“Yeah?” Stephen folded his arms. “What is she, then?”
That brought him up short. “Well . . .” He’d never given a specific title to her role within their household and family. Most of the staff referred to her as his assistant. She was, and always had been, just . . . Reggie. “She oversees the books and accounting whenever I require it.” That task was one he hadn’t and never would entrust to a single person outside of him or his immediate family. But it had also been about more than that. Having her—the one person unafraid of him who’d speak candidly and also manage to freely smile—at his side made his life . . . enjoyable.
“So she’s a bookkeeper,” Stephen stated flatly, thankfully freeing Broderick from his confused ponderings.
“No.” His brow pulled. “Well, on occasion, when I require her to fill that role.”
Stephen stared at him like he’d sprouted three heads. “You aren’t making much sense.”
“She’s everything I need her to be in a given moment,” he settled on. For that was precisely what Reggie had been over the years. Whenever he required assistance with the club or his family, Reggie had unfailingly seen to either . . . and oftentimes both at the same time. He set his glass down. “She’s cared after you and your sisters for years now.” As such, she was deserving of far more than Stephen’s vitriol.
“She’s a governess, then.” Stephen spat again. “I caught her following me. I don’t need no nursemaid looking after me.”
“Stop spitting on my floor,” Broderick muttered. “Furthermore, she’s not a governess. If you stop sneaking off, you’ll not give her reason to follow after you.” He rubbed at the ache at the center of his forehead. “She’ll be Gertrude’s companion . . .” Now it was just a matter of bringing Reggie around. Bloody hell, she’d chosen the wrong time to discover she was as stubborn as any damned Killoran. Broderick took another drink.
“She said no.”
“So you heard that,” Broderick stated.
“No. I guessed and you confirmed.”
Bloody hell, the boy was clever. Finishing off his drink, Broderick crossed over to his liquor cabinet. That was what accounted for Stephen’s sudden antipathy toward Reggie. Unflinchingly loyal, if one even glanced wrong at the Killorans, the boy would proclaim that unfortunate soul a forever enemy. “She said no,” he confirmed. He forced a smile. “But when have I ever accepted those words as any kind of fact?” People, actions, moments, could all be bent and twisted until capitulation was granted, and a no transformed into that far preferable, always agreeable, other one-syllable word, yes.
His grin went unanswered. “Not as loyal as you took her for, then.”
Fetching a bottle and snifter, he carried them over to his seat and took a position at the head of the office. He uncorked the bottle and, tossing down the stoppard, poured himself a drink. “I would remind you,” he pointed out, the stream of liquid hitting crystal punctuating his words, “that you have been of a like opinion as Reggie on the topic of the peerage.”
Stephen blanched. “Oi ain’t nothing like her. An’ Oi’ll be damned if she comes with us to the fancy end of London.”
Abandoning his negligent pose, Broderick sat forward in his chair. “Do you have something to say, Stephen?” He’d schooled each of his siblings. They knew better than to dance about issues with veiled innuendos as his brother now did.
“Ya’ve been careless with her.” With that cryptic pronouncement, he reached inside his jacket and pulled out several folded sheets. He shoved them across Broderick’s desk. “It’s fortunate for ya that Oi’m here.”
Broderick worked his gaze over those pages that contained name after name of members of his staff. He froze.
What in blazes is this? “How . . . what . . . ?” Broderick tried to make both thoughts and words make sense.
“How did I get them? Easy enough taking anything from Spark. I made up some fake, sad story to distract her, and filched those.”
God, no. Numb, Broderick shook his head. Impossible.
“Oh, and if you need me to tell ya what they are . . .” Broderick didn’t. He knew. He bloody well knew. His brother went on with entirely too much glee. “That’s wot betrayal looks loike.” Stephen spat on the floor, and this time Broderick let that gross offense go.
Jerking his gaze back to the numbers and tabulations on the sheet, he examined them. The computations included details about the purchase price of a building, along with calculations for monthly liquor expenses and tobacco ones. All figures that used Broderick’s own vetted vendors and their prices.
Why . . . she intended to establish her own club . . . and just three streets away. The wind knocked out of him, Broderick sank back in his seat. And here he’d found himself waxing on in his mind about her as a woman who’d never leave the people she loved unprotected, while all along she’d intended this. Pain slapped at his senses and consumed all logic. He should have learned at his own father’s hand the inherent foolishness in trusting that there were selfless people who put the welfare of others first.
She’d not only gone behind his back, gathering up vendors and suppliers based on her time here, but also planned on stealing his staff away and hitting his bottom line.
His jaw tightened. Nor had she intended to take just any of his staff. Rather she’d sought to steal the most productive, reliable women who’d developed a following within the club, who kept most noblemen coming back each night. God, what a fool he’d been. He’d crafted a plan that included her as a key part of it, to protect his family and staff. Was there no one whom he could truly trust?
Snapping open the next page, he went still.
“MacLeod,” he gritted out. She’d intended to steal out from under his nose not only the leading women staff members at the Devil’s Den but also his head guard. Fighting the red haze of fury threatening to engulf him at this, a betrayal from a woman he’d called friend and confidante over the years, he drew in a deep breath. “When did you get these?”
Stephen shrugged. “Not long ago. She was talking with Winters.”
Again, Clara Winters. He seethed. He should have known better than to bring in Ryker Black’s former madam. Fixing on his rage with Clara was a good deal safer than making sense out of Reggie’s defection.
Why? Why?
“Ya need to get rid of her,” his brother counseled. “Nothing else to it.”
Yes, he did. To be deceived once and then keep that perpetrator in one’s fold marked one not only as weak but also as a fool just moments away from the next betrayal.
But this was Reggie. Surely there was more to understand here? More to explain why, despite the role he’d afforded her in this club and their relationship that went back ten years now, she would carry out that treachery.
I would have helped her . . . I would have given her guidance had she wished it, and . . .
Except would he have? Would he have truly given his blessing for her to create a rival establishment? Certainly never in the same streets. They’d have only ever been in competition, and he might respect Reggie, like her, even, but that relationship would never supersede his business here.
Broderick stared into the amber contents of his drink.
Nay, if he were being honest, he could admit, at least to himself, that he wouldn’t have allowed or encouraged the venture. He would have crushed it. Which was likely why she’d gone about it in secret, keeping the truth from him. All the while stealing his suppliers and securing better rates for herself, if the numbers were any indication, and taking his staff and—
Broderick tossed back a long swallow, welcoming the fiery trail it blazed.
“Oh, Christ,” he whispered, as a slow dawning horror seeped into his fury-laden mind. A wave of cold swept over him. With fingers that shook, Broderick set his glass down and clasped his fingers before him to hide their tremble from the boy who sat on, silently observing him in his tumult.
He’d revealed . . . all to her.