Gertrude looked as though she’d fight him on that order, but then snapping her skirts, she marched off to the other carriage. And that she believed his lie was just further proof of how different Gertrude was from the rest of them.
Broderick drew the door open and waited. Reggie cast one last look back inside the club before joining him.
“Miss Spark,” he greeted with a cool formality, needing to erect barriers between them. The folly of trusting too deeply was one he should have learned firsthand from his own father’s treachery against the one who’d been kindest to them.
He held a hand out to assist her up. Reggie brushed by him and, gripping the sides of the doorway, drew herself inside.
Broderick hesitated before following behind. Doffing his hat, he tossed it down on the empty place beside him. He’d had enough of this. He was not in the wrong here, and he’d be damned if she’d make him out to be the villain.
The servant closed the door behind them.
A moment later the carriage sprang into motion, for the first time leading him away from his club to another residence, albeit a temporary one. And yet, as they rolled through the streets of the Dials, a melancholy filled him.
Quashing that pathetic, mewling sentiment, he reached inside his jacket. “Here,” he said gruffly, extending a sheet toward her.
Reggie stared at it a moment and then accepted it with stiff fingers.
“I thought I might use this time to review your commitments for the coming weeks,” he explained as she unfolded the page and read. “Your services are required for the following events. I’ve secured invitations”—with Cleo and Ophelia’s assistance—“to an array of ton functions. Balls, soirees, trips to the theatre, and other affairs. I’ll also be hosting a small gathering. In addition, you’re to accompany her to the modiste to be fitted for new gowns.”
He saw her eyes moving over that page, methodically taking in the schedule.
“Per our agreement, any days where Gertrude does not have an obligation and doesn’t require a chaperone, you’ll be free to go about your affairs.”
Infuriatingly calm, Reggie folded the page and tucked it inside her pocket. “And . . . have you shared with your siblings . . .”
“Your betrayal?” he supplied for her. It was a mark to her strength that she didn’t so much as flinch, and it merely increased his damned appreciation for her, and annoyance with himself for admiring her. “They’ll all be informed soon enough.”
“They won’t want me near, Broderick,” she said quietly.
“Undoubtedly. But they’ll still see we need to keep you close.”
Her throat muscles worked. “And there is nothing I can say to make you see reason?”
“Our terms are set, Miss Spark.”
With all the aplomb of a queen, Reggie presented her shoulder, dismissing him.
From the corner of his eye, he stole a peek at the woman. Taller than most men, she’d still managed to make herself somehow small, pressed as she was against the far corner. Pointedly ignoring him was what she was doing.
Refusing to let that rankle, Broderick yanked open his window curtain and stared out.
Several raindrops pinged the window.
“Bloody marvelous,” he muttered.
Thick grey clouds hung heavy overhead, rolling by at an interminable pace that mocked him for his notice.
It was a silly, nonsensical detail for a man who’d clawed his way from the gutters and claimed the throne of the king of the underworld to notice.
It was unfortunately, however, a telling part of himself he’d been unable to leave behind since he and his father had set out from Cheshire atop a stolen mount in the dead of night.
And it was an ominous sign that in his journey back into that world of respectability, the same thick clouds of gloom should greet him.
“Rain washes away one’s sorrows.”
Broderick stared at his visage reflected back in the window, for a moment believing he’d imagined that hushed murmur.
He faced Reggie.
Letting the brocade curtain slip from her fingers and flutter into place, she turned reluctantly back. “My father used to tell me that rain washes away the sorrow because it represents life and new beginnings.”
It was the first she’d ever mentioned her family. As part of that unspoken code of the streets, he’d never pried, and she’d never shared. Now . . . the questions he’d carried but eventually buried about the woman before him rose once more: Who was Regina Spark? Or rather, who had she been before he’d come upon her at London Bridge all those years ago?
The answer of course didn’t really matter. Soon she’d be gone, and with her, her secrets and story.
Liar. You’ll miss the damned chit.
At his silence, her stare lingered on his face. “You always hated the rain.”
His body stiffened.
A wistful smile brought her lips up at the corners. “You curse whenever it starts.”
It was just one more glaring way in which he’d let his guard down around her. Unnerved by that truth, he returned his focus to the passing streets, grateful fifteen minutes later when they at last arrived. He grabbed his hat in one hand.
The carriage hadn’t even rocked to a full stop when Broderick shoved the door open and jumped out.
Servants immediately came rushing from the brick-finished townhouse.
A flash of lightning streaked across the sky, briefly turning the grey sky bluish-purple. Placing his hat on, he did a sweep of the Mayfair streets and this new place that would serve as a temporary home.
From within the panes of the neighboring windows, lords, ladies, and servants all stood with their noses pressed to the glass panels.
This was to be what followed them wherever they went. He’d accepted the Killorans would be an oddity but had trusted that strangeness would work as an advantage for Gertrude in the attention they’d receive.
Now, as Gertrude and Stephen disembarked and filed in, huddling close, matching steps with one another, he saw before him that which he’d not considered—the unease they would feel in this foreign world.
The intermittent drizzle gave way to a steady, pounding rain.
At long last Reggie ducked her head outside.
She hovered in the carriage door, gripping the edges with a white-knuckled death grip that drew his attention to her callused, ink-stained hands and chipped nails.
They were the hands of a woman unashamed to work, and yet he frowned . . . she’d deserved more than those coarse palms.
As the wind kicked up its fury, it became increasingly clear the woman frozen at the entrance of the carriage had no intention of accepting the hand of the waiting footman.
Quitting his spot, Broderick returned to the carriage. “I understand your affinity for the rain, madam; however, I’d rather we continue on inside.”
His presence seemed to jerk her from whatever momentary fog had gripped her. She blinked wildly. “Of course,” she blurted, and accepted his hand, allowing him to help her down.
They continued on ahead, the people still pressed against those windows, until Broderick and Reggie disappeared inside.
Chapter 12
Your time is nearly up . . .
She’d been summoned.
Only this summons was nothing like the ones that had come before in Reggie’s ten-year tenure with the Killoran family.
It had been issued not in the Devil’s Den, where she’d resided for years now, but rather in Reggie’s new home.
With Reggie in a different role.
Nerrie followed close at her side, a hand on his waist, in the ready position for a fight.
“I assure you, I don’t intend to make off with Mr. Killoran’s silverware,” she said in a bid to break the tension.
He gave her a regretful look. Of course. His employer had spoken, and whatever orders he’d given Nerrie and the other guards had erased any niceties from his staff and left Reggie . . . alone, once more.
She firmed her jaw. Very well. So she’d been cut out of the Killoran clan in every way. She’d been alone before him, and she’d be without him and his people after. Under no circumstances, however, would she make apologies for defending herself or Gertrude.
After an interminable march through this labyrinth of a home, they reached a pretty arched ivory doorway.