The Governess (Wicked Wallflowers, #3)(39)

“They don’t matter,” he said in his patent proprietor tones. The ones he’d reserved for those left over by Diggory who’d betrayed him.

Clenching her hands, Reggie buried them in her lap.

“What matters is how much you know about . . . certain matters,” he declared with a finality that roused her earlier panic. “As such, my options with you are limited.” He ticked up a finger. “I could have you removed. Or”—he waggled that long digit—“well, as I see it, that is really the only option. Wouldn’t you say?”

Gooseflesh rose on her arms. There had been countless others before who’d roused terror within her . . . but never Broderick—until now. “Don’t say that,” she ordered, that command faintly breathless. He’d proven himself single-minded in his intent to build up his gaming hell empire. Ruthless to those opponents who crossed him or stood in his way. He’d never cut a man, woman, or child down like Diggory had done with chilling frequency. “You aren’t Diggory.”

That reminder was as much for him as it was for her.

He smirked, and her fingers twitched with the need to slap the expression from his face. “I meant remove you from the Devil’s Den.”

“So this”—Reggie’s suddenly heavy tongue made her words come out garbled—“demand that I serve as Gertrude’s companion is really just you making me a prisoner?”

“I don’t see any other way around it.” Broderick may as well have been one who chatted with her about the tobacconist’s latest shipment, and not one who sought to strip her of power and control. “As you aptly pointed out, I don’t need you serving Gertrude. I just need you close.”

How odd. Five words she would have once traded years from her life to hear from this man, spoken in a way that left her cold inside.

“You’ll serve as companion to her and a governess to Stephen until . . .” Stephen returned to his true family. Broderick’s jaw flexed. And through the misery of her own circumstances, sadness for Stephen and all the Killorans swept her.

Reggie stretched a hand toward Broderick’s. He flicked a stare over her palm. His eyes were filled with such antipathy her cheeks blazed hot. She yanked her fingers back.

The unfeeling proprietor of the most wicked gaming hell was firmly back in place. “You’ll serve until I determine your time is through.”

Her throat constricted, hating that they’d come to this. Reggie eyed him a long while, dragging out the silence, maintaining her scrutiny.

With her decision, she’d made them into combatants fighting one another, both refusing to bend. And still, even as she knew she was in the wrong, she despised his inability to see that something other than greed drove her.

Hers was an act of self-preservation. One that she could not reveal without losing the remaining vestiges of her pride.

The slightest frown formed on Broderick’s lips.

At that crack in his guard, she spoke. “In the years I’ve known you, Broderick, you’ve proven to be stubborn, confident, arrogant.” He preened, and she resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Reggie leaned across the table, holding his gaze. “And logical. You always made decisions and carried on discussions with an absolute clearheadedness.”

Color marred his chiseled cheekbones. Nay, a man as proud as Broderick wouldn’t ever take to having his attributes and character so neatly dissected and laid out. She sought one last time to appeal to that cogency and relied on that which had driven him all these years. “I’m not a lady.”

“I know that,” he said automatically.

Another wave of bitterness assailed her. What if she’d been born to that class he’d always desired a connection to? Would he have seen her then? Is that what it would have taken?

I never wanted him that way . . . I wanted him to see me as a woman he admired, respected . . . and loved . . .

But then, just as she’d erred before in matters of the heart, she’d committed that same grievous offense here. With a man who now played a game with her future.

“You don’t know the world of the ton. A young lady is only as respected as the woman she calls companion,” she persisted. Reggie might not have been born a lady, but she’d served their ranks and knew their ways enough to know how that world worked. “To Polite Society, the fact that I’ve lived in a gaming hell with courtesans makes me no different than a whore myself. It would only taint their view of Gertrude.” And that did not include all the other ways in which those lords and ladies would be right about Reggie’s reputation.

“You’re no whore,” he said crisply, as though he were offended on her behalf. As though he was so very certain of her virtue. “Their opinion of you is neither here nor there.”

Shame filled her. “Your sister’s reputation is inextricably linked to her companion, whomever that may be.”

“The ones who matter are the gentlemen who will not care about her lineage.”

She sneered. “Ones in need of a fortune.” He’d sell a sibling for that coveted connection.

“Ones who appreciate her for who she is,” he said quietly.

That sent her back in her seat as he knocked her off-balance once more. Damn him. Damn him for revealing that devotion he’d long had for his siblings. It was easier to hate him when he proved to be the driven, ruthless bastard who’d not accept no at any turn.