The Governess (Wicked Wallflowers, #3)(116)

He refused to look at her for a long while and then grudgingly moved his attention over.

“A man who searched all those years to find you and who wants you back in his life so desperately, and still allowed you time to make your goodbyes, is not a bad man.”

Stephen turned his face toward the window.

A knock sounded at the door, and she glanced up, hope filling her breast.

The Killoran sisters filed in.

Reggie fought disappointment. It had been two days since she’d seen Broderick. He’d been called away on business after Stephen had been brought to convalesce with the Killoran family.

And he’d just . . . cut her out.

Before he’d gone, there’d been no talk of his duchess or his promise for the future.

“Your sisters are here,” she murmured. Lowering his shirt back into place, Reggie rose to greet the trio as they came forward.

“How . . . ?”

“I’m fine,” Stephen mumbled, interrupting Cleo’s question. “It was just a flesh wound.”

“He’s fine,” Reggie mouthed.

Gertrude offered the small bouquet over to Stephen. “I’ve brought you these,” she said gently, pushing them into his hand.

“What am I going to do with these?” He wrinkled his nose. “Boys don’t like flowers.”

Reggie’s lips twitched, and she accepted the flowers from Gertrude. “Will you put them in the music room?” Gertrude asked.

Stephen shoved himself into an upright position. “I’m fine,” he exclaimed when all three Killoran sisters rushed forward.

“He is going to be fine,” Reggie repeated once more. The bullet had sliced into his side and exited clean through, leaving more of a vicious gash.

“See?” Stephen shot back for the other women present.

Reggie made to leave and allow the family one of the few remaining moments they had left together. Ophelia stepped into her path.

She bit at her lower lip. “I didn’t know,” she said on a rush, “about you and Broderick and how you felt about him, or how he felt about you. I simply thought you were like a sister to him,” she rambled.

“It’s all right,” she promised.

“It’s not,” Ophelia whispered, her voice catching in a crack in her usually unflappable composure. “I introduced him to another woman.”

Nay, not just any woman. A striking widow who also happened to be a duchess. Reggie gripped the flowers in her hands. “You didn’t know.”

“Ophelia?” Stephen snapped, and his sister glanced over.

“Go,” Reggie urged them. And as the gathered family continued on, she let herself out. Flowers in hand, she found her way to the room that had proven a sanctuary of sorts. When thoughts of Broderick had kept her awake the past nights and questions swirled about their future, she’d come and played.

And where music had represented a balm and hope for the future, she’d confronted the truth she’d desperately fought: It would not be enough. For she wanted him to share in those joys and endeavors. She wanted him to be her partner through life.

Emotion wadded in her throat.

Reggie entered through the doorway and stopped.

With the tails of his jacket hanging over the back of the bench, Broderick sat before the pianoforte. “You returned,” she breathed, motionless. “Where have you been?” She hated the desperation to that query but had no pride where this man was concerned. She never had.

Broderick bowed his head, and his hands flew over those keys, strumming a cheerful tune. Her heart caught.

“Just give me your hand,

Tabhair dom do lámh.

Just give me your hand

And I’ll walk with you,

Through the streets of our land,

Through the mountains so grand.

If you give me your hand.

Just give me your hand,

And come along with me.”

The flowers slipped from her fingers as she rushed forward, stopping beside him. Each note wrapped in his slightly off-key song, a perfect partner to her melody.

“Will you give me your hand,

And the world it can see,

That we can be free,

In peace and harmony?

From the north to the south.

From the east to the west.

Every mountain, every valley,

Every bush and bird’s nest!”

As he finished, she shook her head. “I don’t . . .”

Broderick rose from that bench, unfurling to his full, towering height, and then fell to a knee. “Regina Marlow, I love you with all I am and all I want to be. Will you marry me?”

A faint click snapped her attention away from him, and the earth swayed.

Broderick caught her about the waist, steadying her.

The trio in that doorway—three men, different with time but familiar in every way—smiled back.

“Papa,” she whispered, pressing a fist to her mouth. Each of them, Cameron and Quint, older but still smiling and dear. So very dear.

“My girl,” he whispered.

With a sob, Reggie sprinted across the room.

Her father caught her against him, folding her close. She clung to him, sobbing against his jacket front. The lemon-drop scent of him the same. “Shh, my Regina,” he said into the top of her head.