He shrugged. “I don’t know that he ever discovered that.”
“Well, then he should have.” Her voice climbed. “He should have. That is what you do when you love someone. You find them. You help them. You support them. You don’t let them suffer through life on their own.” Hatred sang through her veins on behalf of the boy who’d been failed by so many. A sound of disgust escaped her. “You make him out to be far more than he is. An honorable gentleman doesn’t punish a child for the sins of his father.” Whereas Reggie . . . her dark deeds were her own. There was no one else with whom blame could be placed. She owned her decisions. Every bad last one of them. “Oh, Broderick. What you could never see was that you didn’t need a link to the nobility. You have always been noble”—she touched her fingertips to his chest—“for who you are in here.”
A faint grin ghosted his lips. “In the end, none of it mattered.”
None of it mattered.
Her heart buckled and threatened to take her down from the pain of his resignation.
Those latter four words contained the finality of death he spoke of. Covering her face with her palms, Reggie concentrated on breathing. He, the all-powerful proprietor of the Devil’s Den, had faced—and defeated—the most ruthless souls in the Dials. He’d plucked the hopeless like Reggie from the streets and helped restore her spirit. From his strength she’d found her own. And now . . . he’d simply given up?
No.
He’d accepted the outcome with the marquess as the end.
On the heels of the misery threatening to pull her under, there was something more. Something safer.
Fury churned low in her belly and spread through her veins. Reggie took a step away from him. “How dare you?”
“I don’t . . .” He stared quizzically at her. “What . . . ?”
“You.” She slashed a hand in his direction. “You’ve inspired men, women, and children who had nothing, not even hope, to survive.” Herself included. “To live at all costs. And then you’ll simply give up.” Her voice pitched to the ceiling.
A muscle jumped in his jaw. “I’ve not given up.”
Another person who’d known him less, who hadn’t seen the tenderness he was capable of, would have balked at the frosty warning that went unspoken in his words.
“Bah. That is precisely what you’ve done, Broderick. Precisely,” she hissed.
“You don’t know a thing about it.” He took a step past her.
He was leaving? By God, he’d not walk away from this. Reggie rushed over, planting herself in front of him and ending that unlikeliest of retreats. “I know everything about it, Broderick. My struggles are not yours.” She implored him with her eyes and words to understand. “But I know what it is to feel there is no way out—”
Broderick took her suddenly by the shoulders, wringing a gasp from her. “Because there is not,” he cried. He squeezed her lightly. “What I face isn’t a threat that can be conquered. It is a father wronged who’d see me hanged, and rightfully so.”
Jerking his hands back, he flexed his fingers as if burnt by that touch. That crack in his composure chased away her anger.
And at last, she saw. “You blame yourself.”
“It is my fault.”
“It was a mistake,” she said, not missing a beat.
The muscles of his throat jumped. “Stephen lost the life he was entitled to and was forced into a life of crime because of me.”
“No.” Reggie shook her head, needing him to see. “What you sought from Walsh was an orphan. A child in need. On his own. That is what you requested, Broderick.” She stepped even closer until she was eye to eye with him. “Because for this ruthless image you’ve built for yourself, there has always been a goodness in you.” Reggie pressed her palms to the place where his heart beat, steady and fast. A man very much alive. “Your father gave up,” she said softly, and under her palms, the corded muscles of his chest moved. “That is not you, Broderick. You are not one to accept any kind of defeat.” She held his gaze with her own. “Not even this.”
He dusted his knuckles along her cheek. “I coerced you into accompanying Gertrude. I bought your club out from under you. I’m not deserving of your loyalty.”
Poor Broderick. Still believing in absolutes. “It wasn’t . . . isn’t a club,” she said with a forced lightness she didn’t feel. Reggie let her smile fade. “We were friends longer than we were enemies.”
Broderick lowered his brow to hers. The sough of his breath fanned her lips, the hint of tobacco that still clung to him tickling her senses. “Is that what we are? Enemies?”
If she angled her mouth ever so slightly, it would meet his, and she wanted to again know his kiss. “I don’t know what we are anymore, Broderick,” she said softly, reality intruding with her words. He was the one who’d set the new terms of their relationship. Why should he care if they were in fact enemies? “Does it matter either way?” To you? To her it did. She yearned for his friendship. Pathetic fool that she was, she’d take whatever scraps he’d give her.
“It does.” He continued to brush his knuckles along her jaw in a too-fleeting caress. “I don’t want my siblings living in the Dials.” He paused. “And I don’t want you living there, either.”
He was done, then, talking about his future. The decisive end to that discourse was there in his eyes and his tone and his abrupt shift in topic.
Unbidden, her gaze fell to the stacks of sheet music, and she stared at the notes inked from memory. Incomplete but whole inside her mind. “There’s no other place for me.” She’d left home and the family who had loved her, visiting upon them nothing but shame and scandal. There was no returning after that.
She bit the inside of her cheek. Damning him for forcing those long-buried memories upon her. Memories better off buried.
He tipped up her chin, guiding her gaze back to his. “I would have taken care of you.”
A vise squeezed about her heart. How was it possible for a vow to both warm one and rip them apart inside, all at once? “I know that.” But she’d never wanted him in that way. She’d never wished to be the assistant, always there, ensured by his protection while silently suffering on when he eventually found a woman who won his love.
“It’s not too late. If you’ve changed your mind . . .” He left that there. An offer of forgiveness. And the part of her that would always love this man ached to take that measly piece of him. The woman who’d been stripped of her pride long ago could not make that sacrifice. Not even for Broderick.
She shook her head.
He glanced over at her paperwork. “You’re determined to leave.”
She’d not see him stay and marry another. Even if that match would save him, it would destroy her. “I am.” And she would miss him until the day she drew her last breath.
“Very well.” He cracked his knuckles and took ownership of the piano bench. “What manner of work is it?” he asked even as he was opening her folders.
She jumped, her fingers reflexively reaching for that work she’d kept hidden from him.
He cast a glance over his shoulder.
Reggie spoke through gritted teeth. “I’d have to be a fool to tell you anything about my intentions. There’s nothing proprietary in an idea.”
He grinned. “I’ve trained you well. You’re worried I’d nick it, then,” he drawled. She warred with herself before slowly turning those pages over. Mayhap she’d be proven a fool for trusting him and this exchange would have been nothing more than a ruse meant to weaken her, but she believed him. She believed him because of the man he’d proven himself to be over the years.
“Cleo insists you never intended to establish a gaming hell.” Her tongue felt heavy in her mouth. What else had Cleo shared with her brother? At her silence, he shot her a quizzical look. “It’s a saloon?”
“It’s not a saloon.”
“A tavern, then?”
Reggie shook her head.