The Governess (Wicked Wallflowers, #3)(20)

“Gertrude,” she predicted. She drew the doors of the armoire closed with a click. With but one remaining hope of a familial connection between the Killorans and the peerage, all chances would rest upon the eldest and most underestimated of the Killoran girls. As one who’d been viewed in a like manner, Reggie felt a kindred connection to the partially blind woman.

“She needs to marry,” he confirmed.

It had been obvious. She’d been expecting it. Even so, a different kind of regret turned over in her chest, chasing away a foolish longing for what would never be with this man. “Gertrude doesn’t need to marry a nobleman, Broderick.” Those girls, even Gertrude, who was near in age to her own eight-and-twenty years, were more like the daughters she’d always dreamed to have. “I’ll not help you in this,” she said with finality. She’d rail and fight for their happiness as if they were her own. “Gertrude deserves to marry where her heart leads her.” Reggie balled her hands. “And she certainly deserves better than a nobleman who’ll never appreciate her.”

Because in the end, those fancy lords saw those outside their social sphere only as baubles beneath them to be toyed with.

Broderick tightened his jaw. “This isn’t a debate or a discussion.” It had been a fight that had dragged on with each Killoran girl. “I’ve already secured Gertrude’s agreement.”

“What?” she whispered. Sadness assailed her . . . for what that meant for Gertrude.

“She has agreed to a London Season.” He took another draw from his cheroot, his lips forming the faintest grimace that she’d come to recognize whenever he smoked. A telling gesture that hinted at one who hated those loathsome scraps as much as she detested their pungent odor. “She knows there is no other choice.” He gave a distracted wave, sprinkling several ashes to the floor.

Reggie let fly a sound of impatience. “You managed to ensure Cleo’s cooperation and Ophelia’s, and now Gertrude’s.” The man could make a sinner out of a saint. “But it does not mean I’ll support you in this.” Nor could she make heads or tails of what need he had of her in this latest scheme to tie the Killorans to the ton.

Stubbing the cheroot out within the empty Derby chamberstick, Broderick abandoned the scrap. “Stephen was kidnapped.”

She shook her head slowly. “I don’t understand.”

Broderick opened his mouth and then stopped. Glancing to the door, he quit his spot over at her desk, joining her at the hearth. “Nine years ago,” he spoke in hushed tones that, even with the mere handsbreadth between them, she struggled to hear.

Confusion clouded her mind, and she struggled to make sense of what he’d revealed. She shook her head. “I don’t . . .”

“Diggory gave the orders for another boy to be brought within the fold.” The color bled from his cheeks as he spoke. “Two of Diggory’s thugs found that child.” This new version of the always unflappable Broderick Killoran left her at sea—rattled and fearful in ways she hadn’t been since her long-ago flight through London. “Unbeknownst to me, they brought a marquess’s son.”

Her legs wobbled under her, and with a soft shuddery exhalation, she slid into the wooden folds of the woven rushes. “Oh, God.” This family had come to mean as much to her as those whose blood she’d shared. And their existence was about to be torn up. “When . . . how . . . ?” Reggie couldn’t muster a single coherent thought as the horror of what Broderick revealed weighed heavy around her. She settled for the least weighty of the questions. “When did you find out?”

Searching about, he grabbed the padouk chair from her writing desk and dragged it over so he faced her. The seat creaked under the weight of his powerful frame. “Ophelia’s husband’s investigation—”

“To find the Marquess of Maddock’s son?”

“Yes, the one.” He nodded. “Steele’s investigation turned up a string of boys through the years who’d been kidnapped from the nobility and forced into Diggory’s gang.”

Numb, Reggie sank back. Bile stung her throat as the oldest, darkest memories of her mistakes, and of the man who’d sought to sell her in a like manner but for different purposes, came flooding back. Stephen had been . . . kidnapped. Ripped from a life that was safe and familiar—no doubt a beloved child and a coveted heir, who’d instead been thrust into the seven levels of Hell that existed within the Dials.

“Reggie . . . Reggie?”

Blinking slowly, Reggie fought to attend him, this man who knew more—but not all—parts of her dark past. And whose very existence was now in peril. “I’m sorry,” she said hoarsely. “You were saying?”

“It was Ophelia who put together the facts. She revealed all when she was . . .” Imprisoned. His throat muscles jumped, and that—his inability to speak of his sister’s recent imprisonment at Newgate—filled her heart. After being betrayed by the gentleman who’d vowed to love her forever, Reggie knew better than to trust a handsome face or pretty words. But this? A gentleman who cared for his sisters and offered protection for even the lowest class of street folk weakened her sturdiest defenses.

And yet . . . “You’ve known since before Ophelia went to Newgate,” she stated blankly.

“Yes.”