The guard abruptly set Stephen down and looked to Edwin. “Ye brought company,” he said flatly. Hooking his fingers on the waist of his breeches, he flashed the metallic cut tucked there.
“Stand down, MacLeod. I’m looking for Broderick.”
“In his offices.”
“We’re here to see my brother.”
And with that statement, his son slipped his hand into Edwin’s and led him on through a crush of bodies.
Cheroot smoke clouded the dimly lit hell, overflowing with patrons. The betting tables were filled with an eclectic mix of fancily dressed noblemen, street toughs in tattered garments, and scars enough to make the man MacLeod appear smooth of skin. Scantily clad women moved throughout the hall with drink trays raised on their shoulders.
Everything about this place oozed the sin of the Devil’s Den it was professed to be. And Stephen moved through it like one who’d been born to it, the eventual king of this empire, and that would have been his place. And mayhap, one day, if he so chose it, it still would be.
They reached the back of the clubs, and two guards, standing with their arms folded at broad chests, stepped aside and let them pass. “This way.” Stephen tugged him abovestairs and then stopped at an unassuming door. He rapped once.
When there was no immediate call or even the faintest hint of sounds within that room, Stephen rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. Excitement poured from his tiny frame.
Stephen knocked again, this time harder.
“I’m busy.” That booming voice pierced the heavy oak panel.
MacLeod cupped his hands around his mouth and leaned close to the door panel. “Ye’ve a meeting,” he called, a grin on his hard lips. He looked down at Stephen and gave him a wink.
“I don’t have any appointments. Tell him to schedule one and return later,” Killoran ordered.
“Careful. If I leave, I might not come b—”
Footsteps pounded on the opposite side of that door, and the person on the other side of it wrenched it back with such force he nearly ripped the panel from its hinges.
Broderick Killoran.
A half-mad, overjoyed glint in his eyes, the proprietor reached out and yanked Stephen into his arms.
“You’re crumshfing me,” he mumbled into the tall, wiry man’s shirtfront. Stephen still wrapped his arms around him and held tight.
“Stephen,” Broderick whispered, pressing his cheek to the top of the boy’s head. “Stephen. Stephen.” It was Edwin’s son’s name, a litany . . . a prayer, on some other man’s lips.
“Stephen!” Reggie Killoran sprinted over and wrapped the pair in her arms. MacLeod slunk away, and Edwin was left hovering, an outsider once again.
That display of love and devotion so intense, Edwin stared on. Where was the rage that had sustained him after his family’s murder and the discovery that his son had been kidnapped? Where was the burning hatred? It had been a part of him so long, and yet there was none of it. Rather, there was a peace in knowing that for all the struggle and strife Stephen had known, he’d survived and been . . . loved by Gertrude’s family.
At last, Broderick Killoran looked over.
And reality intruded in that interlude.
Killoran set Stephen down. “My lord,” he greeted tersely. He said something in his wife’s ear. The young woman nodded and made to leave. Killoran stayed her, and drawing her back, he raised her fingers to his lips and brushed a kiss along the knuckles. The pair shared a long intimate look, one Edwin knew a good deal about. Not from the wife who’d hated him more than she’d ever loved him . . . but rather, from Gertrude.
Edwin stepped aside so that Mrs. Killoran could exit, and then he entered.
For all intents and purposes, he might as well have stepped within any gentleman’s Mayfair offices. From the gleaming mahogany furnishings to the ornate gilded frames that hung about the room, Killoran had fashioned the head of his kingdom with an elegant taste and attention to detail.
“Stephen,” Edwin murmured, “if I might speak alone with . . . Mr. Killoran.”
Killoran’s gaze took in everything: Stephen’s quick nod and his hasty flight, and then the door closed behind them.
“Would you please sit?” he asked quietly, gesturing to one of the high-back wood chairs across from his desk.
Wordlessly, Edwin came forward and took that indicated seat.
And found himself alone for only a second time with the man who’d given the orders which had seen Edwin’s son kidnapped. Setting his hat down, he pressed his gloved fingertips together and spoke without preamble. “I learned Stephen was kidnapped three years ago. At that time, the investigators didn’t know who was behind that act. And I hated the nameless stranger who took everything from me.”
Killoran stiffened. “I would have you know, I would have you hear it from me . . . until I draw my last breath, I will forever regret the pain I’ve visited upon you.” He swiped a hand over his jaw. “Though meaningless, I offer you my apologies. I thought I was doing good. I believed I was giving an orphan a home, but instead, I brought all of this upon you . . . and us.”
Yes, he had. That was the only detail Edwin had clung to these years. He ignored that apology. “When Steele discovered your role in Stephen’s kidnapping”—when Edwin himself had at last accepted that Stephen had been found . . . alive—“it gave me something concrete . . . someone real to hate. You were the cause of all my suffering. You killed my wife. And unborn child. You took my son.”
The proprietor’s throat moved in the slightest, infinitesimal sign that he’d heard those words . . . and that they’d affected him in some way.
“And therefore, it was all too easy to plot your demise and plan ways with which to shatter you as I was shattered.” Edwin touched his gaze upon every corner of this man’s kingdom. The wealth fairly dripping from all the baubles and furnishings. The evidence of Killoran’s pride and power. All this, he’d wanted to tear down. All this, he could tear down. And a short while ago, he would have been able to. Before Gertrude. He was no longer that same man driven by revenge. “I cannot do that anymore,” he said quietly, looking back to a stoic Killoran. Nay . . . “I do not want to do that anymore.”
Killoran’s blond brows drew together with a seasoned suspicion. Crossing his arms nonchalantly at his chest, Gertrude’s brother kicked back the legs of his chair. “Why?”
Yes, a man who’d survived in the Seven Dials and led these streets as a kingpin would have reason to be wary.
“I’m in love with your sister.”
“My . . . ?” Killoran’s chair tumbled back. He shot his arms out in a futile bid to catch himself before he crashed to the floor. To no avail.
A smile ghosted Edwin’s lips, and coming to his feet, he leaned over the surface of the desk and found the proprietor, the seemingly unflappable street tough, sprawled on his buttocks, a dazed glint in his eyes. “What did you say?” Killoran demanded, jumping up. He grabbed his chair and set it to rights. He made no move to sit.
“I’m in love with Gertrude,” Edwin repeated. He drew in a breath. “I’m asking her to marry me.” And this time, when he spoke of a future between them, he’d come to her without hatred of her family the greater barrier dividing them. “And I’d like there to be peace between you and me.”
Chapter 28
Gertrude should be overjoyed.
Tonight was the culmination of a hope she’d carried for Edwin and Stephen: that the two could find peace and a new beginning with Stephen’s other family and Edwin’s once best friend. And yet, seated with the menagerie of animals in Edwin’s library, never had she felt more alone.
For despite Stephen’s wish that she’d remain and Edwin’s insistence that she do so until a suitable governess was secured for Stephen, the reality of it was, she wasn’t needed here. Not really. Not as she’d been three weeks ago. Not even as she’d been needed here a fortnight earlier.
A memory flickered forward, of Edwin as he’d been with Step
hen a short while ago, adjusting the boy’s cravat and teaching him the proper knots and the preferable way to fold them.
There had been such a paternal devotion and love in that simplest of acts, she’d fallen in love with him all over again. For Edwin wasn’t, and never had been, just an absentee sire. He’d not had Diggory’s ruthless soul. No, Edwin loved his son so completely, so deeply, with a devotion that took her breath away. The kind that she’d believed fictional, existing only on pages of the novels she’d picked up over the years.
That exchange she’d watched as a silent observer long before either Edwin or Stephen heard her arrival had solidified one truth . . . a truth that should make her happy.
Everything had changed. Edwin and Stephen had found footing as father and son and were on their way as a family.
And I want to be part of it with them. Nor did that yearning come from the need to be close at hand to her brother, which she of course did. It was, however, Edwin and a place in his life that she craved.
Their relationship, from the beginning—all the decision-making over Stephen’s current circumstances and future, deciding upon the best person to task with his care—all of it had been made in partnership. There had been no one person fully in control and the other meek and accepting of those decisions, as had been the case with Gertrude and her family.
Edwin had been the first person to truly entrust responsibility to her, and never had he doubted her.
“Until you gave him reason to,” she whispered into the quiet. And he’d been the one who’d begged her pardon. He’d owed her no apologies for his response that evening. She’d been the one who’d let that serve as the barrier to a future. She groaned. What had she done? He’d professed his love and offered her a future with him, a future she ached for. And she’d let her fears dictate her decision. “I’m a fool.”
Gus yowled on her lap.
“Oh, hush, traitor.” She gentled that chastisement with a stroke between his ears.
As if taking that as room to encroach on the rival cat’s territory, Fat Cat waddled over and attempted to jump onto her lap.
Gus batted at him.
“Be kind,” she scolded. Giving her a long look, Gus leapt down and sauntered off. Reaching for Fat Cat, she lifted the affectionate creature. “There is love enough to go around for all of us.”
Energized, Gertrude sailed to her feet, adjusting the burden in her arms. My God, she’d been a hypocrite. Schooling Edwin on forgiveness and beginning anew, while she’d not held herself to that same standard.
Fat Cat wiggled in her arms, fighting for his freedom, and she lowered him to the ground.
Why . . . why . . .
Her sisters . . . Stephen . . . they’d all been correct—there could be a future with Edwin. There would—
She stopped.
All Gertrude’s senses went on alert. The faintest tinge of smoke lingered in the air.
Smoke?
A shiver of apprehension snaked along her spine. “Don’t be silly,” she murmured into the quiet. With long, brisk steps, she made her way to the door, and with every step taken, that metallic bite thickened. She pressed the handle and stepped outside.
A stream of servants, their arms filled with buckets, came barreling past.
Gertrude gasped, knocked against the wall. “What—?”
“Fire,” Reggie’s brother rasped.
A buzzing filled her ears. Terror and horror and panic all rolled together, to keep her frozen motionless to the floor, utterly useless in the face of that warning.
Fire. That weapon used by Diggory to destroy so many lives, homes, and futures. Edwin. His family. Then Stephen, the grand arsonist who’d set blazes throughout London . . . including at Adair Thorne’s club.
No. Her palms slicked with moisture. Not fire. Not here. Not again.
Marlow’s mouth was moving. He was saying something. Gertrude tunneled her vision on his mouth. What was he saying?
He clapped his hands close to Gertrude’s face, snapping her out of the daze, and the din of the household came whirring back. “You have to leave now,” he barked as another stream of servants came barreling past, in their haste and panic sloshing the water in their buckets, losing that lone precious resource to battle any blaze.
“Leave,” she repeated dumbly.
Marlow made the decision for her. Catching her by the hand, he tugged her down the hall, keeping them close to the walls, to permit the servants a clear path to the fire.
“I can’t,” she cried, digging her heels in. “The animals.”
“Miss Killoran!”
With his cries of protest trailing her wake, Gertrude bolted to the library. She scanned her gaze frantically around the room. Searching. Where in blazes were they? Bloody hell. Never more had she despised her reduced vision. Dropping to the floor, she crawled around.
“Please, Miss Killoran,” Marlow implored.
“I’m not leaving them.” Any of them. She’d brought them into this household, and she’d certainly not leave a single one to perish.
Cursing a stream of surprisingly inventive curses, Reggie’s brother joined Gertrude on the floor. “Here’s one.” He reached under the sofa and made to grab the tabby hiding there.
The cat hissed and dug its claws down his hand.
Shifting course, Gertrude scrambled over and sent a prayer skyward. Gus and Fat Cat, the two feline adversaries, lay side by side. “Keeping one another company, I see,” she drawled, reaching first for the more easygoing of the cats. “Here.” Gertrude deposited Fat Cat into Marlow’s arms. “Now you.” She held her palms out, and Gus slinked out, his head ducked. “How very brave you are,” she cooed.
Struggling to a stand, Gertrude took off running with Marlow close at her heels.
“Where was it set?” she called over her shoulder.
There was a lengthy pause as they wound their way through the corridors around frantic footmen.
Gertrude glanced back. “Your rooms,” Marlow said quietly.
Her rooms? She missed a step and hurriedly righted herself. The attack on the streets of Mayfair a week earlier. Her family’s suspicions. Nay . . . it was no mere coincidence. There was no such thing. Someone sought to harm her. But why? And who? And . . .
They reached the foyer, and Gertrude skidded across the smooth marble foyer.
The door hung ajar with young maids and the children in the household streaming out. She joined that haphazard line. As soon as she was outside, Gertrude rushed over to the nearest maid. “Here.” She dropped Gus into the young woman’s arms.
“Miss?”
“Miss Killoran!” Marlow shouted after her. “Where are you going?” he wailed, his cries following Gertrude as she raced back inside and abovestairs . . . toward her rooms.
It was the unlikeliest of carriage rides Edwin had ever taken or would ever take in his life.
Across from him on the bench sat Broderick Killoran and the man’s wife. Stephen had crammed himself between the pair. To the left of Edwin sat the diminutive Cleopatra and her sister Ophelia.
Out of the corner of his eye, Edwin took in the eclectic mix of guests he’d assembled. Tense. Laconic. Suspicious. Every pair of eyes in the carriage bored right through him.
They were certainly not a chatty lot.
Which was all well and good, given that he’d really forgotten how to speak to anyone . . . except Gertrude and Stephen.
“You’re in love with my sister, then?”
The smallest of the Killoran sisters broke the stonewall.
“I am,” he said quietly.
Ophelia dropped her hands onto her lap and leaned across the carriage to better peer at him. “Not so sure how much we can trust you, given your . . . history.”
“Our history. One does not exist without the other,” he put forward smoothly.
She held his gaze. “Exactly.”
“Be quiet, Ophelia. He’s all right,” Stephen chimed in. And every last stare trained on Edwin now sh
ifted to his son. “What?” he muttered. “He is. Lets me keep my weapons and got on fine with Draven. We eat ices at Gunter’s. And . . .” Stephen scowled. “I ain’t defending him anymore. You have my word. Take it.”
That avowal dared anyone to question him. And wisely, no one did.
The carriage continued its slow roll through the crowded London streets. Where the ride to Killoran’s and then each respective sibling’s residence had been brisk, now the roads were clogged with slow-moving conveyances. They reached Curzon Street and were forced to a stop behind the row of waiting carriages.
It was a level of traffic . . . foreign. Except in rare cases, when there was a cause for it.
Disquiet stirred.
There’d been another long row of like carriages. Nearly seven years ago.
“What is going on here?” Cleo muttered, tugging back a curtain. “One of your fancy neighbors having a ball?”
“Father?” Stephen ventured hesitantly.
Their conveyance rocked into motion, resuming its slow roll.
Stop.
Edwin gave his head a clearing shake and glanced out as they neared the townhouse. “It is . . .” His heart slammed to a stop.
“Fire,” Cleo whispered.
The crimson flames illuminated the street, in a bright glow of false daylight. Streets flooded with gawkers who’d come to watch the blaze as it tore apart—
“It’s our home,” Stephen whispered.
Edwin dimly registered Broderick Killoran’s fierce growl. “Is this your revenge?” He reached for Edwin, but Edwin was already out of the carriage. “Is this why you brought us here?” he shouted after him.
He landed hard on his feet, stumbled, and took off running.
“Mad Marquess strikes again . . . ,” a stranger was saying as he raced by.
God, no. Not again. Not again. Not again.
Those two words rolled around his mind, a prayer, an entreaty to a God he’d ceased believing in, but he would now sell his soul to the Almighty or the Devil himself. It couldn’t be. Not her. Not her. Please . . .
A sob ripped from him. He couldn’t survive this. He wouldn’t. Not if she were taken from him.
The Bluestocking Page 31