The Governess (Wicked Wallflowers, #3)(62)

There had been another man who’d known that pleasure; it had been there in the assurances she’d given when guilt had raged over the liberties he’d taken, and also in the unbridled passion of her embrace.

Some man had made kisses casual to her.

And for reasons he didn’t care to think overly long on, that realization sent a primal bloodlust pumping through his veins. A need to find the one who’d claimed that gift and made an enthralling Reggie Spark unconcernedly state that it was just a kiss. And with that same insouciance, bury his fist into that bounder’s face over and over.

And some other man will be there when Maddock ends this game and you are gone. An unexpected jealousy slithered around his insides, along with something else: regret. For his own mortality and the realization that life . . . would continue on without him.

The door opened, and his valet entered, interrupting his maudlin thoughts.

“The carriage is readied, and I’ve been informed that Miss Killoran and her companion will be downstairs shortly.”

“That will be all,” he said distractedly. “Please inform my sister I’ll be along shortly.” With a nod, the servant rushed off.

Broderick waited, and then he withdrew from his jacket the note that portended his inevitable doom: Maddock’s pledge to take Broderick apart.

He stared at the inked words, long memorized.

What the marquess, his siblings, Reggie . . . no one knew was that Broderick had accepted his fate—for himself. He’d built an empire from next to nothing, but he was not one to delude himself into thinking he could escape anything.

Cleo and Ophelia were settled. It was the rest who needed to be put to rights: Gertrude, Stephen, his staff at the Devil’s Den.

And this evening represented the great hope for all of them.

Broderick tightened his fingers; the page crumpled in his grip. He forced himself to relax his hands and then returned the note to his jacket.

This is where his energies should be solely focused. Not on Regina Spark and his dangerous awareness of her as a woman . . . but rather on the one who sought to destroy not only Broderick . . . but through him also his family, his club, and all those dependent upon him.

Fueled with that purpose, a short while later, Broderick joined his sister . . . his sister with a cat in her arms, and absent one companion. He did a quick sweep, and a rush of disappointment filled him at finding her gone. And why do I want to see her? On the heels of that was the still-fresh reminder of her recent jaunt through the streets of London. “Where in blazes is she?” he demanded as he strode down the stairs.

“Oh, hush, you’ve only just arrived,” Gertrude said impatiently.

His sister would safely assume that query came from a place of suspicion. Avoiding her gaze, he looked to Nerrie, who served as a sentry at the doorway. “We’re certain she’s accounted for?”

“She is,” he assured. “I’ve men outside the servants’ stairways.” This time. That hint of his failure hung on the other man’s pronouncement. Mentored and trained under MacLeod’s tutelage, the young, wiry guard had shown all the makings of the most skilled guards on his staff, and as such, after Reggie’s flight yesterday, Broderick had set him up as head of security in his new household. The younger man glanced up the winding staircase. “I’ve guards outside her window, and another outside her door. The seamstresses are here, still.”

“Thank you, Nerrie,” he said. Yanking out his watch fob, he consulted the timepiece.

His sister stroked the top of her cat’s head. “You never did say what happened with Reggie yesterday,” Gertrude quietly pointed out.

No, he hadn’t. And largely because speaking of Reggie in any way, after an embrace that had seared itself on his memory, had seemed a faulty venture. Broderick stuffed the gold chain back inside his jacket. “She returned to the Devil’s Den to work on preparations for her club, and I took the time to explain my expectations for her as long as she serves on our staff.”

He felt Gertrude’s far-too-clever gaze on him. Pressing him. Did she sense there was more to his exchange yesterday? Broderick retrained his attentions on searching for the stubborn minx. “Bloody hell.” He again whipped his timepiece out. “What is taking. . . ?”

Delicate footfalls sounded overhead, faint but distinguishable and long Reggie Spark’s mark upon a sea of people who’d perfected the art of stealth. “At last—” He glanced up, and the words withered, died, and disappeared, fleeing from his mind and memory. And with it, they took the rest of the world, except for the fiery Spartan princess at the top of the staircase.

Reggie stood there, and yet . . . at the same time, the siren before him bore no resemblance to the friend who’d kept his books and looked after his siblings.

Candlelight played off the metallic shimmer of her satin gown, the emerald-green fabric clinging to a nipped waist, narrow hips, and a décolletage that placed generous, creamy swells of flesh on proud display. The crystals adorning the bodice, glimmering in the candles’ glow, drew his gaze. Tempting.

The gold chain of his timepiece slipped through his fingers. That fob twisted in a dizzying circle, one that matched his disordered thoughts.

Reggie’s gaze locked with his, a daring challenge there.

Then she moved, and with it that satin clung to her endlessly long legs, molding the fabric to her thighs as she went, leaving little to the imagination except wicked thoughts involving those legs wrapped about him. Seductive thoughts that would tempt a saint and make a sinner smile. And Broderick, with enough dark marks upon his black soul, added one more as she approached, staring on with an unapologetic boldness.