Doffing his hat, Broderick skirted the crowd of workers milling about the pavement and climbed the handful of steps.
He stopped at the entranceway.
Since the last time he and Reggie had met in this hall, the broken furniture had been carted off. A loud banging now filled the room as workers ripped up rotted floorboards; the din muted his footsteps as his arrival went unnoted.
And then he found her.
Seated at the sole table to have been left, head bent over a stack of sheets, she pored over the documents laid out.
Broderick narrowed his gaze on the brawny figure who sat at her shoulder. Head close to Reggie’s, his jacket off, the man’s physique marked him as one accustomed to hard work.
Periodically, Reggie would nod. She chewed at the end of her pencil in an endearing hint of her focus. She paused and gestured to the page.
Whatever her reply, she earned a booming laugh from the stranger, whose frame shook with the force of his amusement.
And then Reggie joined in. Giving that nameless bastard her laugh. Unrestrained, clear, and bell-like, as she’d once laughed with him. A blinding red fury fell over his vision, sharp enough to taste and volatile enough to tense all the muscles in his body.
The tawny-headed stranger glanced up, and his gaze landed on Broderick. The bounder leaned back in his chair and said something to Reggie.
She picked her head up.
And there was no joy there. No pleasure at seeing him, but rather confusion that stretched across the room.
The smile that had previously dimpled Reggie’s cheek immediately withered, replaced with a question.
And he found himself hating with a vicious intensity the figure at her side even more for the fact that he’d become a recipient of that warmth.
His skin pricked with the attention paid them by the small army of workers. All activity immediately ceased as they glanced over at Broderick . . . and then back to the bounder who couldn’t even be bothered with a proper jacket.
“What is the meaning of this?” he boomed.
A frown puckered between her crimson eyebrows. “I am working.”
That is what she’d say. I am working.
As though his mouth hadn’t been on hers. All over her. As though the scent and taste of her weren’t seared in his mind and wouldn’t haunt him happily as he took his last steps to the gallows and swung with the memory of that one night in the music room they’d shared.
His neck heated as she turned all her energies back to the tawny-haired stranger and the builders resumed their previously abandoned tasks.
And Broderick, who’d forever been in control of any and every situation, found himself . . . an interloper in Reggie’s world and the world she now sat there building with another man. How easily he’d been displaced. Nay, how easily you’ve allowed yourself to be displaced. He’d spent the past week resenting her for her plans instead of supporting her as she’d deserved.
“May I have a word with you, Miss Spark?” he asked quietly when her attention remained wholly focused on the brutishly large figure.
She wrinkled her nose, and for a moment he thought she’d tell him to go to hell and cut his legs out from under him with that show of power. At last, she said something to the young man, who nodded in return. Gathering up a leather notepad, he stood, unfurling to his full height, nearly three inches taller than Broderick and three stones broader in strength. Broderick hated him on sight.
“Martin, if you’ll excuse us?”
Martin bowed his head. “Regina.”
Who in holy hell was Martin? Broderick gnashed his teeth. And more . . . who in blazes had given the bounder the right to her damned Christian name? Nor did Martin use the masculine moniker she’d entered the Diggory gang with, but rather he laid possession to those flowing, three syllables—Regina.
All hint of that warmth from Mr. Martin faded when he faced Broderick. With a dismissive glance, he clapped his hands once. The builders immediately abandoned their tasks and filed from the room.
As soon as they’d gone and those turquoise doors had closed behind them, Reggie—Regina—proceeded to gather up her papers. And of all the questions he’d put to her, the most illogical of them came spilling forward. “Who in blazes is that?” She opened her mouth. “And since when have you gone by ‘Regina’?”
Reggie opted to answer the latter question. “Since I was born,” she said dryly, her focus trained on those blasted papers. “You were the one who shortened it.” She paused, finally sparing him a glance. “Don’t you remember?”
Actually . . . he didn’t. Why had he gone about butchering a regal name befitting the Spartan beauty? Because you didn’t see her in that light . . . You saw her as a snarling, wary woman with fear in her eyes that she’d not allowed herself to give in to . . .
He dragged a hand through his hair.
Only recently, since they’d gone to battle, everything had changed, and he fought to get his placement back.
Reggie smirked, and there was so much knowing contained within that twist of her lips. One that indicated she’d gathered the truth of his remembrance . . . or in this case, his misremembrance, and it allowed her an upper hand where his memory of the past was murky. And she knew more. It was a dangerous end to find oneself on in any exchange.
At last, she stood.
Broderick choked. “What in blazes are you wearing?”
“Oh, come,” she chided, striding over to a worktable. In breeches. She was wearing . . . breeches. “You’ve never been squeamish about what a woman wears.”
No, he hadn’t. Not with the serving girls and then prostitutes in his clubs. They’d donned scanty garments that put their bodies on full display. But this was not any of the other women in his damned club. This was Reggie—Regina—who’d been alone with a jacketless stranger.
Yanking off his gloves, Broderick stalked down the stairs. “Who was that?” he demanded, slapping the leather articles together.
“Martin Phippen?” She looked up. At last. “He is my builder.” A builder. Nay, “her builder” . . . a vital distinction of possessiveness for that brawny, burly man whom she’d shared her ideas with and . . . her laughter. She’d shared that, too. “He’s responsible for the design and creation of Black’s new establishment,” she was saying.
Rage pumped through his veins. Only one person could be responsible for a connection between Regina and the builder of their rival establishment.
Cleo.
Broderick swept his gaze over the building plans: Reggie’s more rudimentary artwork that she’d shared with him only last evening lay alongside a more meticulous rendering in an artist’s hands that included details: her stage, an acrobat ring above the stage. Thoughts of last evening only drew forward other images. Reggie arching back as he buried himself deep within her. Clawing at his back and screaming his name.
And then leaving. She’d done that, too.
Broderick flared his nostrils.
“Is there something else you require?” she asked, already striding over to the doorway.
She thought to toss him on his arse, did she? Over his bloody dead body on Sunday.
He swiftly inserted himself before her.
“You simply left.”
That silenced her.
Reggie quickly righted herself. “I was assured by Gertrude that her Season was concluded.” She made to step around him.
He blocked her path once more. “We made love.”
Her cheeks pinkened, a delicate shade of red that didn’t hide those endearing freckles as her full crimson blushes did. “Yes. We did.” She wheeled around, starting back toward the table she’d previously sat at with Martin Phippen.
That was it? What do you expect she should say? “Why did you leave?” he called out.
She stopped midstride and then belatedly completed that step. “What bearing does that have on anything?” she asked, tiredly.
It had every . . . bearing on it. “Don’t do that,” he said sharply, stalking over. “Don’t make what we did—”