“She needs to marry,” he confirmed.
It had been obvious. She’d been expecting it. Even so, a different kind of regret turned over in her chest, chasing away a foolish longing for what would never be with this man. “Gertrude doesn’t need to marry a nobleman, Broderick.” Those girls, even Gertrude, who was near in age to her own eight-and-twenty years, were more like the daughters she’d always dreamed to have. “I’ll not help you in this,” she said with finality. She’d rail and fight for their happiness as if they were her own. “Gertrude deserves to marry where her heart leads her.” Reggie balled her hands. “And she certainly deserves better than a nobleman who’ll never appreciate her.”
Because in the end, those fancy lords saw those outside their social sphere only as baubles beneath them to be toyed with.
Broderick tightened his jaw. “This isn’t a debate or a discussion.” It had been a fight that had dragged on with each Killoran girl. “I’ve already secured Gertrude’s agreement.”
“What?” she whispered. Sadness assailed her . . . for what that meant for Gertrude.
“She has agreed to a London Season.” He took another draw from his cheroot, his lips forming the faintest grimace that she’d come to recognize whenever he smoked. A telling gesture that hinted at one who hated those loathsome scraps as much as she detested their pungent odor. “She knows there is no other choice.” He gave a distracted wave, sprinkling several ashes to the floor.
Reggie let fly a sound of impatience. “You managed to ensure Cleo’s cooperation and Ophelia’s, and now Gertrude’s.” The man could make a sinner out of a saint. “But it does not mean I’ll support you in this.” Nor could she make heads or tails of what need he had of her in this latest scheme to tie the Killorans to the ton.
Stubbing the cheroot out within the empty Derby chamberstick, Broderick abandoned the scrap. “Stephen was kidnapped.”
She shook her head slowly. “I don’t understand.”
Broderick opened his mouth and then stopped. Glancing to the door, he quit his spot over at her desk, joining her at the hearth. “Nine years ago,” he spoke in hushed tones that, even with the mere handsbreadth between them, she struggled to hear.
Confusion clouded her mind, and she struggled to make sense of what he’d revealed. She shook her head. “I don’t . . .”
“Diggory gave the orders for another boy to be brought within the fold.” The color bled from his cheeks as he spoke. “Two of Diggory’s thugs found that child.” This new version of the always unflappable Broderick Killoran left her at sea—rattled and fearful in ways she hadn’t been since her long-ago flight through London. “Unbeknownst to me, they brought a marquess’s son.”
Her legs wobbled under her, and with a soft shuddery exhalation, she slid into the wooden folds of the woven rushes. “Oh, God.” This family had come to mean as much to her as those whose blood she’d shared. And their existence was about to be torn up. “When . . . how . . . ?” Reggie couldn’t muster a single coherent thought as the horror of what Broderick revealed weighed heavy around her. She settled for the least weighty of the questions. “When did you find out?”
Searching about, he grabbed the padouk chair from her writing desk and dragged it over so he faced her. The seat creaked under the weight of his powerful frame. “Ophelia’s husband’s investigation—”
“To find the Marquess of Maddock’s son?”
“Yes, the one.” He nodded. “Steele’s investigation turned up a string of boys through the years who’d been kidnapped from the nobility and forced into Diggory’s gang.”
Numb, Reggie sank back. Bile stung her throat as the oldest, darkest memories of her mistakes, and of the man who’d sought to sell her in a like manner but for different purposes, came flooding back. Stephen had been . . . kidnapped. Ripped from a life that was safe and familiar—no doubt a beloved child and a coveted heir, who’d instead been thrust into the seven levels of Hell that existed within the Dials.
“Reggie . . . Reggie?”
Blinking slowly, Reggie fought to attend him, this man who knew more—but not all—parts of her dark past. And whose very existence was now in peril. “I’m sorry,” she said hoarsely. “You were saying?”
“It was Ophelia who put together the facts. She revealed all when she was . . .” Imprisoned. His throat muscles jumped, and that—his inability to speak of his sister’s recent imprisonment at Newgate—filled her heart. After being betrayed by the gentleman who’d vowed to love her forever, Reggie knew better than to trust a handsome face or pretty words. But this? A gentleman who cared for his sisters and offered protection for even the lowest class of street folk weakened her sturdiest defenses.
And yet . . . “You’ve known since before Ophelia went to Newgate,” she stated blankly.
“Yes.”
Reggie glanced away lest he see the hurt that was surely there in her eyes. “I . . . see.” Despite her closeness to the Killorans and her devotion, no one had shared this darkest of secrets that hung ominously over the family. It was a silly detail to fix on, given the Killorans’ dire circumstances.
Fighting back her own selfishness, she focused on the true victim in this. “Does Stephen know?”
Grief twisted Broderick’s chiseled cheeks. “Yes.” Again, the evidence of that love for his sibling of the streets chipped at her heart.
Reggie dragged her chair closer, so close her knees brushed Broderick’s. “All hope is not lost. The gentleman will surely realize that Stephen is alive now because of you and your sisters.” And then Gertrude needn’t sell herself to maintain the Killoran empire.
Broderick held Reggie’s gaze. “I assigned the man to find an orphan,” he whispered, scraping a hand through his hair, tangling that halo of lush golden curls. “I unwittingly commanded the man who coordinated Stephen’s kidnapping.” His jaw tensed. “I knew Lord Maddock would never simply take my word. I knew I needed to find Walsh and Lucy first and drag them before the marquess.” Broderick set his jaw. “Walsh already had the marquess’s ear.”
His revelation knocked her back in her seat. It wouldn’t matter that the Killorans had taken the boy within their fold and loved him as their own. All the boy’s father, all the ton, and for that matter, all the world, would see was that Stephen had been taken and resided with the Killoran gang. Nay . . . that Broderick had given the orders. Her eyes slid briefly closed.
A heavy hand settled on hers, the warmth of that touch enveloping her and driving back some of the horror of all Broderick had revealed. “We need those connections more than ever.”
His “we,” however, implied her . . . but that couldn’t be. Before it had been strictly greed and a desire to climb ranks. This . . . she shivered . . . he would swing for this.
Reggie stared at his olive-hued fingers covering her own, concealing her cracked and chipped nails, a product of all the work she did within these halls with her own hands.
“What do you require?” she brought herself to ask. For him and his siblings she would do anything.
“As I said, Gertrude agreed to a London Season.” His thick golden lashes swept down, obscuring his eyes. “Under certain conditions.”
“Good for Gertrude.” She managed her first smile that day, one brimming with pride for the woman who’d begun to exert herself within the club. “What were her terms?” If Gertrude had volunteered to sacrifice her happiness to save her brother and her family from the financial fallout that would come with this scandal, then Reggie hoped she’d asked for—
“She wants you to serve as her companion.”
Every muscle from Reggie’s cheeks to her toes turned to stone. For she’d previously been incorrect with herself. She’d do anything for the Killorans—except that. “What?” she asked, her tongue thick.