of the Seven Dials, those cobblestones no sane man would wander at night—unless one had been born to them or one’s life depended upon it.

For Broderick, the latter held true.

Where in hell are they? I need to find them . . .

Broderick reread the note he’d received, the words there already etched in his mind.

“Ye sure ye dinna want me to handle this one, Mr. Killoran?” the burly guard, MacLeod, called out, cutting across Broderick’s dread.

Settling a flinty stare off into the shadowed mist of the early-morn London fog, Broderick refolded the letter. Tucking it back inside his jacket pocket, he pulled out the pair of leather gloves that rested alongside it. “Quite sure,” he said, his hushed tones infused with cheer as he drew the leather articles on with meticulous precision. “I will handle this meeting, MacLeod.”

The guard cast him a sideways look. “Ye certain, sir? Ah’ll gladly find him an’ gut him myself for ye.” MacLeod spoke the way one might offer to pay for a bottle of whiskey to share between them. “Wouldna be no trouble.” The friendly cheer to that thick brogue was contradicted by the slashing gesture he made at his throat. “Real quick it would be. We could be off and at the clubs faster than ye could say ‘the blighter deserved it.’”

That willingness to kill for the Killorans was a loyalty that went back to when Broderick had saved the man from his own miserable circumstances and appointed him to a position of power within Mac Diggory’s gang.

“I’ll see to this one, Mac.” In one fluid motion, Broderick withdrew the dagger tucked in his riding boot. The hiss of metal, an ominous echo of danger and death, filtered through the London quiet. “Stand watch.”

Worry darkened the other man’s eyes. The first hint of it. He doffed his hat and slapped the article against a thigh thicker than most tree trunks. “There’s Miss Gertrude and Master Stephen to think about.”

Gertrude and Stephen, two of his siblings of the streets, were the reason Broderick was here even now, in the early-morn hours, and not at his gaming hell. The Devil’s Den would be brimming with patrons—most of them drunk and loose with their purses, and it was therefore a time he never left the walls of the kingdom he’d built.

His family’s survival, however, mattered more than even his own existence.

Broderick’s fingers curled around the hilt of his dagger. “I don’t need you to remind me of my responsibilities.” That whispered warning sent the color fleeing from MacLeod’s cheeks.

“Nah insult meant, Mr. Killoran. Ah merely—”

Broderick held up a silencing hand. Laying swift mastery to the demons of old, he fixed on the task at hand. “I will not be long.” He touched the tip of his right index finger against the knife, testing the sharpness of his blade. The metal pricked through the leather fabric of his glove and pierced his skin.

With MacLeod standing guard alongside their mounts, Broderick stalked the streets of the Dials, the rancid alleys he’d had, for a brief time, the misfortune of calling home.

Back then he’d been a sniveling, terrified boy. Now he moved with purpose, a hunter on the prowl, fighting for survival, determined to succeed, and intent on getting the scum of the streets before they got to him . . . and everyone he cared about. Most men would have taken smaller steps, lost themselves in the shadows, and chosen concealment as the safest option. But not Broderick. His every stride sent his cloak swirling in the dank, thick fog hanging on the London streets.

Broderick narrowed his eyes, taking in his surroundings. He’d discovered early on that timidity was oftentimes more perilous than boldness. As such, he’d never been one to mince steps or words, or to present himself as anything other than the leader of London’s underworld.

He abruptly stopped.

His senses immediately went on alert.

Doing a quick sweep, he raised his knife close.

A whore with heavily rouged cheeks and unkempt, oily black hair stepped out of the shadows. “’ey, guvnor, want a good toime?” she purred, her barely discernible King’s English roughed by Cockney and misery.

He nudged his chin in a silent order that she step aside. “I’ve other pleasures awaiting me this night, love.”

Desperation glittered in her bloodshot eyes. “Ya looking for a man to dicker? Oi can find ya one of those, too. If ya let me?” she whispered. Desperation or stupidity? Or mayhap a combination of both made her careless. She stretched her callused fingers out past his knife and ran cracked, dirt-filled nails along the lapels of his cloak. “Or mayhap a lass or lad?” she asked, her voice brightening.

Repulsion snaked through him, along with something else: long-buried disgust for the person he’d been a lifetime ago. Nay, how much he had been just like her. The street rat’s presence stirred reminders he didn’t want. Not at this time. Not when he was at his most vulnerable. But the door had been cracked open earlier, and the memories would not stay buried, forcing Broderick momentarily back to himself as a lad. Once pampered and then orphaned, new to East London. His father’s sins and mistakes had left Broderick alone, with his honor for sale and the hunger to survive strong. Begging for a scrap, selling the whereabouts of others if it meant he didn’t have to be buggered against a wall by men who at the time had been bigger and more ruthless than Broderick.