Just like that, she had the tables flipped on her by a child.
She carefully picked her way around her mind, searching for her next move. It was one thing to put herself at risk, but Clara, who’d been forced out of her last employment, was only recent to their ranks. Nor would any of Broderick’s loyal staff speak to the woman’s defense.
Stephen dragged out her bottom desk drawer with the tip of his boot and propped his feet on the edge of that makeshift footstool. Looping his arms behind his head, he smirked.
Despite that bravado, the truth remained she couldn’t simply turn a cheek to whatever he’d been on about. Given that he’d burnt down the rival gaming hell, she could not risk that others might be in danger because of him.
“Tell me why you were there and what you intended.” As Diggory had always said: a purse was a purse was a purse. One didn’t follow a fat one and sacrifice a smaller, safer one.
A dark glimmer lit the boy’s eyes. “An’ if I do, ya won’t go to Broderick?”
She wouldn’t lie to him. “I don’t know the answer to that.” Having herself been the victim of false promises and assurances, she appreciated the value of truth. “It depends on what you have to say.”
Tears welled in his eyes, and he dropped his feet back to the floor. He focused on the tips of his boots like they contained the answer to mankind’s existence. But it was too late. She’d already detected that glassy sheen. Proud, spitting, and snapping most days, Stephen never showed a hint of weakness. This evidence of his vulnerability caused a physical ache. “Ya got a kerchief? Oi got something in my eye, is all.” He glared at her, daring her with his tear-filled eyes to challenge that.
Shoving to her feet, Reggie went and gathered an embroidered handkerchief from her armoire. She appreciated how proud he was. When she returned to his side, Reggie said nothing. She simply held out that scrap.
Stephen yanked it from her fingers and blew noisily into it. When he spoke, his words emerged muffled around the fabric, his tones so threadbare she had to lean down to hear. “Devlin ’ad issues with the gent.”
She creased her brow. Devlin, one of the children who’d been hired recently, brought into the club by Ophelia, was of similar age and spirit as Stephen. “Devlin?” she asked, reclaiming her seat.
Stephen offered a jerky nod, confirming she’d heard correctly. A strand tumbled over his small brow, highlighting once more his tender years.
“H-his da owed the nob a hefty sum, an’ ’e took his timepiece as payment. Da ended up ’anging, anyway, and Devlin wants the piece back. To remember his da by.” He scoffed. “Not sure why anyone would want to remember one’s da.” Her own father’s beloved visage slipped forward, and with it a wave of agony and heartbreak so acute it threatened to drag her down. She clung to Stephen’s telling, as it stopped her from wandering down that path of regret and pain. “Devlin was going to do a nick from the gent, and Oi knew Oi could nab it more easily.” Stephen kicked her bottom drawer closed and glowered at her. “And Oi would ’ave if ya ’adn’t showed up.”
Reggie searched his face. He wasn’t being truthful. It had been there in the first syllable of his lengthy explanation.
“Ya going to tell ’im?” Stephen asked hesitantly. When he was never hesitant.
“No.” He perked up in his seat. “You are going to tell him and allow him to get that piece back for Devlin.”
His little shoulders slumped. “Foine.” Ducking his head, he jumped to his feet. “Oi’ll tell him.”
She stood. “When?”
“Later. ’e’s meeting with MacLeod.”
“Now,” she countered.
He folded his arms across his chest. “Mayhap Oi should mention about Black’s girl running around when she’s supposed to be working?” He smiled a frosty grin that raised the gooseflesh on her arms.
He’d cut Clara loose. He’d always been suspicious of the woman who’d come from his rival’s club. “Fine,” she bit out.
KnockKnockKnock.
Broderick possessed a distinct knock.
It wasn’t the slightly hesitant ones by the guards and servants who lived in a perpetual state of hero worship for the proprietor.
But rather a firm, steady, confident thump that demanded a person not tarry.
All the color bled from Stephen’s cheeks. “Are you going to tell him where you found me?” he whispered, his voice barely audible.
KnockKnockKnock.
“Are you going to tell him yourself?” she countered in hushed tones.
He nodded frantically.
“Just a moment,” she called out.
When she opened the door, hazel eyes filled with suspicion sharpened first on Stephen’s face and then on hers.
Ducking under her arm and around his brother, the boy bolted, leaving Reggie alone.
“Broderick,” she said with a forced smile.
He inched an arrogant brow up.
Reggie clutched at the edge of the door, digging her fingers into the panel. “You wish to come in,” she blurted.
“I’d rather not discuss personal matters in the hall,” he drawled, his words a melodious flow with a slightly husked timbre that had even the most jaded woman inside the Devil’s Den sighing and soft-eyed.
Reggie, however, had learned the perilous path a woman might be led down by those euphonious tones long ago and knew better than to go weak-kneed over a man’s voice. Wordlessly, she stepped aside, allowing him entry.
Broderick brushed past, ever formal, ever in command. He laid dominion over every path his boots crossed, including these chambers that she’d called hers for more than ten years.
At first, his presence in the same rooms where she slept had left her mouth dry with fear . . . a dreaded anticipation that he’d at last collect that debt she owed, paid in the form of her flesh.
Until it had become as clear as the freckles on her pale-white face: the last thing he wanted or desired was a romantic entanglement with her.
Regret sat low in her belly.
Not taking her gaze from him, Reggie pushed the door closed.
Broderick worked keen eyes over the rooms. “What was that about?” There was a casualness to his sweep, and yet she knew this man oftentimes better than she knew herself. He touched his razor-sharp gaze on every corner and crevice.
“Nothing.” Venturing over to the long-cold hearth, Reggie gathered her wrinkled cloak up from where it lay strewn and carried it to her armoire. “He was asking after me.” The lie slipped out with an impressive ease. To stymie any further queries, she nodded to the cheroot in his long, elegant fingers. “You are smoking,” she observed, tucking her cloak away. “You only partake in those scraps when you’re troubled.”
Broderick inhaled of that small scrap and exhaled a perfect circle. “I require help.”
Her stomach clenched. It was dire indeed if Broderick, a man who ruled the Dials, asked anyone for assistance. In the more than ten years she’d served in his employ and called him friend, he’d humbled himself but once—to the owners of their rival establishment, no less. But then, in his quest to form connections with the nobles, he’d go to any lengths.
“Gertrude,” she predicted. She drew the doors of the armoire closed with a click. With but one remaining hope of a familial connection between the Killorans and the peerage, all chances would rest upon the eldest and most underestimated of the Killoran girls. As one who’d been viewed in a like manner, Reggie felt a kindred connection to the partially blind woman.