“Surely not?”
He tickled her sides, until great snorting laughs spilled from her. “Minx.”
They remained there, the hours passing, reviewing designs and discussing the layout of her hall. Her enthusiasm was tangible, a lifelike joy that came from the dream she had for this place. It wasn’t borne of competition or a thirst to crush all who had a similar hope or vision. Rather, she was one who saw the world was wide enough.
Later that afternoon, after they took their leave and made the journey back to Mayfair, she glanced over, a question in her eyes. “What is it?”
“You are remarkable,” he said softly. Whatever time they had wasn’t enough.
She smiled and slid her long fingers into his. Broderick clung to her palm; callused and coarse, hers belonged to a woman unafraid to work. Just as she’d always been.
They arrived a short while later.
“Ophelia is here,” she noted as he caught her by the waist and helped her down. He lingered his hands there.
“Shall we go tell her?” he whispered against her ear.
“Hush.” She ducked out of his arms and rushed along the pavement. “People will talk.”
Broderick followed quickly on her heels. “Let them.” He laughed as the double doors were thrown open.
His and Reggie’s laughter immediately died.
A wide-eyed Ophelia stood in the middle of the foyer in her cloak, alongside a stunning, equally wide-eyed woman. She glanced up and down Reggie’s trouser-clad frame, and her eyes nearly swallowed her face.
“There you are,” Ophelia exclaimed, the first to break the awkward impasse. “I’m so glad you’ve returned! We were just leaving.”
Reggie dropped a curtsy and then started to go. Broderick followed her with his gaze, and she paused, lingering, their eyes locked.
“Broderick?” Ophelia pressed.
“Hmm?” he murmured. “Forgive me.”
Ophelia beamed. “Allow me to again present the Dowager Duchess of Argyll. She has been gracious enough as to invite us to her box at the theatre this evening.”
“How do you do?” the young duchess murmured, and as he bowed over her hand for the requisite kiss, Ophelia winked.
Broderick narrowed his eyes.
“I’ve found your bride,” Ophelia whispered.
Chapter 27
You took my wife . . .
In the Dials, one honed one’s senses, or one perished. It had been a skill that had saved Reggie countless times, and she’d been grateful for it—until now.
I’ve found your bride . . .
A fingernail moon hung crooked in the sky, casting the faintest glow onto the quiet London streets.
Standing at the edge of the floor-length window, Reggie stared out at the elegant black-lacquer carriage that sat in wait.
That was why Ophelia had, of course, come to visit with the stunning widow. Those barely audible words detected on Reggie’s way out, spoken between a brother and sister . . . they changed everything.
She let the silk fabric slip from her fingers and flutter into place.
It was her misfortune to love where nothing could ever truly grow.
“Meowwww.” Gus butted his head against her lower leg.
Reggie scooped up the silky grey cat and cradled his body close. “Are you calling me a liar again?” she scolded.
He kneaded the front of her brown day dress.
“That is a yes, then.” She buried her face in the downy patch between his ears.
A knock came.
His knock. The sturdy, confident, determined one. And also, the expected one.
Her hands tightened around Gus, and he struggled against her hold. She released him, and he landed nimbly on all fours, scurrying off under her bed.
“Enter,” she called into the quiet, and coward that she was, Reggie turned her focus to the floral pattern etched within the gold silk curtains.
The faint groan of the floorboard and click of the door indicated that he’d entered. There were no illusions of propriety where she and Broderick were concerned. There never had been. She’d adored that closeness in the past. Now she hated it for the reminder it served—that to him, she’d never been a lady.
“Hullo,” he said somberly.
Drawing in a silent breath through her teeth, she forced herself to face him.
Reggie’s breath caught. Damn him for his beauty: Tall. All glorious, golden masculine perfection. No man had a right to his beauty. Attired in a midnight-black jacket, matching brocaded waistcoat, and trousers, and with his tousled golden curls, he was a study of Lucifer upon his immediate fall from grace.
And tonight, another woman would be the recipient of his attentions.
A duchess, no less.
And a widow at that.
The woman he’d marry.
Oh, God.
That truth ripped a jagged hole inside her heart.
Broderick came forward. “Regina,” he murmured in greeting.
Jealousy threatened to choke her. Reggie forced her attention back to the window. I don’t even have a bloody reply. Not one possible response came to mind, nothing that she could put forward that wouldn’t reveal the venomous envy snaking through her. For she knew the purpose of the meeting Ophelia had arranged between Broderick and the breathtaking widow. His sister had hand-selected him a bride, and—her lips twisted in a painful smile—a perfect one at that. To give her fingers something to do, Reggie again pulled back the curtain.
It was a mistake.
Broderick stood just beyond her shoulder, reflected back in the crystal panes.
“Look at me,” he said quietly.
She shook her head.
“Please.”
Reggie closed her eyes. Damn him. Damn him for uttering that plea which never crossed his lips. She forced herself around.
“This changes nothing.” And with the low insistence to his husky timbre, she could almost believe it.
Yet it changed everything.
They both knew it.
“You’re a liar.”
A muscle pulsed in his jaw. “I’m not.” He gripped her lightly by the shoulders. “I love you. I want to be with you.”
He’d never put himself first. “And I want you alive.” Even as she’d lose him, after only just having him. “She saved your sister, and she can do the same for you.” A former maid to the late queen consort, the duchess had managed the seemingly impossible: earning a like admiration from the king and his outcast wife. As such, with her influence, the duchess could see Broderick spared.
“Do you think I would want a life like that? That I would choose my own life over one together with you?”
She hugged her arms around her middle. “Think, Broderick. There is your club. There are all the staff dependent upon you.”
He searched her face, his eyes flashing with such anger and hurt. “What are you saying?” he hissed.
Tears clouded her vision, and she fought them back. “I’m saying I want you to marry her.” It was a threadbare whisper, both a lie and a truth rolled together into a contradiction that didn’t make sense and yet, at the same time, did in every way.
He released her like one burnt. “I don’t want to marry her.”
“No.” Reggie cradled his cheek in her coarsened palm. A hand that would never belong to a lady such as the woman he went off to now meet. “You need to marry her.”
Broderick caught her wrist in an unyielding grip somehow both hard and tender. He raised her hand to his mouth and kissed the sensitive place where her pulse beat. “I need you.”
“And I need you alive, more than I need you to belong to just me.”
A light scratching on the panel interrupted whatever he’d intended to say.
“Mrs. O’Roarke is asking after you, Mr. Killoran,” the servant called through the panel.
He cursed. “I’ll be a moment.”
“Go,” she urged.
He caught her around the waist and dragged her close. “This is not done,” he breathed against her mouth and then claimed it. He traced the seam of her lips with the tip of his tongue, branding those rounded contours, and then stepped out of her arms.
She silently cried out at the loss, going cold again.
“I love you,” he repeated.
And then he was gone.