The Redemption of a Rogue, стр. 20
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.”
“If he is involved—do you really think anyone will give a damn?” Will asked. “You know how that world works. They’ll protect their own, justice be damned.”
“I fear that may be the case,” Oscar admitted.
“Then the best thing you can do for this girl is to help her make herself a new identity and get her out of London.”
He flinched at the idea of that. Destroying her life to protect it. He didn’t want it to come to that. “Perhaps they might believe her if I could find the right evidence. Or find the right person to tell,” Oscar insisted. “She’s a lady, Will. Or she…she was. She’s the widow of Warren Huxley. He was a member here. Died last year.”
Both Will’s eyebrows went up. “I admit I don’t have the kind of memory you do, where you can remember the details of a person with just one meeting. But I have some faint recognition of the name. How did she fall so far?”
Oscar flinched. “Bad husband. Bad family. The usual ways a lady falls.” He frowned. “I know the guard is useless and that Society chooses what and who it deems important. It always has.”
Will cocked his head. “You disdain them, but you make your money at their feet.”
Oscar shrugged. “We often disdain what gives us advantage, I suppose. I never claimed to be better than anyone else in that regard.”
“What do you need from me?”
He met Will’s eyes. “You would help me even though you disapprove of this obsession.” He shook his head before his friend could speak. “Of course you would. I admit I’ll be…distracted by this for a while.”
“I can be present here,” Will assured him. “Would you like me to look at the records of members like Roddenbury and Huxley?”
“Yes, that would be helpful,” Oscar said. “I doubt there will be anything there to assist, but more information is always good. I’ll be making discreet inquiries, myself. So if you come upon any helpful connections I can seek out, I’ll take those, as well.”
“And what about this young woman, Mrs. Huxley?”
Oscar licked his lips without meaning to do so. There went his mind again, back to the weight of her leg across his own, to the way her back arched as he slid his fingers into her wet heat. To the shuddering pull of her body as she came against him. To the taste of her, sweet and salty as he lewdly licked her away and watched her tremble in response.
“I don’t want to confuse things, like with Louisa,” he said, his voice too rough.
“So you’re interested in her, then?” Will asked gently.
Not gently enough. Oscar glared at him. “Don’t