“No,” she repeated, more softly. “I just…I can’t…you wouldn’t want…” She huffed out a breath in apparent frustration. “You are a busy man. You have a successful club built on catering to men like Roddenbury. And I am nothing to you. Nothing at all. Why would you do this?”
He gripped his hands at his sides. Confession wasn’t in his nature, it never had been. It was too…dangerous. But these circumstances called for something like it. Some way to make her understand that he was on her side. That they would fight this together.
“There was…a woman,” he said through clenched teeth. “She…she disappeared from the same brothel six months ago. There is evidence she is also dead.”
Imogen’s hand came up to cover her mouth and she moved toward him with a long step. “What did she look like?” she whispered.
He understood why she asked. The same reason he’d asked about the dead woman she saw. “Not the woman you saw last night,” he assured her. “Louisa was red-haired.”
Some of the tension left her face. “Her name was Louisa?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
She reached out and touched his hand with hers. The barest of grazes of her fingers across his knuckles. A touch meant to comfort, and he supposed it did. But it also did something else. He stared down into her upturned face, and for a moment he felt nothing but desire for her.
It had been a long time since all the other emotions bled away. There was something peaceful about that, even if it resulted in a cauldron of need.
He moved away from her. He had to. And he cleared his throat. “I should have protected her and I didn’t,” he said. “But I will protect you. I will work out how to…save you.”
“Can you?” she whispered, her voice a little rougher.
“Save you?” he asked.
She nodded.
He moved toward her then. He hadn’t meant to. He hadn’t wanted to, but he found himself coming across the distance between them in a few long steps. She reacted. A catch of her breath, a frisson of fear, but also something else. Something that called to the need in his own blood. Something that was so very unexpected.
“I swear to you on my own life that I will do everything in my power, Imogen.”
She stared up at him, their gazes locked, and her breath shuddered. She opened her mouth as if to say something, and there was nothing in the world he wanted to hear more than whatever that was.
But he couldn’t hear it. Couldn’t want it. Couldn’t pursue it.
He stepped back. “You must want to change,” he said.
She glanced down at her dress. “I…yes. But how? Unless you are going to send someone to my home?”
He shifted. “I’m watching your house, but I assume I’m not the only one. Sending someone there would be too dangerous at present. But I…” He shut his eyes. “I have a few things here. They won’t be a perfect fit, mind you, but close enough. I’ve arranged a bath to be drawn for you. You can tidy up while my staff finds those things and readies them.”
When he opened his eyes, she was staring at him. For a moment, he thought she might speak. Might ask him something. But then she turned away. “Very well.”
He grunted as a reply as she moved toward the door to the study. There she turned and speared him with a glance one last time. “Thank you again, for all your kindness.”
She left before he could respond, which was a good thing because all he could do was let his breath out in a long stream. Had he been holding it? It seemed that was what he did whenever she came near him. Made him hold his breath.
Made him lose it. And it had been a long time since a woman made him do that. Which made Mrs. Imogen Huxley very dangerous, indeed.
Imogen sank down in the fine brass bathtub, letting the water cover her shoulders. It felt like heaven, for in her own home it was all basin washes for her. So this was a luxury. One she would have to thank Fitzhugh for later.
Her mind flitted to him, as it had been since she departed his company less than an hour before. Oscar Fitzhugh. He probably had a lot of women who sat in tubs thinking about him. Certainly he drew the attention if he was in a room.
Once he had it, he kept it. Those dark eyes always seemed to be boring into her. She had to assume it was the same with anyone else he encountered. She only wished she could read him. When he looked at her it was all endless depths, but nothing within them. Was he angry she was here disrupting his life? Was he happy to help her?
Did he only do so because of the woman he’d spoken of earlier? Louisa. The woman he…had he loved her? Imogen couldn’t tell about that, either. He was, in short, a mystery.
Behind the screen, she could hear the maid tidying up. Imogen shifted a little in the water, grabbing for the fragrant soap that had been left on the ledge of the tub. As she lathered up her hands, she called out, “How long have you worked for Mr. Fitzhugh, Mary?”
“Oof, as long as I can remember. Me ma worked for him, and when I came of age, I was offered a job in the house, as well.”
Imogen worried her lip. If she’d been raised in this house, the girl would have some insight into the man. For safety purposes alone, of course, Imogen had to know about him, didn’t she? If she were going to truly put her life, her future, into his hands.
“What sort of person is he?” She wished she sounded less invested in the answer, but there it was.
The noise of tidying and arranging continued on the other side of the screen as Mary said, “I couldn’t say a cross word about the man. When Ma died, he was kind as could be. Gave me all the time I needed.”
Imogen swallowed hard. When her mother had died, Warren had expected her to be fine within hours. And he was her husband. Yet Fitzhugh had offered such grace and kindness to his servant. That certainly spoke very highly of him.
“What about his business?” she asked, knowing she shouldn’t. It was none of her affair.
“Fitzhugh’s Club?” the girl asked. “Though I’ve never seen it, it’s very successful. He works himself ragged to ensure it. Eats at that desk of his more often than at a table. Spends plenty of nights there until two or three in the morning overseeing it. We’re all very proud to work for such a dedicated person.”
“Indeed, I have only heard good things about the place,” Imogen murmured, but her mind was turning on this information. So the man was driven. Not a surprise. One could see that by just the way he held himself.
“Of course he’s handsome as the devil,” the young woman continued. “But you know that, of course. If you become his mistress, you will be well pleased.”
Imogen jerked to attention and water sloshed around her. “His—his mistress!” she gasped out. “Oh no. I mean to say that isn’t…”
Mary popped her head around the edge of the screen. Her cheeks were bright pink. “I’m so sorry, ma’am. I assumed. Please don’t be angry.”
Imogen struggled for calm. After all, how could it not be assumed that was what she had been brought here for? She and Fitzhugh had been alone in his house last night, unchaperoned, whether or not she had shared his bedroom.
“I’m not angry,” she assured the young woman.