The Governess (Wicked Wallflowers, #3)(32)

“I hadn’t believed I would, either.”

“Come, then,” Clara urged with the same ease she’d once commanded the former prostitutes inside the hell. Her responsibilities had changed and diminished since Broderick had put an end to that profitable venture.

And in that way, Reggie from the Kent countryside was more like the shadowed madam who didn’t speak of her past.

She fell into step beside Clara.

Her friend spoke in perfunctory tones as they walked. “It has potential.”

“The potential to what?” A small laugh escaped Reggie. “Fall down about our ears?”

Of a like height, Clara strode with long, sure strides as she pointed out details to Reggie, attempting to sway her on a place that had only those turquoise double doors to recommend it. “The stage requires but minimal refurbishing, and there is already a dais for the orchestra. Wood can be repaired, and walls painted, but an establishment in this area is nigh impossible to come by.” Clara stopped and, taking Reggie by the elbow, forced her to halt. “And do you know what else is nearly impossible to find, Reggie?”

Life. Happiness. Love. The answers were really endless.

The other woman held her gaze. “A man who’d be willing to sell a property to two women, one a whore and the other one who’s worked inside the most disreputable hell, and whose reputation is equally suspect for it.”

Yes, because the truth remained that though Reggie had never been forced to sell her body, society would care only about the surface appearance. The only fact that mattered to the world was that she called a gaming hell home. There was no reputability to be had. And as Clara pointed out . . . few options.

With a sigh, Reggie resumed her inspection.

Clara fell back silent as Reggie walked, this time with slower steps as she took in every detail and considered not only Clara’s words but also her own circumstances.

She’d never allowed herself to think of leaving the Killorans. They had represented the only stability and safety she’d known since she’d left her family’s cottage. She had been content with the role she’d found herself in as de facto older sibling.

Now she contemplated this next step: building her own empire with Clara, a music hall that would supply work for women such as herself and Clara . . . and girls who, presented with no options, had entered a life of prostitution.

Life was changing . . . as it invariably did. Sometimes when one was fortunate, those shifts came slower, and one was allowed a prolonged sense of comfort to be had in the familiar.

But then sometimes life spiraled like the old wooden merry-go-round in Kent, spinning in dizzying circles until one couldn’t make sense of a world that existed only in blurry images and vibrant colors.

Reggie drew to a stop beside the square tabletop piano. She depressed one of those faded-yellow keys, and it whined mournfully of its neglect. This instrument was so very different from the treasured one her father had gifted her and seen carefully maintained.

And yet . . . it had been so long since she’d sat at any pianoforte that she could have been playing half of one and it would have inspired the same euphoric sentiment within her.

The pull of this piano drew her closer. How much she’d missed holding an instrument in her hands. First, she’d done so as a girl, and then as a governess instructing woefully unappreciative-of-song charges. With a sad smile, she ran her fingers over the chipped keyboard, and the medley of her childhood played in her ears, drowning out the discordant whine of the out-of-tune pianoforte.

“’Tis the last rose of summer

Left blooming alone;

All her lovely companions

Are faded and gone;

No flow’r of her kindred,

No rosebud is nigh,

To reflect back her blushes

Or give sigh for sigh.”

Reggie stilled her fingers. . . . you could instruct a choir of angels, poppet! The memories of her playing to her father’s praise and a captive audience of her beloved siblings slowly faded with the last hum of that final chord.

She opened her eyes and confronted reality once more.

Reggie tipped her head back and evaluated the chandelier, stripped of most of its crystal.

Clara joined her. “What are your thoughts?” she asked, her murmurings containing the traces of her nervousness.

For this dream could not come true for Clara without Reggie’s additional monies.

She measured her reply. “It is . . . in need of work.”

As if in a farcical cue, a three-foot shard of the mirror hanging behind the stage splintered off and shattered upon the dais.

Reggie winced.

And now a broken mirror to boot.

“It doesn’t count if you do not break it,” Clara muttered at her side.

They shared a smile.

Clara’s was the first to fade, giving way to her usual somberness. “Look at it.” She took Reggie by the shoulders and directed her so she faced the stage. “Truly look at it without thinking about h—” Clara abruptly cut herself off, and Reggie stiffened. “Truly look at it without thinking about how much wrong you see and think of all that is right and what it might be. Not a saloon,” she spoke, an impassioned fervor to her tones, “but something that’s not been done here in London . . . a hall devoted solely to music.”

Leading her by the hand, Clara drew her closer to the stage and farther from the solicitor. “Women of all ages, dependent upon no one, using their own talents and skills and not”—a brief spasm contorted the former madam’s face—“their bodies to survive. A place where women do not have to rely upon the mercies of any man.” She fixed a piercing, pointed stare on Reggie. “Does all that sound familiar? Hmm? Because it should.”