Gus picked his striped feline head up.
“Oh, yes. He will certainly never do,” Gertrude murmured, patting that damned cat reassuringly.
Broderick dug his fingertips against his temples and rubbed. He’d erroneously believed he’d secured her assent and that would be enough. Yet, again he’d proven himself two steps behind the minx. “You’ve quite made your point.”
With an arrogant toss of her head, she returned the note to Gertrude . . . who promptly crumpled it.
She tossed it on the floor of the carriage just as it rocked to a slow halt outside a white stucco townhouse awash in candlelight.
A servant drew the door open and helped hand Gertrude down. Reggie made to follow, but Broderick called out, staying her.
“Miss Spark?”
She stared back.
“I see I’ve not been clear where your duties are concerned. Before we go, I think it important to go over some essential details about your altered role within my family.” If that intended jab hurt, the spitfire across from him gave not so much as a hint of it. She held his gaze, her own unreadable and stony in ways it had never been. Disconcerted, he hurried to right his thoughts. “I’ll not have you insert your opinions on matters as they pertain to my brother and sisters. And certainly not when you undermine their safety and security.” Passion blazed to life in her gaze. “Nor will I be challenged at every turn by you.” Dropping his hands on his knees, he leaned across the carriage. “Have I made myself clear?”
“Abundantly so,” she said, enunciating each of those five syllables. “Now let me be clear.” He stiffened. “You may have forced me into this task I did not want. You may have cut me from the fabric of your family as though I’ve been nothing but a servant.”
God, she was breathtaking in her fury. With the bright splashes of color that suffused her creamy-white cheeks and the depth of fire in her eyes, he was torn between going to battle with her and taking her in his arms.
Bloody hell. I’m a damned cad, lusting after a woman I forced into the role of companion for my sister. And yet, through that guilt, a powerful hungering for Reggie held him ensnared.
“I’ll not be made to feel guilty for reassigning your role within my staff and household, Reggie,” he purred. Her betrayal had given him every reason to doubt her and strip her of her role of once valued confidante.
Reggie leaned close, closer still, until he could make out every last, endearing freckle on her flushed face. “Do not think I’m here to serve as a silent companion. I’ll protect her from the bounders you’d name as potential husbands for her, and I’ll protect her from you.”
Any other moment that biting insult would have commanded all his focus. Not this time. Not with this woman. His gaze dipped lower. Reggie’s shoulders rose and fell rapidly with the force of the breaths she drew. His eyes went lower, and lower still, to the creamy swells of her breasts. When he again met her stare, there was a guardedness to her features.
He caressed a finger warningly down the curve of her cheek. Her breath caught, and he reveled in the evidence of her shared awareness. “Do not ever question my ability to care for my siblings.” He wrapped that warning in a husky murmur.
Reggie caught his wrist and drew his hand back, and yet she still made no move to release him. “I’ll strike a deal with you. I’ll stop questioning your capabilities as a loyal brother when you give me reason to.”
And with that cheeky vow, Reggie yanked her hands back, grabbed the edges of the carriage, and leapt down without assistance.
From where he sat, he stared after her quickly retreating figure. She walked with long, unapologetic strides, and yet there was a grace to those steps that carried her quickly across the pavement.
With a growl, Broderick adjusted his cravat.
His sister’s cat stretched out on the now abandoned bench, settling himself into the red velvet squabs.
“Oh, hush. You don’t know anything about it,” he muttered.
The creature stared back with a taunting expression.
Now I’ve been reduced to conversing with a damned cat.
Giving his head a hard shake, Broderick jumped down and prepared for the Killorans’ formal entry into Polite Society.
Chapter 17
You have many enemies. I’m not the only one. I am, however, the only one who will see you destroyed . . .
Reggie had suffered through all number of hells.
There had been the day she’d been caught in a compromising position in the Duke and Duchess of Glastonbury’s country estate with the noble couple’s son, Lord Oliver. And then on the immediate heels of that, her and Oliver’s hasty flight to London, where they’d intended to begin again as husband and wife.
Then there had been the night she’d discovered the depth of his depravity and callousness.
The loss of her invisibility, however, proved the greatest lesson in torture.
The Duke and Duchess of Somerset’s distinguished guests openly gawked at Reggie. She could feel their eyes on her from her seat on the sidelines of the ballroom. Yes, this was its own special kind of hell.
Seated alongside a handful of other companions, Reggie stared out, deliberately ignoring Lord Cavendish, who’d taken up a seat beside her.
All in the guise of joining his sister and her companion.
And if Reggie hadn’t had her innocence quashed by another rake years earlier, she might have believed there were some devoted brothers amongst the ranks of nobility.
Alas, working as she did inside a gaming hell, Reggie had observed a different side of that very earl. He was frequently drunk, and he preferred to avail himself of the charms of whores—often several of them at the same time. And then he tried to seduce those same women when Broderick ended prostitution inside the clubs. No, she was wise enough to never be fooled by a cad’s seeming brotherly devotion.
Just then, that devoted brother pressed his thigh hard against hers.
She gritted her teeth and drew away from that bold touch.
The lords of London had been content not questioning her honor within the Devil’s Den, but the rules of respect all changed when she stepped outside that world. Every last patron knew she was neither lady nor proclaimed sister to Broderick. As such, the protections she’d enjoyed in the club ceased.
Of its own volition, her gaze wandered the room, searching, searching . . . and through the dancers performing the intricate steps of a country reel, she found him.
The one good man amongst them. Not a gentleman by rank but honorable in all the ways that most mattered.
Broderick spoke with Gertrude, Ophelia, and Connor, and together they presented a loyal family front, as at ease and in command here as they were at the Devil’s Den. With a glass of champagne dangling between his elegant fingers, by all intents and purposes Broderick very much belonged to this glittering world. She smiled wistfully. That was Broderick, though. Where mere mortals such as Reggie knew their place in the order of society, Broderick inserted himself where he would and took that place as his right.
He didn’t flinch under the focus paid him but rather took it as his due.
But then, why should he not? Every last lady present devoured him with her eyes. From fresh-faced debutantes in blinding-white skirts to the protective mamas at their sides, each woman clamored for a hint of his attention. She wrinkled her nose. Why, even London’s leading lords—some members of the club, most not—courted his favor.
As if he sensed her gaze, Broderick found her over the heads of the other guests.