“Excellent.” He stepped from the neat foyer into the larger study where his patrons did their meeting in the late afternoons, their smoking and gaming in the evenings. It was perfectly put together, of course. That was what he expected.
“Is Will here?” he asked as he moved to the next room, the library. A footman was rearranging books that had been misplaced during the previous afternoon, readying the room for opening in an hour or two.
“Mr. White is in the private office,” Goodworth said. “Awaiting your arrival, I think. He requested coffee—would you prefer tea?”
“No, coffee is fine,” Oscar assured him. “Thank you. I’ll have some things to discuss with you after I meet with him, I’m sure.”
“I will not be far then,” Goodworth said with another of those short bows before he strode away.
Oscar drew a long breath as he made his way down the hall. This was clearly what he needed, and he was glad he’d come, no matter how hard it had been to leave Imogen a short time before. But this was his life, not the stolen moments with her.
That was just fantasy. He had to remember that when her moans were stealing his senses and her bright smile was making him feel lighter. God, that smile. She hadn’t flashed it until earlier at the breakfast table, and God’s teeth but it lit her up. Made him feel like the sun had burst through the doors and into his house. Bright enough to burn everything in his life down.
He’d best be careful not to let her.
He opened the study door and let himself into the room. It was as fine as the rest of the club, though perhaps a little less ostentatious. Neither he nor his partner, Will White, were the kind of men who needed to show off for each other.
Will was sitting at his desk on one side of the big room, head bent over a ledger. Numbers had always been his strong suit, so he took care of all the books, from membership to financial. Oscar smothered a smile at the way his friend’s gray hair was stuck up at an odd angle, probably from running his fingers through it while he concentrated.
Will was twenty years older than Oscar. Oscar had known him almost all his life, since he was eight and Will had briefly taken on the role of his mother’s protector. While he often resented the men in and out of their home, ones who normally ignored him or were actively hostile…Will had been different.
Will had become a friend, a father figure. A partner eventually, when he asked Oscar to take a place at his side at his club. They’d renamed it Fitzhugh’s, mostly because White’s was already rather famously taken.
But Will was the heart of the place.
“Do you ever rest?” he asked as he entered the room.
Will looked up, a twinkle in his blue eyes. “Do you?”
“I’ve been away from the club for two nights, I will tell you,” Oscar said as he sat down at his own desk across the room.
Will’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Oscar. Even halfway across the room, he felt him judging. Reading. Will had been one of the few in his life capable of doing so. One of the few he trusted enough to allow it.
“You’re troubled, not rested,” Will said, getting up and crossing to him.
Oscar set his jaw as he tried desperately not to think about the reasons he wasn’t well rested. Why he was troubled, as Will put it. But he couldn’t help letting his mind wander to Imogen. To drawing her pleasure from her until his entire body shook with wanting her. To being taken in by that smile this morning.
He blinked to clear it all away. “I suppose trouble is a constant, isn’t it?”
Will shook his head. “Not like this.” He leaned forward. “What’s going on? Club issues?”
“No. You run all the true matters so perfectly that I’m hardly more than a figurehead. The club is fine,” Oscar said.
Will’s lips parted. “Something with your mother, then? Is Joanna not well?”
Oscar smothered a smile. Will and his mother had parted ways decades ago, but Will had remained a friend. Perhaps the best one his mother had. He appreciated that. “Mama is fine. You probably saw her yesterday, yourself. You would know better than I her state of mind.”
Will shifted slightly, but then his gaze refocused. “If it isn’t the club or your family, then what is it?”
Oscar sighed. Will knew a great deal about his life. He’d always been a dependable confidante, and since what Oscar was doing might very well impact their shared business, he felt he owed it to him to be honest.
“I went back to the Cat’s Companion two nights ago,” he said.
The reaction was swift and emotional. Will pushed out of his chair and slammed both palms on the desk. “Oscar!”
Oscar flinched. Will only called him by his first name when he was in trouble. Rather like a child, actually, but he supposed old habits died hard.
“You don’t need to give me the whole set-down,” he said, holding up a hand. “I know your feelings on the matter.”
“You know but you clearly don’t care,” Will said. “Louisa has been gone for months, Fitzhugh. She’s been dead for months. Our sources are very clear on that, even if the details are fuzzy. What purpose can you have in going there except self-torture?”
“I want the truth,” Oscar said through clenched teeth. “I want justice.”
Will’s expression softened. “You saw things as a boy that made you protective of women in your mother’s position. I wish you hadn’t. But you know, having grown up as you did, that sometimes there isn’t justice available for women labeled fallen. It’s incredibly unfair. But it is the way it is. Fight for laws to change it.”
Oscar clenched his jaw and stared at his fist clenching in and out on the desktop. He was trying to keep his tone neutral as he said, “You may or may not be right. I’m not going to argue the facts with you. We’ve already done that so many times that I could probably tell you your arguments verbatim and you mine. I wouldn’t have mentioned it to you at all except…”
He trailed off. Telling Will about most things was easy. But there was something about telling him about her, about Imogen, that felt much harder.
“Except?” Will encouraged, his tone gentle now.
“A woman ran out of the brothel and into my arms,” Oscar admitted. “She’d witnessed a dead body, overheard that the Earl of Roddenbury had killed the poor girl. She was seen and had to run. And I’m…I’m protecting her now.”
“Protecting?” Will breathed.
“Not a protector. Not like that.” Oscar hesitated, for he’d certainly touched her as a protector would. Kissing her and touching all that lovely, silky softness was most definitely in the realm of lover.
As was his pulsating desire to do it again and again and again.
“True protection,” Will said, oblivious to Oscar’s thoughts.
“They want her dead, too,” Oscar said softly, trying to push back the pure rage that accompanied that statement. “I’ve decided to take on her plight. Try to find a way to bring these bastards to justice at last.”
Will flopped back in his chair and stared at Oscar for a long moment. At last he let out his breath in a long whistle. “The Earl of Roddenbury. Could that be true?”
“She seems certain.”