The Redemption of a Rogue, стр. 55

“It’s wonderful,” she said. “You must be so proud of it.”

He blinked as if he were confused by that statement for a moment. “I didn’t build it. I just bought it. With my father’s payoff.”

She shook her head at the bitterness that laced his tone. “You made it a success without any help from him,” she insisted. “Even I’d heard of your club before I met you and not just because Huxley was a member. It’s the place to be, even more than White’s. Your salons are more whispered about, your intellectuals more…”

“Intellectual?” he filled in with that flutter of a smile that made her heart leap and long for the very rare full expression.

“You have the most intellectual of them all, I’ve been assured,” she teased. Then her own smile fell. “Truly, Oscar. You should be proud of what you’ve built for yourself.”

He shifted as if her praise made him a little uncomfortable. The door to the carriage opened, and he motioned for her to exit first. “Wait until you see the inside of the place before you judge. Perhaps it’s shabby.”

She took the help down from the footman as she laughed. He followed and they walked up the stairs together. A butler was waiting at the door. He was stuffier than Oscar’s private butler, Donovan, who was everything proper but still friendly and capable of a smile from time to time. This man had no hair out of place and his tone was filled with gravitas as he intoned, “Mr. Fitzhugh, welcome back, sir. And welcome, madam.”

Oscar inclined his head. “Goodworth. Have all the arrangements been made?”

“Yes, the club was closed an hour ago and the last of the patrons left a quarter hour ago. There was much complaining, but your decree that we would provide a free entertainment next week was met with great enthusiasm.”

“Excellent. Mrs. Huxley’s guest should be here shortly. Please send her to us in the great parlor. We’ll await them there.”

“Very good. There is tea already there for you.”

The butler gave a smart bow as Oscar took Imogen’s arm and guided her down a long hall past multiple meeting rooms and parlors and into a large chamber with giant windows that overlooked the street below.

She gasped as she looked around her. She had never been in a men’s club. It was forbidden. But she had always pictured them as stuffy places, thick with smoke and wrinkled newspapers and monotonous voices droning on about politics and the prices of barley.

But this hall was light and airy, tables spread through it and comfortable leather chairs and a settee by the fire and more chairs overlooking the windows. A sideboard was set against the wall opposite those same windows, with a wide selection of bottles lined up in perfect order.

“Oh, Oscar,” she breathed. “It’s wonderful.”

She pivoted to face him, hands clasped together, and found his cheeks were actually bright with color. He was blushing, and she found it almost as charming as those rare hints of a smile he sometimes allowed.

“Thank you,” he said softly. “We have worked hard to make it thus. It was Will’s club to begin with. It was struggling and I bought in as an owner. We changed the name to Fitzhugh’s because, obviously, White’s was already very much taken.”

She smiled at the quip. “Do you like the work?”

“I do,” he said, and he looked around almost as if he were seeing the room for the first time, too. “The membership is more diverse than in other clubs. We have the titled, of course. There is no avoiding that if one wants to be successful, but I’m much more interested in catering to those without title or family connection. Men who are building themselves up through industry and science, freedom and justice. If our salons are spoken about, as you said in the carriage, it is because our membership is collectively great of mind.”

He was passionate as he spoke, as passionate as he often looked when he touched her, took her. His dark eyes were bright and intense and his hands moved in animated fashion.

She smiled because she couldn’t help it. His enthusiasm, so often muted by design, was impossible to deny.

“Why are you looking at me that way?” he asked, shifting slightly.

She shook her head. “You’re very charming, Mr. Fitzhugh.”

He choked out a laugh, and for only the second time since she met him, a broad smile broke across his face. Her heart stuttered once again at seeing it. Like finding the most beautiful pearl in an oyster, it was a rare and valuable thing.

“Don’t spread that around,” he said. “If it is true I’ll have lost all my powers to impress those who require me to be dark and brooding.”

“I won’t say a thing,” she said.

He moved to the sideboard and fiddled with the bottles. “Tell me more about Lady Lovell. We can trust her, can’t we?”

She nodded without hesitation. “Of course. We met at a soiree years ago. She had only recently married, I had been unhappy for a long time. We latched on to each other, told each other secrets no one else knew. Until you, that is.” She blushed, because it seemed she was now incapable of doing anything but revealing herself to him more and more.

Even if she knew that it could end in no good.

“You are more like sisters than friends,” he mused as he looked at her with a troubled gaze.

Those words soothed her a little. “We truly are. I’m so lucky to have her in my life. I don’t know what I’ll do if I—” She bent her head and drew a few long breaths before she spoke again. “If I cannot see her ever again.”

He stiffened and pivoted away. She saw the flex of his shoulders. The tension there. For her, about her, because of her. It felt like a wall between them, and she faced the fireplace slowly, creating her own