The Governess (Wicked Wallflowers, #3)(12)

Chapter 4

Which would you prefer? To spend out your days in Newgate? Or a hanging? Either way, your fate is the same.

She’d been looking after his brother.

Not a single sane man, woman, or child would go dashing through the streets of the Dials, and certainly not for a miserable, surly boy like Stephen.

And yet . . . that is precisely what Reggie had done.

Mayhap it was that the end was rushing up quick to meet him. Or mayhap it was the early-morn hour and the days without sleep, but an appreciation stirred for the courageous spitfire who’d throw reason and caution aside to look out for another.

Nay, not just appreciation. This went far deeper. People didn’t put other people’s well-being before their own. Why, his own coward of a father was testament to that. And then there was Reggie: fearless. Courageous. Undaunted. And beautiful. She was that, too. He just hadn’t noticed that inconvenient fact—until now.

Walking briskly through his private suites, Broderick choked. You bloody fool. The noose was tightening. His future had all but been decided a short while ago in the alleys of the Dials, and here Broderick was, lusting after Regina Spark. Swamped with self-disgust, he loosened his cravat.

Nay, it had been a momentary lapse in sanity that had very nearly seen his mouth on hers. The reality of his own mortality . . . of the impending doom about to rain down upon him . . . had chased off all reason.

Knowing that, however, didn’t make him feel any less caddish.

Focus on your bloody situation.

After all, he had far greater matters to set to rights.

Broderick strode past servants still hard at work cleaning the bloodstains from the carpets. Whether he’d almost kissed Reggie, wanted to, or dreamed the entire interlude was irrelevant in the scheme of the peril that faced him: Walsh and Lucy.

Nay, more specifically . . . the Marquess of Maddock.

I cannot make this go away.

He dragged a shaky hand through his hair. He was at a loss. Just as he’d been when he and his father had been turned out by his father’s employer and Broderick’s godfather, the Earl of Andover.

Broderick’s father had proven himself useless in helping them survive.

And if I do not see all my family cared for and looked after . . . I’m very much his son.

He hardened his jaw. No, he’d not leave his family in the same sorry state his miserable excuse of a sire had left him. Each sibling would be looked after and their futures settled. Broderick neared the stairway where his head guard stood on duty.

At his approach, MacLeod straightened.

“Where is my sister?”

“She was called to the stables.” The burly man’s lips twitched. “Problem with one of the barn cats.”

Yes, that had forever been Gertrude. She was the most tenderhearted of his sisters. Absent of the same pitilessness that drove Broderick, Stephen, Cleo, and Ophelia, she was the only soft one of the Killorans. The one who’d always required protecting . . . and I failed her.

Just as I’m failing her again, now.

A sick sense of shame gripping him, Broderick found his way through the mews.

All the hands and grooms stood in a circle outside the stone stables, smoking cheroots and quietly talking.

Harry, the most recent street urchin rescued by Ophelia and set to work at the Devil’s Den, immediately snapped to attention. Following the boy’s focus over to Broderick, the well-clad servants immediately tossed down their cheroots and cigars and pocketed their flasks.

Broderick motioned for them to continue as they’d been as he let himself in through the wide, curved white doorway. The scent of hay and horses immediately filled his nostrils.

He blinked, attempting to bring the darkened space into clarity, searching for Gertrude . . . and finding her at the far end of the stables.

Back presented to him, she lifted a finger warningly.

With a careful tread, he picked his way over the errant pieces of hay that littered the floor.

He stopped beside his sister.

“How is Reggie?”

“She will be fine.” Intractable as always, but her wound would heal. “I see you’ve given my entire stable staff the morn off.”

Gertrude again touched a silencing finger to her lips. “He’s being mulish,” she whispered softly, ignoring that droll jest on Broderick’s part.

Broderick followed her stare overhead.

A pair of gold eyes twinkled in the otherwise dark space. “Meowwww-meowww-meowww,” the black cat wailed, remaining firmly planted on a narrow beam.

The extent of his experience with those feline creatures of course was aged information that came from his time with Lord Andover, but Gertrude had taken the fickle animals in enough over the years for him to know just how self-reliant they were. “A cat has nine lives. For three he plays, for three he strays, and for the last three he stays.”

Gertrude quietly snorted. “What rubbish. You’ve escaped death and danger. No one dares believe you are in possession of nine lives. Why should Master Brave?”

For all the hell of that morn, he found himself grinning. “A cat who’s gone and gotten himself caught on a beam and can’t get down without assistance is richly misnamed.”

“Oh, hush,” she chided, jabbing a sharp elbow into his side. He winced. “Don’t listen to him. You are far braver than all the horses and dogs in the whole of the stables,” she crooned to the still mournfully moaning creature overhead.