The Governess (Wicked Wallflowers, #3)(82)

For he had been there, and their lives had merged in that moment, entangling forever.

Long after she’d ceased crying, they remained on the floor, wrapped in one another’s embrace, and he continued to stroke her back gently. “It’s not your fault,” he said softly.

Her body tensed in his arms.

She released a shuddery sigh.

Broderick tipped her face up to his, needing for her to see his eyes and the truth there. “It is not your fault,” he repeated. The guilt she’d taken on belonged to the bastard who’d hurt her . . . a man who’d violated her trust and her virtue . . . and something more: her soul. “None of it,” Broderick said urgently. “It never was.”

Reggie slid her gaze away. “It was,” she said, sagging slightly against him. “I let him—”

Broderick placed a fingertip to her lips, stifling that self-guilt. “He was a monster. He wronged you. He hurt you.” He’d harmed her heart, soul, and spirit. “And despite all the suffering he wrought, you emerged triumphant. You pulled yourself from his clutches—”

“You did that,” she said tiredly, and then she drew back. He mourned the loss of her in his arms.

Reggie laid her back against the mahogany bed frame, and drawing her knees close to her chest, she tilted her head up at the plaster ceiling.

Broderick scooted over, joining her. They sat so close their thighs brushed.

“You approached me at London Bridge,” he murmured.

Her body tensed beside him. “To sell myself,” she whispered, and then glanced quickly about, as if fearing someone lurked nearby who could gather the secret they’d both tightly held on to.

And at last he asked the question he’d yearned to have an answer to for the past ten years: “Why?”

At her silence, he glanced over.

She dropped her cheek atop her knees. “For two sovereigns, he offered to let his friend bed me.”

The loyal gentleman who’d saved Glastonbury.

Rage momentarily blinded him to everything so all that he saw, heard, and tasted was hatred.

“I gathered the purse that had been handed over, jumped out the window . . . and ran.” Reggie lifted her head, and steel infused her spine as she sat upright, breathtaking in her fury. “Because to hell with him.”

And with those five words, he fell. He fell so hopelessly and helplessly in love with this woman that everything that came before this moment ceased to matter.

“If I was going to have to sell myself, I’d choose who it was.”

And she’d chosen him.

How easily it could have been someone else. Any other ruthless blighter in the Dials or caddish lord who’d have taken the gift she offered and left her nothing but a handful of coins in return.

And in the end, he’d failed her.

His chest ached. Drawing breath from his lungs was a chore. Needing to move, needing to run, he shoved to his feet.

The sight of her belongings brought him up short.

The floorboards groaned faintly as she stood.

He surveyed those piles she’d made. That had always been patent Reggie. From his family to his finances, she’d been one to organize—everything. He’d taken for granted that she’d be there, and in that, he’d taken her for granted. She was leaving.

“I know I cannot stay here,” she murmured, her thoughts as always in synchronic harmony with his own. “He’ll ruin you for protecting me.”

“You believe I’d cast you out to save myself?” Broderick demanded sharply. Never mind that he had already roused the fury of that powerful foe himself. “Your opinion of me is that low?” But then had he given her any reason to trust him of late?

“Broderick, think,” she said with a calm at odds with the tumult inside him. “He will be sure that everyone knows.”

“I don’t care.” Society could go hang.

He started as the truth slammed into him—he meant it.

His life, his club, and the lives of so many hung on the balance of his being connected to Polite Society. But he could not . . . would not ever sacrifice this woman to achieve those ends.

A panicky laugh gurgled past her lips. “You don’t care what a duke thinks? Come, Broderick—think. You, your family, the Devil’s Den. I can leave now, and you can explain to the duke that you didn’t know.”

“I care about you.”

Her lips parted.

Broderick cupped her cheek. “I’ll not sacrifice you for a bastard like Glastonbury . . . or anyone.” And with that vow, he left her there, silently staring after him.





Chapter 22

Yes, you’ve made this entirely too easy . . .

The Killorans were ruined the following morning.

Or rather, their ruin was printed in every last gossip column in London.

Nor was it a mad marquess who’d brought them low, but rather a duke bent on revenge.

Seated behind his desk, Broderick tossed down the scandal sheet in his hands. Three sets of eyes bored into him.

Faintly accusing.

Largely questioning.

He sighed, suddenly wishing he’d never allowed the fierce lot of them free say to question any and every decision or action that involved him or their club. Because the last matter he cared to discuss with any of them was the reason he’d thrashed the Duke of Glastonbury within an inch of his life. Jealousy, hatred, and resentment all wrapped together inside for the bastard.