Page 101 of Cocky August Rake

Reginald went still. “She is here, then?”

“Nell?” Harry’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“No, Rose—Miss Darling.”

“Ah, yes. She’s upstairs with Melanie and the baby.”

Rose was here.

Reginald glanced toward the staircase.

And Harry noticed. Of course he did.

But he didn’t comment.

“You’re lucky I didn’t have to sail down the Thames to come after you,” he said instead.

“No.” Reginald looked toward the stairs again. “Of course not.”

“Join me in here.”

Reginald hesitated.

Rose was just steps away.

Still, Harry was already striding back into the study, intent on settling the matter of The Domus without delay.

Reginald nearly refused. Every part of him wanted to go after Rose.

But he couldn’t ask her to believe he meant to do right by her until he had first made things right with The Domus.

So he followed.

Harry crossed to the sideboard, poured two measures of brandy, and handed one over.

“What happened with Sedgewick?”

Reginald took the glass but did not drink. “The protections were written into the agreement. Stipends. Time to make other arrangements. No one turned out without warning.”

“And yet?”

“And yet Sedgewick acted as though they were minor inconveniences.” Reginald’s mouth tightened. “Which makes me wonder what the buyers will do once the place is theirs.”

Harry leaned one hip against the desk. “Due diligence becomes rather difficult from halfway across the world.”

“I see that now.”

Unfortunately, he’d been so eager to rid himself of The Domus that he had treated the contract as a guarantee, never stopping to ask who would be left to enforce it once he was gone.

Reginald stared into his glass.

The stipulations he’d written into that contract required both time and money. But no clause determined how compliance would be assured.

No doubt, once the ownership changed hands, the purchasers would satisfy their conditions as cheaply as possible. Delay what they could. Ignore what they could.

“I won’t complete this sale with men who consider its residents disposable.”

Harry’s expression shifted. Only slightly.