The Redemption of a Rogue

by Jess Michaels

  “Why wasn’t I told of this?” she asked, stepping farther into the room. “I would have wanted to pass a message of my own to my people. And I would like to see my correspondence.”

  He arched a brow as he looked at her again. “Expecting invitations, are we?”

  She pursed her lips at his dismissive tone. “You know that isn’t my concern. I may not have many people who care for me in my life, but I do have Aurora. She must be sick with worry. Normally we correspond at least twice weekly, and she hasn’t heard from me!”

  He let out a long sigh and got up. He crossed to his sideboard and opened the top drawer. “These were forwarded today.”

  He held them out and she took them, flipping through the slim number of items that had come in her time missing. That there were so few made how alone she was in the world a stark thing, indeed.

  “Did you plan to tell me these had come?” she asked. She found three letters from Aurora in the stack and clutched them to her breast as she discarded the rest: an old invitation to a tea and a letter from her former brother-in-law that could only be rude and foreboding.

  “Of course,” he said, his tone beleaguered as he retook his place at his desk. “Apparently you think me a controlling ogre and you might not be wrong in that assessment. But you were still abed when I received your mail this morning. I did not think any of it was pressing enough to have you roused, given how little you slept last night.”

  “That was your fault,” she pointed out as her cheeks grew hot.

  “It was my pleasure, I assure you,” he said. “And the additional fact is that you cannot write back to Lady Lovell or any of the others, even if you wished to do so.”

  She shook her head. “What are you talking about, Oscar? Why can’t I write back?”

  He fisted his hands on the desktop and looked up at her slowly. “Because those who would wish you dead are likely watching any friend or family member who might receive a message from you. If they intercepted a letter from you, they might use it to track your whereabouts.”

  That made her stomach drop in her chest, but Imogen managed to keep her countenance clear. “So the only option is to allow my friend, my dearest friend, to believe me possibly dead?”

  He pushed to his feet and she saw how carefully he was controlling his reaction. His gaze was bright with frustration and concern, even though his hands didn’t waver. His voice was even and calm. “Is the better alternative for you to actually be dead?” he asked. “Just another body in the courtyard for Maggie and Roddenbury and God knows who else to dispose of in the river?”

  She flinched, but he didn’t stop. “Is that what you want for yourself? Because if suicide is your goal, I won’t allow it. I…can’t.”

  He turned away at that last word and paced to the window. For what felt like a very long time, they were both silent. At last, she let out her breath. “Oscar—”

  He held up a hand. “I do understand your concerns,” he said softly. “I will try to find a way to communicate your safety to Lady Lovell that will not endanger either of you. But for now, you cannot write to her. You will not.”

  “I think you are confused,” she gasped as she shoved her letters into her pelisse pocket and crossed the room to him. “You might bend me to your will in your bed, but outside of that room, you cannot control me.”

  “I’m not trying to control you,” he snapped as he caught her hand. “I’m trying to save your life.”

  She pulled away from him and took a long step back. “It’s hard to tell the difference, Mr. Fitzhugh. I’ll just take my letters back to my cell now. I appreciate you allowing them through your blockade at all. Good day.”

  She pivoted and left the room, knowing she was performing a massive fit of pique but unable to care. This man made it clear he was not going to care for her beyond as a sexual plaything, but in the same breath confused everything between them with this show of overprotectiveness.

  It was frustrating as could be. And for the moment, she had no idea what to do or how to give herself enough space so she didn’t end up confused, hurt and ultimately…alone.

  As Imogen slammed the door behind herself, Oscar spun away and stood at the window. He slammed a palm against the glass, feeling the cool surface reverberate beneath his palm. “Bloody hell,” he muttered.

  He returned to his desk and sat back down, but now the items there swam before his eyes. His focus was gone, flounced out the door along with Imogen. Now he could only think of her.

  Although someone might look at her and judge her to be simply one thing. He knew full well what that was: a pretty prize on a man’s arm, whether that was a husband or a lover. In the time Oscar had been acquainted with her, he knew that wasn’t true. Yes, she was beautiful. So beautiful. And yes, she had an air about her of refinement and propriety, despite what arrangements she’d been trying to make at a brothel or the ones she had made with him. That might be a shock to some, but not to him. He’d been raised around courtesans, and he knew most of them were more clever, well-read and interesting than the most properly educated person in high society.

  Beyond that, there was even more to Imogen. She was sunshine, with her easy laugh and bright personality and ability to adjust to and make the best of any situation. Even here in this house where she felt trapped and in a situation she certainly couldn’t have chosen for herself, she very rarely complained.

  She was kind, too. His servants were people to her, not just a means to get what she wanted. She was certainly thoughtful when it came to him. Gentle even when he was not. She had listened to his tale of his childhood, drawn out of him by just how quietly she accepted it. Had she judged? No. Had she offered some empty platitude? No.

  She’d just taken it in, taken some of the weight of it from his shoulders, if only for a moment.

  And then there was her passion. Taking lovers was something common for him. Sex was a natural desire, and he indulged in pleasure when he needed it. But he’d never had a lover like Imogen. Not the most talented bawd had ever drawn his desires to the surface like she did. He looked at her and he wanted her.

  Even when she was calling him her jailor and flouncing out of his study.

  He shook his head. “This is not good,” he muttered to himself.

  And it wasn’t. He knew what was happening between them, even if he would never, could never label it out loud to her. She was getting too close. No, they were getting too close, because he felt himself leaning into her the same way she leaned into him.

  It was like what had happened with Louisa all those months ago. She’d wanted more. He’d pulled away from that want and hurt her. And now he was doing it all over again with a different woman.

  He didn’t want to hurt Imogen. He longed to fix what he’d already done to hurt her. A dangerous prospect, especially since the reason he wanted to fix it was because he desired the sunshine she brought back in his corner of the world a little longer.

  Even if it couldn’t be permanent. Shouldn’t be. Wouldn’t be.

  “Damn it,” he muttered as he got up to ring for a servant. He had some arrangements to make. Ones that would do nothing to protect her heart, nor his own. And in that moment, it didn’t matter.

  As she walked down the long hallway toward the back parlor, Imogen stared at the letter in her hand. Just holding it made her feel a tremendous rush of guilt.

  It had been a few hours since she’d left Oscar’s study with her back up and her hands shaking with frustration. And pacing around her room reading Aurora’s increasingly terrified correspondence had not helped. The last letter, at least, had contained a kernel of respite. Aurora had gone off to a brief country gathering with some new friends, though she pleaded with Imogen to write and had left a forwarding address for that very purpose.

  And so a plan had hatched. Oscar had said Imogen couldn’t write to Aurora because someone might be watching her home to intercept such a correspondence. But there was no way they would be doing so out in the country at so
me party so totally divorced from any connection to Imogen.

  She’d written her letter, ignoring the guilt she felt at defying Oscar’s direct order for her not to do so. And now she slipped into the back garden for what she hoped would be the second part of her plan.

  Oscar’s garden was as wild as the man’s own heart. A bramble of wildflowers and weeds, trees and unkempt bushes. During her time here she had found a few tools hidden in a small shed at the back of the property and had spent some of the hours slowly beginning to bring the garden back into order.

  Which was when she had noticed that the same little boy rushed past the back gate at the same time each day. She edged to the gate, trying to look as though she was just fiddling with the garden if someone were spying on her from the house. Within moments, there came the rushing footsteps, and she pressed herself to a knot in the wood.

  “You there, boy!” she called out.

  He skidded to a halt in his running and looked around. She could see him in a partially obstructed view from the hole in the gate. He looked to be around eight or nine, with a dirty face and no shoes.

  “You a fairy?” he asked as he looked around for where the voice had come from.

  “Of course not,” Imogen said with a laugh she couldn’t suppress. “I’m here, behind the gate.”

  He leaned in and her eye met his through the knot in the wood. His face twisted in uncertainty and he eased a little closer. “Seems a fairy thing t’do, you know. ’ide behind a gate and call out. Me ma says the fairies steal children’s souls.”

  Imogen twisted her face in horror. “I don’t know if that’s true, but I know I’m not a fairy. Just a woman with a request and a coin for someone willing to fulfill it.”

  He stepped up closer and pressed his eye to the knot. She stumbled back at the unexpected closeness and he looked around the garden. “I know this place,” he said. “This is Fitzhugh’s ’ouse. You one of ’is servants?”

  “Something like it,” she said, because she certainly wasn’t going to go into the intricacies of her odd arrangement with the master of this house with a child. “I need to send a letter, but I’m not able to do it myself. Would be willing to post it if I give it to you?” She dug into her pelisse pocket and held up the letter along with her last silver coin. “And this?”

  He eyed the coin, and she could see his interest. “You a princess trapped in a tower?”

  She blinked. “N-no.”

  “You look like a princess,” he muttered.

  She looked down at herself in the fine gown, and sighed. It wasn’t even hers. It had belonged to the last princess who holed up in this tower with this man…prince or beast might he be.

  “Will you do it?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “No skin off my nose. Give the coin over then,” he said, and held his hand beneath the knot. She shoved the coin against it, and it wedged, but with a few taps of the edge, it pushed through. For a moment she thought he might just run with the money, but then he waved at her. “Now the letter.”

  She rolled the folded pages into a scroll and pushed it through the opening, as well. “You’ll do it today?”

  “On me way ’ome,” he said, though she wasn’t certain if that meant right away or later. Beggars, of course, could not be choosers, though, so she nodded.

  “Thank you. I do appreciate it.”

  He grunted some version of farewell and then rushed off again, racing down the alleyway behind the house and disappearing out of her sightline in the narrow hole.

  She drew in a long breath once he was gone. She had no idea if he would truly post the letter, but at least she had tried. And knowing she could ease Aurora’s fears should have made her feel a little better.

  Instead, she felt terribly guilty for going against the directive Oscar had given her a few hours before. She owed him so much. But he had made it very clear that he wasn’t meant to be a permanent fixture in her life. Aurora was.

  She had to focus on that in the end, and not tell herself stories about the prince masquerading as a beast who had trapped her in his elegantly appointed tower and seduced her with his library. This fairytale could certainly not end well if she let herself forget that the final chapter would not be a happily ever after, at least not for the two of them.

  Chapter 15

  In the three days since Imogen had flounced out of his study, Oscar had been more confused than he’d ever been in his life. He felt her pulling away. During the day, she stayed out of his path. She read in the library, she worked in his garden, she sequestered herself in her room.

  She was doing as he asked. She was keeping up a barrier between them. He should have been happy. But he wasn’t. He found himself shadowing her. Watching her from the window above when she was in the garden. Sneaking peeks of her in the library when she wasn’t looking. Standing at her chamber door, talking himself in and out of knocking.

  And yet at night…oh, at night everything changed. She slipped into his room, never mentioning the gulf that lay between them. She came to his bed and sank into the pleasures they could share. When he dominated, she submitted. When he pressed her boundaries, she opened herself to him.

  And when she occasionally took the lead, he found himself fighting all the urges within him to fall to his knees and spend the rest of his life worshipping her.

  He shook those troubled thoughts away and continued on his way through the house. He hadn’t seen her since she left his bed last night to return to her chamber, and now it was late in the afternoon. The plans he had been formulating for days had finally come through and he almost vibrated with excitement as he exited the house and looked down from the terrace over the garden below.

  She was there, a basket in one hand and clippers in the other, trimming his rosebushes. His heart leapt before he jerked himself back from the pleasure he ought not feel and made his way down the stairs to the garden to join her.

  She lifted her gaze to his as he came down the last step and strode across the lawn. Her expression revealed nothing of how she felt to see him.

  “Good afternoon, Imogen,” he said as he reached her. “What are you doing?”

  She glanced at him again and then went back to trimming the dead heads off his roses, this time with a little more…violence than a moment before.

  “I’m making the best of things,” she said as she wiped her cheek and left an adorable smudge of dirt in her wake. “I’ve been cooped up inside for nearly a fortnight and I feel I shall go mad. I hope you don’t mind my attacking your garden to fill the time.”

  He looked around. Where once his garden had been a mess of brambles and weeds, interspersed with flowers worth looking at, she had really made progress in her short time here. There were paths under the mess, it seemed. And flowerbeds. And bushes.

  “It’s wonderful, Imogen,” he said. “Truly lovely. I appreciate you spending your energy on this. And as for making the best of it, it seems you always do that, don’t you?”

  If he expected her to smile at that observation or agree, he was taken aback when she made the most unladylike snort he’d ever heard and tossed the clippers down with more than a little force.

  “Ah, yes,” she retorted. “That’s me. Accepting everything, no matter what the cost. From my family. From my husband.” She looked away from him. “From you.”

  He stiffened at the comparison to those who had never had her best interests at heart. “It isn’t the same.”

  “No,” she mused softly, and once again her gaze found his. “No, not entirely, I agree. At least you have my pleasure as a goal, if nothing else.”

  She bent to retrieve her abandoned clippers with a heavy sigh that made her frustration apparent. He reached for her, intercepting her before she could return to her work, and turned her back to him. He forced her to hold his gaze, and yes, he saw her frustration. But he also saw her exhaustion. Her worry.

  How he wanted to protect her from all that. Or at least take it away temporarily.

  �
��I’m…sorry, Imogen. I realize this is difficult for you. I realize I have perhaps made it more difficult,” he said, and her eyes widened as if she hadn’t expected that acknowledgment.

  She swallowed, and he followed the motion with his gaze, wishing he could follow it with his lips. But he had to do more than seduce her in this moment. For once he had more to offer than physical pleasure.

  “What is it you wanted, Oscar?” she whispered, her tone slightly gentler than it had been. “You normally don’t pursue me during daylight hours.”

  He suddenly felt nervous and cleared his throat as if that could change the emotion. “You feel trapped here and I don’t feel good about that. So I found you to ask you to go out with me.”

  Her brow wrinkled. “What happened to your edict that I was not allowed to leave these walls? That if I did so, it would mean certain and immediate death?”

  She was teasing, but he tensed at the words she chose. “Please don’t joke about that.”

  Her gaze flitted down. “Of course. I’m sorry. So you want me to go out into the world with you. When? Where? Why?”

  He stifled a laugh at her barrage of questions. It so reflected her spirit when she did that. She questioned without even knowing she was doing it sometimes, and he often found himself caught up in the spell of her curiosity. It made him see the world in a new way, when she questioned it and him.

  But today he couldn’t answer that barrage without revealing too much of his surprise. Instead, he straightened up and said, “You’ll have to wait and see. Just dress for a pleasant afternoon and meet me in the foyer in an hour.”

  “Oscar—” she began as she wiped her dirty hands off on her pelisse.

  He reached out and caught those hands. They were warm and soft in his own, and as he drew her a little closer, he caught a whiff of her honey sweetness that always made his cock very aware of how close she was. Today he ignored it.