The Governess (Wicked Wallflowers, #3)(60)

Eager to shake off his elder brother’s touch, Stephen ducked under him.

“Stephen?” Broderick called after him.

The boy hesitated.

“See that one of the carriages is readied for Reggie’s return to Mayfair.”

A muscle twitched in the boy’s jaw. “Fine,” he spat, and rushed off.

As soon as he’d gone, Broderick drew the door quietly closed behind them, turning that lock once more.

To give her shaking fingers something to do, Reggie dropped to a knee and proceeded to gather up the large pieces of glassware scattered about. She deposited them on the corner of the table, one at a time. Meticulous with the piles she assembled. Singularly focused on that task. All the while, her skin prickled with the intensity of Broderick’s gaze.

What did one say after . . . after . . . what they’d shared?

Her heart raced. That embrace had been the single headiest, hottest moment of passion she’d ever felt in her eight-and-twenty years. One she’d spent ten years longing to know in this man’s arms.

“That should not have happened.”

A shard of glass stuck in her finger; that sharp stab stole a gasp from her. Tossing aside the scrap, she jammed the wounded digit into her mouth. Not looking at him. Instead, focusing on the welcoming distraction of that slight gash.

A stark, cruel humiliation chased away all earlier warmth, ushering in something familiar. Something she’d experienced too much to ever be considered proper and virtuous: shame.

“It is fine,” she bit out, sending a different prayer overhead. Wanting his silence. Wanting him to add not one more word to his admission of regrets.

He cleared his throat.

Damn him. Damn him for insisting they have this discussion. She paused in her task and forced her chin up at a mutinous angle.

His aquiline features were a study of dismay. “I . . .”

Say something. Say you wanted that moment as much as I have. Say . . .

“I am sorry,” he said gruffly. “I . . . my apologies.”

She flinched. Say anything except that. He’d blame his passion on his fury. “I said, it is fine,” she repeated, terse in her rebuttal.

Broderick scraped a hand through his disheveled golden hair, a halo of golden curls the angel Gabriel himself would have envied. “It is not fine. I . . . kissed you,” he choked out, as if that truth made him ill.

And here Reggie believed there couldn’t be anything more cutting than his apology. Unable to meet his eyes lest he see that pathetic weakness she carried for him still, Reggie inspected her finger.

Why should he not be horrified? Broderick Killoran had always been clear that the connections he craved were to fine ladies, and as such she’d never, ever be the manner of woman he bestowed his attentions on. Bitterness threatened to swallow her.

And for the first time since Lord Oliver’s betrayal, tears stung behind her eyes. Refusing to let Broderick see a hint of that pathetic weakness for him, she dropped to a knee and began to gather her pins, placing them into a neat little pile.

Finding a calm as she always had in organizing . . . anything. It required focus and served as a distraction and—

The floorboards groaned as he dropped to a knee beside her. “Say something,” he demanded.

Please leave . . .

“There is nothing to say.”

His long fingers made quick work of collecting the remaining bits of glass, and without a care for the pile she’d already begun on, he dropped them on the table. “I have it,” she said quietly, and when he still did not relent, she repeated more sharply. “I said, I have it.”

He abruptly stopped.

And she gave thanks.

Now he’d go.

Only that left her desolate in a different way. “As long as you are in my employ, I vow that will not happen again,” he said gruffly. “I can only humbly ask for your forgiveness.”

Her body went hot and then cold as his pathetic excuses paled next to this . . . his continued apologies. Refusing to let him see how those words were like a lance upon her heart, she forced her words into a semblance of calm. “Broderick, it was just a kiss.” Liar. It was so much more. It had been music and mysteries at last answered, and with every stammered word and rambling excuse, he made that moment into something vile and ugly. “It was certainly not the first I’ve had,” she forced herself to add and hurriedly picked up the remaining pins. It would be the last, however.

For she wanted no further part in losing her heart to any man. She hated how it left her splayed open and vulnerable in every way.

She registered his silence and forced herself to look up.

There was a peculiar hardness to his always intractable features, a steely cold in his eyes that raised goose bumps on her arms. Jumping up, Reggie began gathering up the paperwork she’d completed that morn when Broderick rested a hand on hers, staying those movements.

For a dizzying span of a heartbeat, she believed he’d take her in his arms once more. His body had spoken of his desire for her. She’d felt it in his hard length pressed against her belly. And the ragged pants of his breath as he’d explored her. “Before we return,” he began in coolly calculated tones that doused that foolish hope, “let me be clear. You are not to venture out without someone with you at all times.”

“How could I forget my status as prisoner?” she spat. Her outrage safer than the mewling weakness to come before it. “I already told you I’ll not be followed about by one of your minions.”