She’d twined her long, graceful fingers around his neck and urged him on with her hands and breathy moans.
And God help him, had it not been for the crack of porcelain and the shock of Stephen’s arrival, Broderick wouldn’t have stopped. He’d have shoved her skirts higher, and laid himself between warm, welcoming thighs, and—
He groaned as the same nagging lust that had haunted him since last night reared itself. It was a mocking reminder on this most important of nights of the vileness of his father’s blood that ran through his veins.
“Is there a problem, sir?” His valet paused, Broderick’s sapphire tailcoat held in the young man’s gloved fingers.
“No problem,” he muttered, gathering the garment. Broderick shrugged into it, shoving his arms through each sleeve with such force the servant winced. He held a hand out for the satin cravat.
The man hesitated and then turned the article over.
“Have the carriage called for, and find out whether my sister and her companion”—the minx who’d stolen into his thoughts—“are ready.”
“As you wish.” With a bow, the servant let himself out.
Staring at his reflection in the beveled mirror, Broderick drew the cravat around his neck and, holding the smaller end of the fabric, folded the longer end around three times. As he went through the familiar movements, his mind remained stuck precisely where it had been since last evening.
Which was, of course, madness. His future, his very life, his family—all were one moment away from being torn asunder . . . And yet Reggie retained that maniacal hold upon his thoughts.
He smoothed the satin as he went and then tugged it up through the knot, flattening it out.
Broderick paused.
Nay, it wasn’t just Reggie. Rather, it was that he’d secretly been relying upon her to be there for his family when he no longer could or would be. He’d given her his trust and been reminded all over again that people were as selfish as his late father had proven himself to be.
But bloody hell . . . He’d expected more from her. He’d wanted her to be that woman, loyal and honorable in every way.
Throughout the years he’d served as Diggory’s right hand, and then even after his murder, attention had been paid to Broderick’s relationship with Reggie. His Seven Dials mentor had always assumed he’d been bedding Reggie. Because, of course, in the most dangerous streets of East London, how else could Diggory or anyone else have accounted for Broderick’s acceptance of her?
She’d been too tall to steal and too genteel to ever truly thrive in a world where thieves, killers, and sinners ruled.
Broderick had been content to allow them their opinions as it kept her safe and secure in her role within the Diggory gang when any other woman would have been tossed out on her buttocks, forced to fend for herself.
All along, Reggie had been like a mother to his siblings. She’d been a confidante. And she’d been a friend. She’d been a friend long before she’d been an enemy, but a friend all the same. And noble friends and respectable employers didn’t go dragging skirts about the waists of those women and stepping between their legs.
He finished knotting his cravat, absently inspecting his efforts.
And yet, for the shame of what he’d done . . . of the path he’d certainly have continued on had it not been for those timely interruptions, he remained fixed on one single statement that had fallen from Reggie’s lips as an assurance:
Broderick, it was just a kiss . . . It was certainly not the first I’ve had.
There had been another man who’d known that pleasure; it had been there in the assurances she’d given when guilt had raged over the liberties he’d taken, and also in the unbridled passion of her embrace.
Some man had made kisses casual to her.
And for reasons he didn’t care to think overly long on, that realization sent a primal bloodlust pumping through his veins. A need to find the one who’d claimed that gift and made an enthralling Reggie Spark unconcernedly state that it was just a kiss. And with that same insouciance, bury his fist into that bounder’s face over and over.
And some other man will be there when Maddock ends this game and you are gone. An unexpected jealousy slithered around his insides, along with something else: regret. For his own mortality and the realization that life . . . would continue on without him.
The door opened, and his valet entered, interrupting his maudlin thoughts.
“The carriage is readied, and I’ve been informed that Miss Killoran and her companion will be downstairs shortly.”
“That will be all,” he said distractedly. “Please inform my sister I’ll be along shortly.” With a nod, the servant rushed off.
Broderick waited, and then he withdrew from his jacket the note that portended his inevitable doom: Maddock’s pledge to take Broderick apart.
He stared at the inked words, long memorized.
What the marquess, his siblings, Reggie . . . no one knew was that Broderick had accepted his fate—for himself. He’d built an empire from next to nothing, but he was not one to delude himself into thinking he could escape anything.
Cleo and Ophelia were settled. It was the rest who needed to be put to rights: Gertrude, Stephen, his staff at the Devil’s Den.
And this evening represented the great hope for all of them.
Broderick tightened his fingers; the page crumpled in his grip. He forced himself to relax his hands and then returned the note to his jacket.
This is where his energies should be solely focused. Not on Regina Spark and his dangerous awareness of her as a woman . . . but rather on the one who sought to destroy not only Broderick . . . but through him also his family, his club, and all those dependent upon him.
Fueled with that purpose, a short while later, Broderick joined his sister . . . his sister with a cat in her arms, and absent one companion. He did a quick sweep, and a rush of disappointment filled him at finding her gone. And why do I want to see her? On the heels of that was the still-fresh reminder of her recent jaunt through the streets of London. “Where in blazes is she?” he demanded as he strode down the stairs.
“Oh, hush, you’ve only just arrived,” Gertrude said impatiently.
His sister would safely assume that query came from a place of suspicion. Avoiding her gaze, he looked to Nerrie, who served as a sentry at the doorway. “We’re certain she’s accounted for?”
“She is,” he assured. “I’ve men outside the servants’ stairways.” This time. That hint of his failure hung on the other man’s pronouncement. Mentored and trained under MacLeod’s tutelage, the young, wiry guard had shown all the makings of the most skilled guards on his staff, and as such, after Reggie’s flight yesterday, Broderick had set him up as head of security in his new household. The younger man glanced up the winding staircase. “I’ve guards outside her window, and another outside her door. The seamstresses are here, still.”
“Thank you, Nerrie,” he said. Yanking out his watch fob, he consulted the timepiece.
His sister stroked the top of her cat’s head. “You never did say what happened with Reggie yesterday,” Gertrude quietly pointed out.
No, he hadn’t. And largely because speaking of Reggie in any way, after an embrace that had seared itself on his memory, had seemed a faulty venture. Broderick stuffed the gold chain back inside his jacket. “She returned to the Devil’s Den to work on preparations for her club, and I took the time to explain my expectations for her as long as she serves on our staff.”