Broderick started.
He hadn’t been tossed out on his arse. It was what he’d expected. Swiftly concealing his surprise, he hurried after the younger man.
Two inches taller than Broderick’s own height and at least ten years his junior, the servant had a fresh-faced innocence that belied the ominous note sent out by the ruthless lord who dwelled here.
But then, perhaps that was what madness did to a person. It drove out the soul and left a twisted version of one’s former self who delighted in another man’s misery.
You are deserving of that hatred . . . and the noose he wants to hang ’round your neck . . .
The soft tread of their footfalls waged war on the thick silence of the household.
As he walked to the meeting that would ultimately decide his fate and his future, Broderick took in his surroundings.
Portrait after portrait was draped in heavy black satin—with the exception of one. The blue enamel and jewel-encrusted frame hung proudly, surrounded on every side of the hall by a sea of black and mourning.
Riveted, Broderick stared at the trio memorialized upon that oil canvas: a plump babe with big cheeks and a wide, dimpled smile. Stephen. He staggered to a halt beside that portrait of his brother as he’d been all those years ago. Nay. His eyes weighted closed. Not his brother. Rather, the marquess’s son, along with the mother and father who’d given him life. The trinity of proud parents and a beloved son had been masterfully captured by the artist. Joy stood still. Frozen. That family insulated from the hell that awaited them. The hell Broderick had wrought.
I have no right to be here . . . I have no right to ask for anything . . .
Broderick glanced back at the path he’d just traveled. And for a flash in time, he contemplated abandoning this meeting. Accepting his fate for what it was.
And yet to do so meant certain ruin for all the men, women, and children dependent upon the Devil’s Den. Cleo and Ophelia now had lives outside of that club which had once been their universe. Gertrude had spent more years caring for the stray animals she’d taken in from the alley than learning the inner workings of the business. Those who’d suffered on the streets would likely fall right back to that empty existence.
“Mr. Killoran?” the butler called out impatiently from the end of the hall.
Broderick forced his feet forward.
At last the butler stopped. Reaching past Broderick, he pressed the handle. “Mr. Killoran,” the young man announced.
Where the marble halls and satin-gilded frames had gleamed from the care shown them, the Marquess of Maddock’s office provided a contrasting disrepair. Stacks of books and ledgers lay sprawled on every surface, from side table to leather sofa.
“Leave us, Quint,” Maddock commanded, his gravelly voice revealing a lack of use.
“As you wish, my lord,” the young man murmured and backed out of the room. He closed the door behind Broderick and his adversary.
Seated upon a King Lion throne chair, the burly gentleman was very much the king of this empire. He made no attempt to rise. Hands steepled at his chin, he studied Broderick from over those ink-stained digits.
Assessing. Watching. Evaluating. Soulless, deadened brown eyes that better belonged in the Dials and not these hallowed Mayfair halls.
Through that scrutiny, Broderick made himself absolutely motionless.
“Broderick Killoran,” the marquess finally murmured, turning his name into a jeer. “Tsk, tsk. I must confess, I’d greater expectations for the most powerful man in the Dials.”
That insult rolled off Broderick. He’d earned enough black eyes and bloodied noses as a hotheaded Irish-born lad new to East London, fighting anyone who’d even dared look at him the incorrect way.
Withdrawing from his jacket the letter that had haunted him since its arrival, he laid it atop a mound of ledgers. “What do you want?”
Lord Maddock dropped his hands, laying them upon the arms of his chair. His obsidian gaze remained locked on Broderick. “What do I want?” A harsh, rasping chuckle shook the other man’s broad frame. “If you’ve not already ascertained just what I want from you, then you’re even stupider than I credited.” His laughter cut off.
This meeting was futile. Everything in Broderick said to leave, but everything he had, and everyone important to him, required he stay. As such, he’d play the mouse to this man’s cat and hope there was a crack from which to slip loose.
“Though it makes sense why you’d come to grovel now,” he taunted, gesturing to the papers laid out at the center of his desk. “The last of your hopes, ruined by a woman you were bedding and a sister who couldn’t make a match.”
Rage snapped through him. He planted his palms on those mounds of ledgers and leaned in. “You may toy with me,” he warned, layering his words in steel. “You may threaten me and eventually see me hang, but leave their names off your lips.”
Lord Maddock again laughed; that taunting, rusty rumble of empty mirth sent heat up Broderick’s neck. “So you care about the lady. It’s all very splendid. You ruined your last hopes for a powerful connection.” He inclined his head, those golden strands an image of Stephen’s. “Take heart—nothing and no one could have saved you.”
Of course this man would believe that was the reason for Broderick’s actions—the desire for noble connections. He’d not see that it was always about putting his family’s future to rights. “I did not give the order for your home to be burnt,” he said quietly.
“My family,” Maddock rasped, surging forward in his chair, the first crack in the man’s otherwise steely facade. “My family was burnt. My wife. My unborn babe.” Little flecks of madness glimmered in the tortured marquess’s eyes. And Broderick’s insides twisted. The man he’d given his allegiance to was to blame, but Broderick had supported him. “My son was taken from me,” the marquess said flatly.
“I had no knowledge of your son’s kidnapping.” But he’d given the orders all the same. His ownership of that vile deed came from that command.
Maddock went on as though Broderick hadn’t spoken. “And then you’d attempt to foist one of Diggory’s bastards off on me.” He slammed his fist onto his desk. Several piles of ledgers tumbled over the edge and landed with a noisy thwack. Flecks of dust danced around the air. The marquess peeled his lips in a sneer that heightened the harshness of his features. And then he settled back in his throne chair, shifting back and forth on that seat, bent on reining in that show of emotion. “This past week, while you raced about London trying to find your sister a husband and yourself a way out of your eventual fate, I’ve sat here.” He spread his arms wide. “Waiting. Reveling in the moment. Because checkmate was declared long ago. But you?” He quirked one eyebrow, continually taunting. Baiting. “You still believed there was a way out. You thought you might find a lord in London who’d intervene on your behalf when I eventually came to collect.”
It was an unfamiliar place to be for Broderick. On the opposite end. With someone else pulling the strings of one’s life. There was a hopelessness here. A bleak desolation that came in discovering how powerless one truly was.
And this was how so many other men had felt . . . with Broderick at the other end of power. He should leave. There was nothing to say. No begging, pleading, or reasoning that would halt what this man, mad for the losses he’d suffered, intended. And yet he forced himself to stand there because he’d tired of running from him. “I thought perhaps peace might be possible.”