The Governess (Wicked Wallflowers, #3)(38)

What?

Reggie’s mind raced.

Surely that was not what this was about.

Surely Broderick couldn’t have schemed to purchase her building out from under her and exercised this display of control and power . . . all for the purpose of forcing her hand?

“You cannot be serious.” Incredulity crept into her voice. “You’ve done all this to coerce me into joining you in Mayfair?”

He lifted his broad shoulders in a shrug. “Yes.”

The world had gone insane. There was nothing else for it.

Yesterday, she’d experienced Broderick’s charm turned on her for the first time in all the years she’d been in his employ. And today, he’d turned on her the patent ruthlessness he’d used to destroy his enemies and make the lives of his opponents hell.

“I don’t believe you,” she finally said. Despite all the ways he’d proven himself to be a stranger to her, she knew him enough to detect there was always more with Broderick Killoran. “That can’t be all this is about.”

“Clever woman.” There was a raw sincerity to that pronouncement, and she hated it. For it didn’t match with the ruthless schemer who’d snatched her dream out from under her.

Nor was it just her dream he threatened. Through her blind allegiance to Broderick, she’d also cost Clara the security she craved.

Bitterness tasted like vinegar on her tongue as she witnessed the death of a friendship and had a confirmation of every last warning Clara had attempted to give her. “If I were truly clever, I would have signed the damned paperwork the moment I had the opportunity instead of rushing back to”—you—“your club.” Clara had proven correct. In making more of her relationship to the Killoran family, she’d made herself weak. It was a mistake she’d not make again—not where this man was concerned.

“Yes.” He sat upright. “But you didn’t, and so we are here now, renegotiating the terms of this place.”

Panic clawed at her chest, but she kept her face in a careful mask, refusing to let him see how greatly he’d shaken her. “You cannot truly want me there, Broderick,” she said coolly. He’d never wanted her in the ways she’d yearned for him to. “With your love of the nobility, you know very well that it would be far wiser, far more advantageous, to have a proper lady escorting Gertrude.” And not some interloper who’d tossed away her good name and virtue long, long ago. “She will understand that.”

He fished a cheroot from inside his jacket, along with a small box. “She would,” he acknowledged as he withdrew the double-folded sandpaper and, dragging a match through, sparked a crimson ember. He touched his cheroot to the tip and, tossing the box down on the table, took a long inhale.

So, he was uncomfortable, too.

Good—the evidence of it steadied her. His unease marked him as human. It reminded her they’d been friends far longer than they’d been at odds, and as such, she knew his weaknesses—mayhap more than he’d ever detected hers. That gave her strength.

Broderick studied her from over the perfect ring of smoke he exhaled. “Gertrude also freed you of any obligation.”

Reggie forced her next words out in modulated tones. “Did she?” She made a show of studying her fingernails. All the while she felt his penetrating stare taking in her every movement.

He took another draw from that pungent scrap. “She did.” Flicking the ashes at the tip of the cheroot, he sprinkled them on the floor. “And I would have accepted her decision to be joined by another companion.”

Another more honorable, ladylike one. The unspoken implication there stung. But his veiled words were worse, for they quashed the earlier hope she’d allowed herself. “You would have?”

Broderick held his cheroot to his lips, smoking away with an infuriating calm. Just watching her. Baiting her. “You know too much.”

Her stomach sank. Of course. “Stephen,” she said, her voice hollowed out. Bloody hell.

The tobacco scrap dangling in his fingers, Broderick tapped his palm against his opposite hand in a small, mocking clap.

The ramifications of what he implied . . . what he suggested, tore a hole in her heart. “You believe I would betray you?” How little she truly knew this man.

“Yesterday I would have said no.” He took another draw from his cheroot and then put it out on the corner of the table. “But that was before I learned of your plans.” The mask slipped, and he leaned forward, his features a study of disbelief and confusion. “Sally? Willifred? Mariel? And all my best serving girls?” She held steady under that barrage of accusations. “MacLeod?” he demanded on an angry whisper. “My head guard?” There was hurt there, from this man who revealed not even a hint of emotion to his siblings.

Fearing every last pathetic secret she carried, Reggie dragged her eyes away from his and trained them on the stage. Needing him to understand . . . and yet unable—and unwilling—to share that most humbling of reasons, that she wanted him. That she loved him. That she always had and always would. Her heart spasmed. For nothing could come from her telling Broderick anything of that secret she’d kept close.

“Will you not say anything?” he fairly entreated.

In the end, she’d rather have his resentment than his pity. “I had my reasons,” she said flatly, offering a vague response that preserved her pride.