The Redemption of a Rogue, стр. 19
She pushed to her own feet. “Anything?” she repeated.
His dark gaze dilated further. “Within reason. I’ll see you later tonight.” He moved to the door and there he paused, turning back toward her and letting his gaze roll over her in a slow wave. “Good day, Imogen.”
“Good day,” she repeated to his retreating back.
When he was fully gone from the room, she sat back down at the table with a thud. She was utterly confused. Fitzhugh was seductive and something close to kind, but he also shut her down with an ease that spoke of practice. He apparently had no interest in discussing what had happened between them the previous night. She had to assume that also meant he didn’t wish to repeat it.
A fact that left her a little empty.
“A great deal empty. Foolish girl,” she corrected herself out loud as she reached across the space and grabbed for the paper he had abandoned. She smoothed its wrinkled edges and tried to focus as she lost herself in the news of the day.
If he could be so nonchalant about the entire thing, so could she. It just might take a little practice.
Oscar stepped through the doors of Fitzhugh’s Club and nodded to the butler who handled all the greeting and vetting. “Good afternoon, Goodworth.”
“Sir,” the man said with the stiff bow Oscar’s patrons loved and he couldn’t have cared less about. “Very good to see you again.”
“How are things?” he asked. “I realize I was not here the past two nights.”
A brief hint of curiosity passed over Goodworth’s face, but he didn’t pursue what had caused that unusual occurrence. “There is nothing of great interest to report, sir. The past two nights have been mostly quiet. A spirited card game last night, but nothing coldhearted.”
“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.