The Governess (Wicked Wallflowers, #3)(34)

Another chandelier stripped of its crystals hung overhead.

She closed her eyes, and this time she saw in her mind everything this place would one day be.

A gleaming stage awash in candlelight while singers danced and sang before a crowd of appreciative patrons. The lively strains of an orchestra’s music would fill the auditorium.

Nay, it wouldn’t be a saloon, little better than a gaming hell, where men came to drink and smoke. There wouldn’t be courtesans on the laps of drunkards, but rather women employing real talents in a venture that was something new.

New, like her life was becoming.

Mr. Elliot called out, breaking her reverie. “I’ve been asked to leave so you might conduct the formal arrangement in private.”

Warning bells went off. Reggie spun back to face the squat man now laying out a series of papers upon one of the tables. “Beg pardon?” The nervous timbre of her query bounced off the rafters.

The solicitor didn’t bother to glance up from his task. Removing a quill and inkwell from the travel desk, he set them out in a meticulous row. “It is not my place to question,” he said with a pointed edge that she’d have to be deaf to miss. At last finished setting up a makeshift desk for the formal meeting, he finally spared her his focus. “If you have reservations about conducting business as any other male client would, then perhaps you’d be wise to consider a different plan, Miss Spark.”

Reggie curled her fingers tightly. So that was what this was, then? A bid to send her running in fear? “I’ll wait until your esteemed employer arrives,” she said coolly. She scraped a frigid stare over the solicitor and, drawing on the memory of a ducal command issued by her previous employer, added, “You are dismissed.”

Muttering loudly under his breath, Mr. Elliot gathered up his belongings. On a huff, he took his leave.

The doors landed shut behind him with such force they brought the moth-eaten, faded velvet curtains down in a noisy heap.

Curtains falling is an ominous sign peril is to come to thine . . .

Unease grew in her breast. “Enough,” she whispered, that familiar lore filtering through her memory. As a girl she’d listened, enthralled by every folk story and legend and superstition shared by her eccentric father. Now she wished she’d done as her mother had instructed and attended to him a good deal less. Dragging a chair over to the heap of velvet, she hefted it up. Dust specks danced in the air, stinging her nose.

“Achoo.”

Grunting at the surprising weight of the dusty fabric, she climbed onto the seat. The wobbly oak chair rocked under her, and she steadied herself before tossing the curtains over the metal rod. “There,” she said, pleased with herself.

She’d not let this day be ruined. Not by miserable Mr. Elliot. Not for her irrational fear of shutting doors and falling curtains. And not for any regret at all she was leaving behind.

Reggie crossed to the documents awaiting her signature. The crack in those heavy curtains now let in a stream of sunlight that erased some of the trepidation she’d long carried of dark, empty rooms.

Nor had hers been an irrational trepidation. Rather it had been a fear she’d long carried with her since that dark night when . . .

Reggie gave her head a hard shake, refusing to let thoughts of him in. Refusing to think of every last mistake she’d made that had brought her to this point—a woman alone, on her own.

There had been a time she’d been fresh to London, a girl who’d never left the placidity of Kent. The kaleidoscope of noises, sounds, and people in the Dials had sent terror clamoring in her breast.

That fearful girl of long ago was gone . . .

Ten years ago, nearly to the date, Broderick had saved her.

On this day, Reggie would save herself.

She scanned the official document, the complex legal language that women were so often refused any kind of say in. Reggie flipped to the next page.

She lingered on the page in her hands, staring absently down at her name etched on the legal document. So why did sadness creep back in and dull the joy of this moment?

Because new beginnings marked endings, and from this day on, when she stepped inside this badly neglected establishment, the familiarity she’d known would die.

Liar. It had never been about familiarity.

Reggie slid her eyes closed and allowed the memory in.

You look to be in need of help, love . . .

For just like that, Broderick had arrived at London Bridge, an avenging hero, escorting her off as if she’d been some fancy lady. He’d led her to a life of security and safety, a seeming impossibility with a monster like Mac Diggory ruling the streets of London.

From deep within the hall, a lone floorboard squealed.

“Hello?” she called, fiddling with the clasp at her throat. “Mr. Elliot?” Her question bounced off the plaster walls, her only company.

Shivering, she drew her cloak closer about her person and moved deeper into the establishment. She’d ceased believing in monsters and dragons long ago. Time had proven there was greater peril to be found, not in fictional tales but in the men and women around her. Her foot depressed a loose floorboard, and it creaked and groaned forlornly, increasing the already-frantic beat of her heart.

Reggie stopped beside the pianoforte, resting her fingertips lightly upon the nearest keys.

The off-tune G chord whined, and she swiftly yanked her hand back. Her neck prickled as something that had once been a familiar sentiment, that had been kept safely at bay but would never be truly forgotten, stirred: fear.