While Clara sat quietly sipping her tea, Reggie let her pencil fly over the page. The click-click-click of the tip striking the table was soothing.
For in this, there was something she’d been without, something she so desperately yearned for: control.
“How did he react?”
“You know,” she muttered, blowing back a bothersome curl that fell over her brow. “He charged us one thousand pounds more.” A factor which Clara had taken far better than she should have. In fact, she’d displayed no outward anger or upset with Reggie . . . which had only magnified Reggie’s tremendous guilt. “And severed my employment as his assistant.” Which was bloody fine, as she’d rather walk the long trek to London Bridge again without a pence to her name than ever serve on his staff.
A hand covered hers, and she started, glancing from Clara’s palm to the other woman’s eyes. “That is not what I meant.”
“He . . .” Reggie absently picked up the porcelain chamberstick at the middle of the table. The flame danced back and forth, wafting a faint cloud of smoke toward the ceiling. She trailed the tip of her finger between the outstretched hands of the courting couple, the look of longing that passed between them expertly crafted even in cold stone. Feeling the other woman’s eyes on her, Reggie set it down. “He was angry. He accused me of betraying him. And . . .” Hurt. There had been the flash of that vulnerability in his gaze, too. Reggie chewed at her lower lip. Whatever warmth he’d once felt for her was gone. And it was better this way . . . for now she could hang up the false hope she’d carried in her heart.
“And?” Clara pressed, leaning forward in her seat.
She shook her head, unwilling to share that intimate hint of vulnerability. “And he made it clear that I’d been stripped of my role and previous duties within the family.” Her heart twisted. Not wanting to reveal her weakness for a man undeserving of her pain, she returned her attention to the last column.
“Reggie?”
She hesitated, then lifted her head.
“You are better off.”
“I know that,” she said automatically.
“No, you don’t,” her friend gently corrected. Again, she stretched a palm out, covering Reggie’s. “But someday, after you say it enough and gain your freedom, then you’ll finally realize it.”
Disquieted at how easily Clara had read the lie within her words, Reggie cleared her throat, steering them to more neutral topics. “I don’t know how to make up the one thousand pounds.” She’d always been proficient with numbers, but it would take the maneuverings of a damned wizard to snip enough here and there to account for all that Broderick insisted on taking.
Setting down her cup, Clara was immediately all business. “The liquor distribution?”
She shook her head. “At best, I can find us one hundred pounds there.” Nor would the amount cover the cost of the account over the course of the year.
“We can water it down?” Clara’s suggestion came with the ease of one not unfamiliar with the practice.
A sigh of exasperation escaped her. “I don’t want us to be that manner of establishment.” One where cheap spirits were to be expected and the patrons catered to were the manner of men too drunk to even notice or care about the watered-down claret.
“We can cut it altogether?”
Reggie tossed her pencil down, and it rolled off those damning records. “We can’t. Not truly. Not if we wish to . . .” Compete.
She winced. For her and Clara’s hall would have always posed as competition, and whether or not he feared that as he’d mocked, the truth was, setting their business not even three streets away had been . . . wrong. Desperate, but wrong.
Reggie stared down at the most troubling sheet. “We’ll have to cut staff,” she said reluctantly, turning the page over to the other woman.
Wordlessly, Clara traded her teacup for that paper. Reggie watched as her eyes flew over the numbers and names written there. Clara sighed. “It’s hardly promising to cut staff before we even have a staff . . . or a business.”
“Yes.” Every shilling had been carefully accounted for. From servants to performers to the construction of the music hall, Reggie and Clara had divided the monies to fund each expense. They, however, weren’t like the Broderick Killorans or Ryker Blacks of the world. Each pence mattered, and the slightest increase in their expenditures was the difference between surviving . . . or floundering.
“Or . . .” Clara left that single word dangling there.
“What?” Reggie pressed when the other woman didn’t complete that thought.
Clara spoke in hushed tones. “I know you want to create something that hasn’t been done—”
“No,” Reggie interrupted before Clara had finished speaking.
“And someday mayhap when we find our feet we can establish your music hall, but we’ve no choice but to build a saloon . . . or a bordell—”
“I said, no.” Reggie spoke sharply, finally silencing the other woman. She searched her mind. How could she make Clara understand? Reggie dragged her chair closer. “This was never about just simply setting up our own club.”
Clara stared back, a gaze hardened by life and betrayal. “This is because of Broderick Killoran.”
“It is not,” she shot back. She gripped her pencil hard. With your brains and talent, poppet, you can do anything you want in this world . . . Her father’s brogue rolled around her mind. “It is about beginning again, and allowing other women that same gift, but while using their real talents and not their bodies.” Sensing Clara was wavering, she reached over and covered her hand. “What did you say when I first spoke to you?”
The former madam stared down at her painted nails. “I once loved music, too,” she whispered, almost grudgingly.
Reggie nodded enthusiastically. It had been a connection they’d bonded over in that late-night talk. “We talked about how our happiest moments had been over song.”
She released Clara’s hand and dropped her forehead into the charcoal-stained palm. And now, Reggie’s history threatened the dream they’d shared. “This is my fault.”
“Do not say that,” Clara said sharply.
“But it is.” Reggie swept to her feet and began to pace. “Because of my relationship with Broderick, you’ve become embroiled in this . . . this . . .”
“Tangle?” the other woman supplied without inflection.
“Precisely,” she muttered, increasing her strides. The rapid whoosh of her skirts tossed one of the pages she’d been working on to the floor. “And I cannot fix this. I cannot afford the builder or even the damned pianoforte.” A half laugh, half sob climbed up her throat, and she came to an abrupt stop. “A damned music hall . . . without any music.” Covering her eyes, she gave her head a frustrated shake.
“Listen to me,” Clara demanded in the sharp tones used for breaking up fights between gaming hell patrons who’d taken a fancy to the same girl. “We will make this work. A music hall. Not a bordello.” Reggie reluctantly let her arms fall to her side. A sharp glint lit the other woman’s eyes. “I would not even have dreamed of a way outside the life I was living if it hadn’t been for you. So do not take the blame for this. We will find a way because to fail . . .” She shook her head once. “I’ve failed before, and that is no longer an option for me, for either of us. You’ll suffer through your time with the blighter, and then you’ll be free of him.”
Be free of him.
That dangled promise should entice.
And yet . . .
Her throat worked.
Clara took her hands and gave them a light squeeze. “I know,” she said softly. She blushed and swiftly released Reggie’s fingers as if she were uncomfortable with that show of warmth. “Now”—she gripped the chair Reggie had vacated and thumped its legs on the floor—“let us look again at those papers you’ve been working on all day. And then you need to return before he finds you missing.”