The Governess (Wicked Wallflowers, #3)(110)

Heart pounding, Reggie gathered Stephen by the arm. “Where did you find this?”

“Found it in Diggory’s old things.”

“He has to see this,” she breathed.

Stephen lifted one shoulder in a dejected little shrug. “He did. Broderick brought it to him, but the marquess wouldn’t even listen. Turned him out.”

And that fledgling hope came crashing down. Broderick was a man who could talk the Almighty into sinning if he wished.

“Twisted he i-is,” Stephen whispered, and through her own grief, she heard fear, so abhorrent to all this boy was, shaking that last syllable.

Reggie carefully smoothed out the aged yellow note, the fading inked words creased and cracked by an angry fist: Broderick’s? Or Stephen’s? Since she’d discovered the truth of Stephen’s birthright and kidnapping, she and all the Killorans had been so fixed on Broderick’s survival. How much had they, outside their own sadness and fears, truly considered Stephen’s departure? These past days, while Broderick had fought for his own survival, Stephen had been left to contemplate a life with a marquess, called mad, who was a stranger to him.

“I don’t want to go,” Stephen whispered, leaning his slight weight against her.

She folded her arm around him. “I know. I don’t want you to leave, either.” Just as Reggie wanted to remain a part of this family.

“He doesn’t want me.” That admission emerged haltingly from Stephen.

“I don’t believe that,” Reggie said softly.

He hunched his shoulders. “No?” He didn’t allow her a beat with which to respond. “Then why didn’t he come when he learned I was his son?”

Why, indeed? Reggie sighed and offered him the only thing she had—the truth. “I don’t know why, Stephen,” she confessed. “Mayhap he’s allowing you time to make your goodbyes to the world you’ve been living in.” Unlikely. “Or mayhap he’s afraid, too, of beginning again with the boy he’d loved.” A child who was now a stranger. “But you will both find your way together . . . eventually.”

Stephen’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “I don’t want to begin again.”

No one ever did. Not truly. “Someday,” she said softly, stroking the top of his head, “I believe you’re going to find happiness with your father. And one day you will have a hard time imagining a life without him in it.”

He sniffled. “You really think that?”

She’d have to be deaf to fail to hear the hope threading that question. “I do,” Reggie assured him. And she prayed for that gift for the boy’s sake.

They shared a small smile.

The door burst open, and they both jumped up, unsheathing their daggers.

Gertrude stumbled inside. “Trouble,” Gertrude rasped, her cheeks flushed from her exertions. Bent over, she borrowed support from her knees and held out an official-looking page. “One of Connor’s men received w-word,” she managed between her great, gasping breaths for air. “Maddock is g-going to act.”

Stephen’s face went ashen. “Tonight?”

A pit formed in Reggie’s belly. “What?” She came forward, retrieving the note from Stephen’s shaking fingers, and scanned the contents.

Gertrude’s face contorted into a paroxysm of grief. “Connor has had the marquess’s townhouse watched.” Her voice caught. “T-two constables were summoned to Maddock’s.”

Oh, God.

For the man bent on destroying Broderick Killoran, he’d found the ultimate revenge. Sending the constables to a theatre filled with members of Polite Society and collecting him before a woman who might have become his bride.

She glanced up quickly. “Stephen, have two carriages ready. Immediately,” she shouted when he remained rooted to the floor. That sprang him from his motionless state. He tore past Gertrude, the pitter-patter of his footsteps swiftly fading.

Gertrude dashed over to her bed and retrieved that crumpled page. “Reggie? What are you doing?”

“You need to go to Broderick,” she ordered, rushing from the room. Gertrude matched her steps. “Get him out of that theatre. Let him know there is a trap.” Shooting out those commands gave her purpose. It kept her from surrendering to the panic clamoring in her breast.

“And where are you going?” she asked as they reached the top of the stairway.

Reggie clenched and unclenched her jaw. “To speak to the marquess.”

She had every intention of doing what Broderick had been unable to do—reasoning with a madman.





Chapter 28

You took my son. And now time for you is up.

—The Marquess of Maddock

Broderick sat in the crowded Drury Lane Theatre box, surrounded by members of Polite Society.

Crystal chandeliers hung throughout the auditorium, with the candles’ glow flickering off the silk and satin gowns of the ladies assembled. The din of inattentive patrons in full discourse warred with the orchestra set at the center of the stage.

It marked the culmination of the great hope he’d carried. It was all he’d ever wanted: to be part of this world, fully included, as one who belonged.

And now he sat here in that very place, seated alongside a duchess, and it was the last place in the world he wished to be.