The Governess (Wicked Wallflowers, #3)(27)

His jaw tightened. Nor had she intended to take just any of his staff. Rather she’d sought to steal the most productive, reliable women who’d developed a following within the club, who kept most noblemen coming back each night. God, what a fool he’d been. He’d crafted a plan that included her as a key part of it, to protect his family and staff. Was there no one whom he could truly trust?

Snapping open the next page, he went still.

“MacLeod,” he gritted out. She’d intended to steal out from under his nose not only the leading women staff members at the Devil’s Den but also his head guard. Fighting the red haze of fury threatening to engulf him at this, a betrayal from a woman he’d called friend and confidante over the years, he drew in a deep breath. “When did you get these?”

Stephen shrugged. “Not long ago. She was talking with Winters.”

Again, Clara Winters. He seethed. He should have known better than to bring in Ryker Black’s former madam. Fixing on his rage with Clara was a good deal safer than making sense out of Reggie’s defection.

Why? Why?

“Ya need to get rid of her,” his brother counseled. “Nothing else to it.”

Yes, he did. To be deceived once and then keep that perpetrator in one’s fold marked one not only as weak but also as a fool just moments away from the next betrayal.

But this was Reggie. Surely there was more to understand here? More to explain why, despite the role he’d afforded her in this club and their relationship that went back ten years now, she would carry out that treachery.

I would have helped her . . . I would have given her guidance had she wished it, and . . .

Except would he have? Would he have truly given his blessing for her to create a rival establishment? Certainly never in the same streets. They’d have only ever been in competition, and he might respect Reggie, like her, even, but that relationship would never supersede his business here.

Broderick stared into the amber contents of his drink.

Nay, if he were being honest, he could admit, at least to himself, that he wouldn’t have allowed or encouraged the venture. He would have crushed it. Which was likely why she’d gone about it in secret, keeping the truth from him. All the while stealing his suppliers and securing better rates for herself, if the numbers were any indication, and taking his staff and—

Broderick tossed back a long swallow, welcoming the fiery trail it blazed.

“Oh, Christ,” he whispered, as a slow dawning horror seeped into his fury-laden mind. A wave of cold swept over him. With fingers that shook, Broderick set his glass down and clasped his fingers before him to hide their tremble from the boy who sat on, silently observing him in his tumult.

He’d revealed . . . all to her.

His stomach pitched.

“What is it?” Stephen urged, and the thread of anxiety woven through those three words marked an unusual display of vulnerability.

Broderick forced a response out past tense lips. “Nothing,” he lied. But then, was it really a lie? For in a few short weeks, everything had gone wrong—including Reggie.

Reggie, to whom a short while ago he’d revealed the most dangerous secret that could take down Broderick, his family, and all those dependent upon him.

Twenty minutes ago, he’d not possessed even a remote doubt about trusting Reggie to that damning secret. Now his future hung not only in the balance . . . but also in her hands.

Christ in heaven.

“I require a favor of you,” he said, needing his brother gone. Broderick memorized the address marked on the page and then refolded the damning sheets, following the crease line she’d set with her own hands. “I need you to return these to Miss Spark’s rooms before she discovers them gone.”

Stephen hopped up and smartly saluted. “Ya got it.” Taking them with eager fingers, he tucked them back into his jacket.

“Say nothing to anyone,” Broderick warned, holding his brother’s eyes.

“Ya going to sack her?” Stephen asked, his voice hopeful. “She can’t be trusted. Surely ya know that.” To a boy whose only remembrances were of the time he’d lived on the streets and whose home these years had been London’s most dangerous gaming hell, Stephen had grown into a person who lived by the street code. If one betrayed a man, one was dead . . . that death physical, symbolic, and more often than not, both.

Unlike Stephen, Broderick had spent his earliest years and youth coddled and oblivious to the depravity that existed outside that once safe world. Mayhap that was why he’d never questioned Regina Spark’s loyalty to him or to the club. He flexed his jaw.

“I’m not certain what is to be done with Miss Spark.” She represented just another damned problem atop an ever-growing host of them. For he could not, as his brother encouraged, simply toss her out. Not anymore. Not with her knowing everything she did.

A protest sputtered incoherently on his brother’s lips. “But y-ya can’t keep her here. Ya ’ave to know that?” There was a thread of desperation contained within that question.

“Yes,” he concurred. “I know as much.” Now, however, the question of what to do with her had been complicated by the secrets he’d shared. “You need to go.”

Stephen dragged his heels and then, with a sigh, started for the door.

“Stephen?” Broderick called after him, freezing the boy in his tracks.