“Were you hit?” he whispered, and she wasn’t even certain that he was asking her as much as asking the universe. “Please tell me you weren’t hit.”
“I-I don’t think so,” she said, and caught his arms. “Oscar.” He tried to shake her off and continued looking for any injury. “Oscar!” she repeated, this time sharper. “I’m not hit.”
He cupped her chin, and then he leaned down and kissed her. Hard. Heavy. Swiftly over, but powerfully felt.
She dropped her hands away from his arms and was about to ask him if he was hit when she noticed the wetness on her palm. Blood.
“Oscar,” she said, sitting up. “You’re injured.”
He glanced down at the hole in his jacket. Blood seeped from the wound beneath. The others were calling out now, indicating they were unharmed, and she grabbed his arm with both hands, putting pressure on the wound as they rose from behind the couch.
“He’s cut,” she said.
“That’s not a cut,” Mr. Huntington replied as he moved forward. He was unwinding his cravat as he went. “You’ve been shot.”
Imogen could scarcely hear over the rush of blood to her ears. The rush of terror as Oscar looked down at his arm with a shrug. “It seems I have.”
“Oscar!” Imogen cried out.
He ignored her as he removed the jacket and he and Huntington examined the wound together. The Duchess of Willowby came to Huntington’s elbow and also looked closely. Imogen swallowed at the sight of the horrible hole there in his upper arm, closer to his left shoulder than to his elbow.
“It went through,” Oscar said. She saw him flinch slightly, but that was the only indication he gave that there was pain. “Wrap it, if you will, and I’ll have it looked at later.”
Imogen stared at him. How could he be so dismissive of the fact that he’d been shot? Because of her. The others seemed equally taken aback, but Huntington shook his head and wrapped the arm with his discarded cravat as he had been asked. Oscar hardly reacted as he did so, but instead looked around the room.
Imogen followed his gaze, and her heart sank. This beautiful room in the club he had spent so much of his life building was destroyed. The window was shattered, there were bullet holes in furniture, the decorations had been shredded by broken glass.
“Bloody hell,” he muttered.
Imogen bent her head, guilt ravaging her the same way the attack had ravaged all he’d built. “I’m sorry.”
His brow wrinkled, but the look of annoyance on his face didn’t seem to change as he said, “Don’t.”
She could hardly breathe as he turned his gaze away from hers. He’d been so passionately worried for her, but now he put the wall up again. She was fine, but he had lost so much because of her. There was no wonder he might wish to be as far from her as possible.
Willowby had moved to the window and was carefully peering out from around the edge of the broken glass to the street below. “I don’t see anyone. There must have been more than one assailant for all this carnage. Diana, Barber, we should go down and question witnesses on the street. Huntington, does that wound need more attention?”
Huntington finished tying off the cravat. “It’s fine for now, though he’ll need a doctor later.”
Huntington kept talking. They were all making arrangements now to interview witnesses to the attack. To check on Oscar’s servants in the back of the club. To send for more men to search for the culprits.
Imogen ignored it all. She could do nothing else but just stare at Oscar, his wound still seeping through the tight bandage. She watched him talk, watched him move as he took command of these strangers in his space.
He had been hurt because of her. He could have died because of her. And in that moment, she knew she loved him. She had fallen in love with him, and there was no changing that even if it was foolish and could only end in heartbreak.
He was still talking, completely oblivious to what she now knew was true. “…right now, though, I need to take Imogen away.”
She blinked, drawn away from the startling truth of her heart and back to the room. He would take her away? Even after all the trouble she’d caused, he still wanted to protect her? Didn’t that mean something?
Aurora had been standing in Nicholas Gillingham’s arms, and now she staggered closer. “No, wait! Is that for the best?”
The others exchanged a look, and then Willowby, Barber and Huntington left the room. That left only the Duchess of Willowby, Aurora and Gillingham, for it seemed Mrs. Huntington had also gone out to check on the servants, as Imogen was coming to her realization about her feelings.
The duchess approached Oscar. She was a pretty woman, petite and curvaceous, with a kind face. An observant face, however, and Imogen realized she was trying to read the man standing before her. She almost snorted at the idea. Oscar took time to know. To understand. This woman wouldn’t do it after only knowing him five minutes. “Mr. Fitzhugh, obviously this event has been upsetting.”
Oscar tensed and glared at her. “Upsetting, Your Grace? You think this is upsetting?”
The duchess might not have been able to understand him, but Imogen did. She saw that he was at his boiling point. That the day’s events had dragged him to the edge of his vast control.
“Oscar,” Imogen said softly as she took his hand. He turned his head, his jaw clenching, but he didn’t blow up. Imogen looked at the duchess. “Your Grace, he has protected me well in the last few weeks. Perhaps it would be better for me to go with him. I’ve endangered enough people as it is.”
Of course, she had endangered Oscar, too.
“Imogen,” Aurora whispered.
Imogen faced her dearest friend with a shaky smile. “You could have died because of me today. Please, just let me protect you.”
Aurora flinched, but sent a glance toward Nicholas Gillingham. Imogen watched him too. She knew about the man. Aurora had often spoken of him during their friendship. He was her first and only great love. Only he’d left her suddenly when they were very young, went off to the army where he’d been so badly injured. It seemed he had returned, and Aurora looked so calm, so at peace as she looked to him for comfort.
At least Imogen knew she would be protected. Loved.
“We are all under a great deal of strain,” the duchess said, and brought Imogen’s attention back to her. “But the duke and I are part of the War Department, Mr. Fitzhugh.”
“Yes, I know,” Oscar said. He sounded so tired. Almost defeated. “I’ve heard of you before, though not by name. I heard a rumor the government was involved in investigating in some way. We clearly have a great deal to discuss.”
The duchess nodded. “We do. Another reason not to hide yourselves where we cannot find you. We have the weight of the entire government to bring to bear onto this case. I do think Imogen needs to be hidden, I agree with you. The fact that someone shot at all of us the moment she was brought out of hiding means someone is desperate to silence her.”
“We know who,” Imogen said. The duchess’s eyebrows lifted with interest. Although Oscar had worried titled would protect titled, Imogen got a very different impression now. The duke and duchess seemed genuinely concerned and willing to help. But it was possible Oscar couldn’t see it. He was so blinded by his past with his father. So thrown off kilter by seeing two of his siblings. She needed to help him. “Oscar, please, they can help us. Stop fighting it.”
He frowned but didn’t argue, and Imogen knew that was a good thing.
“Let us provide the safe hiding place,” Diana said. “Protected by armed guards, hidden from plain sight. Someplace where no one will find her, but where we will have access to what she knows about the people trying to hurt her.”
Oscar paced off. When he lifted a hand to the place where Huntington had bandaged his wound, she felt an ache in her chest.
“Bloody fucking hell,” he snapped at last. “Fine. But I’m going with her.”
Imogen’s mouth dropped open. She hadn’t imagined he would
let this situation go if she went with the Willowbys, but nor had she pictured he would compromise his life further and come with her. “Oscar, no! You protected me so well, but I can’t ask you to—”
“I’m going with you,” he interrupted. “That’s final. Let me just make some arrangements.”
He gave her one quick glance, but said nothing else. He strode from the room, leaving her alone with the duchess, Aurora and Mr. Gillingham. The duchess glanced at Gillingham, and her meaning was clear. They stepped away to speak to each other, and Imogen was left with Aurora.
“Imogen,” her friend whispered, wrapping her arms around her. It was so comforting to feel that embrace. “How could this happen?”
“I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Imogen sighed. How true that was and how much it had changed her life. His life. She glanced to where Oscar had departed and her heart ached. “Can I trust your friends?”
“Yes.” There was no hesitation in Aurora’s voice, and relief cascaded through Imogen.
Which allowed her a moment to let go of her own troubles. She looked over her shoulder at where Nicholas Gillingham stood with the duchess. “That’s the one you were in love with as a child, isn’t it? The one who left you for the army?”
Aurora’s face lit up instantly. She was so beautiful and so obviously in love that Imogen felt a tug of jealousy at it. “Turns out it’s more complicated than that, but yes.”
Gillingham was watching Aurora from the corner of his eye from time to time. And his emotions were as clear as hers. Their future, it seemed, was set. And it made Imogen’s seem all the more desperate. She loved Oscar with the same intensity that Aurora and this man loved each other.
But there were no guarantees for her. No promises, in fact just the opposite.
“He seems to love you,” she breathed.
“Yes,” Aurora whispered.
“Then hold on to that,” Imogen said, grasping her hands. “Hold onto it and to each other. Because others are…they’re not so lucky.”
Aurora tilted her head. “Are you talking about Mr. Fitzhugh? Because there is no denying your connection.”
Heat flooded Imogen’s cheeks. She was so easy to read, it seemed. So obvious and foolish that the world would know. Oscar would know. It would only push him further away.
“Connection is one thing. Protection is another,” she mused. Then she shook her head. “But he has made it clear that he cannot love me. So…I just would like one of us to be happy. When this is all over, I want you to be happy.”
As she said the last, Oscar re-entered the room. There was the command on his expression again. Stern and certain. Her body reacted to that, as it always had. As she feared it always would.
“Arrangements have been made,” he said. “An unmarked carriage is around the back, ready to ferry us away to whatever location you see fit, Your Grace.”
“Good,” the duchess said. “Then I’ll accompany you. Mr. Gillingham, will you tell the duke of my plans? I’ll meet with him back at home. And I would suggest you and Lady Lovell also take your leave. There is nothing else you can do here. The professionals will handle this and keep your friend safe.”
Aurora seemed to sag at that suggestion and pivoted back to hug Imogen tight again. “I wanted to…to save you today. To bring you home.”
Imogen clung to her all the tighter. “I’m so much closer to home now.”
It was true, of course. Up until half an hour ago, she was certain she would have to take a new name and leave London, perhaps even England, entirely. Now there was hope…at least for how this matter with Roddenbury and the Cat’s Companion would be resolved.
That was the gift her dearest friend had given, so she pulled back and kissed her cheek. “I adore you.” Then she glanced past her toward Gillingham. “Mr. Gillingham, I wish I had more time to get to the know the man who has held my friend’s heart for her entire life.”
He drew back, but there was a flicker of a smile that crossed his face. It was very much like the way Oscar did his half-smiles. That made her like this man all the more. As did his genuine tone when he said, “And I wish I had more time to get to know the friend she loves as a sister. But we will have that time in the future.”
“Yes,” Imogen said with a shaky smile. “I know we will.”
She was going to cry. She felt the burning in her chest and the pressure behind her eyes. She didn’t want Aurora to see that, to worry more than she already was. She pivoted toward Oscar and he held her stare, the beacon for her the darkness. She needed him now, more than she needed anyone else in the world. Even the best friend she loved so deeply.
He offered his uninjured arm to her and she took it, holding tightly as he guided her from the room with the Duchess of Willowby trailing behind them. Imogen moved with him through the halls toward the back of the club.
The butler who had greeted them earlier was waiting for them there. His expression was grim as he nodded to his master. “The arrangements have been made, Mr. Fitzhugh.”
“Very good,” Oscar’s voice was low and rough. “Reach out to Will as soon as I am gone. And tell him I’ll contact him as soon as possible, myself.”
“I shall. Be well, Mr. Fitzhugh. And to you, as well, Mrs. Huxley.”
Imogen hadn’t been expecting the kind words, nor the gentle nod in her direction. The tears that swelled threatened to fall even more immediately, and she bent her head. “Thank you. Goodbye.”
They stepped into the afternoon sunshine. So bright that it was almost offensive considering the day’s dark events. Oscar glanced over his shoulder. “You’ll give my man directions to your preferred location?”
The duchess eyed the driver. “He can be trusted?”
“He can,” Oscar said without hesitation as he handed Imogen up into the carriage and then slung himself in, as well. He said nothing as he took a place beside her on the bench and put his good arm around her. She said nothing either. What was there to be said? He had been forced to deal with the family he had cut himself away from. She was in more danger than ever, it seemed, and had placed so many people in it with her.
There would be time enough to digest all of that later. The duchess was helped into the carriage by a footman and the door closed behind her. Imogen sank her head onto Oscar’s uninjured shoulder as they began to drive toward the blurry future. For her. For them.
Chapter 21
Oscar wasn’t sure what he expected from the safe house the Duchess of Willowby had briefly described on their way here, but as they stepped into a small but perfectly appointed parlor, he knew it wasn’t this. It was a lovely townhouse in one of the quiet, middle-class neighborhoods in London. Many a sophisticated merchant lived on the tidy lane, some of whom were members of his own club.
Certainly it wasn’t the expected place for spies to hole up, waiting for danger to pass. He supposed that made it perfect for the job, as long as they weren’t recognized.
He pivoted to look at Imogen and could see her reading the room the same way he had as she crossed away from him. She smiled at him, a little distant, almost shy. But then, he’d felt that same hesitance the entire carriage ride here. He didn’t like it. He wanted it to stop.
“Imogen—” he began.
Before he could finish, the duchess entered the room, carrying a kit of some kind under her arm. She smiled at them both. “I hope the house will suit you.”
“It’s—it’s lovely,” Imogen said. “It seems very comfortable.”
“Excellent. Everything is prepared,” the duchess explained as she bustled around the room, checking the sideboard for its selection of drinks and the fire for how high it burned. “Our staff is carefully vetted and trained. They’re trustworthy and can protect you if it comes to that.”
“Physically?” Oscar said in disbelief.
The duchess nodded. “Indeed. And they’re always at the ready for unexpected situations, so the rooms are made up. There is a maid who can help you with preparations,
my dear. And I’ll arrange for a gown or two to be sent to you in the morning, as well.”
“Thank you. You are very kind, Your Grace,” Imogen said softly, her gaze casting down to her gown. Only then did Oscar realized there were a few small streaks of blood on the fabric. His blood. A testament to how close he’d come to losing it all, and he didn’t mean his life.
The duchess smiled. “I think we’re all going to know each other well enough by the time this is over to forego the formality in private. You may call me Diana.”
“Is that some spy’s trick meant to put her at ease?” Oscar ground out, almost wanting to put himself between the duchess and Imogen as a shield, because as kind as she was, he didn’t fully trust her.
Diana turned and her gaze flitted over him. She didn’t reveal what she thought, but she did move toward him, fearless and seemingly without guile.
“I hope she is at ease,” she said. “I can only imagine the terror she has endured these past few weeks, seeing what she did, running as she had to. I can imagine you didn’t fare much better, Mr. Fitzhugh. It is difficult to see someone we’ve come to care about…hurt. To want to help them and know we aren’t fully equipped.”
He shifted beneath the careful words, meant to have an effect—and succeeding. “I’ve kept her alive.”
Diana nodded. “You have, and I’m glad of it. But now you are not alone in that goal. In the desire to save Imogen’s life and perhaps even put a stop to the horrific acts committed by the people responsible for the threats against her. We’re on the same side, Fitzhugh.”
“I hope that is true,” he said softly, and this time it was he who meant to have an effect. “I have watched many a titled person of power only protect the others who share his…or her status.”
Diana shook her head. “Then you have not dealt with me, nor with my husband. That is not who we are, not as people, not as spies. You don’t have to believe that, for we’ll prove it to you, and hopefully sooner rather than later.” She smiled and then stepped closer, setting her kit on the table beside him and opening it. He could see all matter of tools and wraps and potions inside. “Now let me look at that wound, will you?”
The Redemption of a Rogue: The Duke’s By-Blows Book 4 Page 19
