The echo left by that door knocker faded, ushering in silence once more.
What if he was not here? What if he’d gone himself to witness the fall of Broderick Killoran? Reggie bit her lip. He had to be here.
Ignoring the gold ring, this time she pounded a fist on the black oak panel. KnockKnockKnockKnock.
Reggie continued a solid beat until suddenly, abruptly, the door was drawn open.
“May I help you?” That greeting was wrapped in a thinly veiled annoyance.
She brought her shoulders back and faced off with the lanky butler. “Yes. I . . .” All words fled. And along with them, her reasons for being here and the argument she’d composed for Lord Maddock. A low hum filled her ears. Reggie shook her head to clear it.
Reflected back in mirror eyes was her own shock.
The servant clutched at the door. “Regina?” he whispered.
She was afraid to move. Afraid to blink. Afraid that if she did so, his visage would disappear and in its place would remain some stranger. Though one foot taller and several stone heavier, there was no mistaking the heavily freckled face. The crimson curls.
Tears flooded her eyes, blurring his visage. “Quint.”
He choked. “I looked for years. It was as though you’d vanished.” His Adam’s apple jumped. “I thought you were dead.”
“You searched for me,” she whispered, and tears rolled unchecked down her cheeks. All these years she’d believed that she was dead to her father and brothers for the shame she’d visited upon them. And all the while only a handful of London streets had separated them; and yet Mayfair and the Dials had been worlds apart, where they would have remained perpetually divided, moving about two entirely different spheres.
“Did I search for you?” Hurt rounded his eyes. “Of course I did. Father became a broken man after you’d gone. Cameron cares for him now.” Father. Cameron. Hearing their names spoken from the lips of her youngest brother made them real in ways she’d not allowed them to be.
She clutched at her throat. “I believed it was better if I stayed gone.” How hollow that sounded to her own ears. She’d spent years running, hiding. Finding out ten years too late that it had been herself she’d been running from.
“Never. It was never better with you gone.” Quint stepped aside, urging her in. “How did you find me?” he asked, shutting the door behind them.
“How did I . . . ?” And then the shock of their reunion faded. “What are you doing here?” she countered with a question of her own. She took in the palatial foyer of Italian marble so crisp in its shine it nearly hurt the eyes.
“I’m employed by the marquess.”
“Your employer is the Marquess of Maddock?”
All fraternal warmth vanished. He narrowed his eyes. “How do you know Lord Maddock?”
There was a protectiveness to his question that spoke of loyalty familiar to Reggie. And on the heel of it, a sickening realization. She slid her eyes shut. Oh, God. They’d been employed by enemies. When she opened them, he studied her carefully. “My . . .” How could she refer to Broderick as her “employer”? He’d been so much. He’d saved her. And he would forever hold her heart. Reggie straightened her shoulders. “I’m here to speak with him about his son,” she said, neatly sidestepping mention of Broderick.
All the color washed from Quint’s cheeks. “Follow me,” he rasped. He rushed off, taking large, lurching steps so very similar to the ones he’d taken around the Kent countryside.
“Do you know him well?” Reggie asked into the quiet, her gaze taking in the satin-draped portraits lining the halls.
Quint cast her a sideways look. “Yes.”
Reggie waited for some elaboration on that score.
Their footfalls, muffled on the carpeted floors, served as the only echo of an answer.
She frowned. It was wrong to expect he should prove forthcoming with information simply because she was his sister. It had been ten, almost eleven, years since they’d last seen one another. Their lives were steeped in secrets and mysteries. It also highlighted that Quint, too, had learned the essentiality of keeping everyone—including those who shared one’s blood—close.
They reached an arched doorway, and he knocked once.
“They’ve arrived?” a gravelly voice called from within.
Three inches taller than her almost six feet, Quint glanced down at her. “No, my lord. Not yet.”
Reggie trained her ears. Who did “they” refer to? The constables who’d received the orders to cart Broderick from Drury Lane to Newgate? Or someone else?
Feeling Quint’s probing stare on her, she schooled her features. After all, she, too, had learned the art of dissembling and the need for it.
He opened the door and motioned for her to precede him into the dimly lit rooms.
Reggie blinked, adjusting her eyes to the shroud of darkness that hung over the place. Bearing the stale scent of aged books and leather, it fairly ached for a window to be thrown open and a wash of fresh air.
“Who the hell is this?”
Reggie sought the owner of that brutish snarl. Seated behind a cluttered desk, the gentleman with his crooked nose, square jaw, and unkempt hair bore the look more of a street tough than a noble lord.
Her brother cleared his throat. “My sister.”
She shivered. It was the eyes that were a window to a person’s soul, Broderick had once told her. In them, one might determine anything and everything about anyone. Were they kind? Were they cruel?
“Your sister?” And in this brooding figure who scraped a dismissive gaze over her, he was the monster Stephen had made him out to be. Emotionally deadened.
But by that returned query, he was one in possession of her past and his butler’s secrets. Surely such a man hadn’t been so completely destroyed by his own suffering?
Regina dropped a curtsy. “My lord,” she greeted, bowing her head.
“What does she want?”
She frowned. He’d dismissed her outright. She’d not allow him, or anyone, including her brother, to speak about her as though she weren’t there. As though she were undeserving of a word with a marquess. Reggie jutted up her chin. “I came to speak with you about your son.”
The marquess blanched. His entire body went ramrod straight, making a lie of his earlier indifference. “What?”
Reaching inside her cloak, Reggie fished out the latest note to arrive and waved it. “And also to speak about your intentions for Broderick Killoran.”
Quint gasped.
His employer swung a furious gaze from Reggie to his butler.
Her brother shot his hands up, frantically shaking his head. “I didn’t . . . she didn’t . . .” He glowered at Reggie. “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded.
Ignoring him, she came forward with the latest note to have arrived. The final one that would mark the death knell for Broderick. “You are in the wrong.”
Lord Maddock slammed his fist. “Get out.”
“I won’t.” She looked to her brother.
Quint sprang forward on the balls of his feet and then fell back. His options were to throw her out on her buttocks or . . . nothing.
“Get her out,” the marquess bellowed.
Match fury with calm. Meet yelling with quiet. They were the rules any skilled governess was wise enough to carry, and lessons aptly used on all—including men rumored to be mad.
“I know this man,” she said softly. “He is not the one wholly deserving of your rage.”
“Regina.”
“He saved me,” she went on over Quint’s entreaty.
That brought her brother to silence, and the marquess’s brows dipped.
Encouraged by quiet on both their parts, she continued forward until she stood before the marquess’s desk.
“Get out.”
She stood firm. “I won’t. I won’t leave until you hear me out.”