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 distance between them.
She lost herself in the flames for a moment, trying to settle her mind. It was only a sound from the door that shocked her from her troubled reverie. She pivoted toward it and her knees went weak.
Aurora was standing at the door beside a handsome gentleman holding a cane. Her friend met her eyes, lifting her shaking hands.
“Imogen!” she cried out as she released her companion and rushed across the room. They launched themselves toward each other at the same time, and Imogen clung to her in the tightest hug she’d ever shared with her friend.
They parted, and she looked Aurora up and down. She had always been exquisitely beautiful. She had honey hair and green eyes, high cheekbones and a full, curvaceous figure. She was the kind of woman men turned to look at on the street. But she had never looked more beautiful than she did in that moment and Imogen recognized, with instant power and clarity, that it was because Aurora was in love.
Out of nowhere, everything became so overwhelming. She glanced at Oscar, who was still standing at the sideboard, hand clenched against the tabletop, not looking at her. Putting up the wall that always came between them. She buried her head into Aurora’s shoulder and burst into humiliating tears.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry I frightened you,” she murmured as Aurora stroked her hair gently, offering the comfort Imogen needed, but perhaps didn’t fully deserve.
“What the fuck are all ofyoudoing here?”
She jerked her face toward Oscar and followed his gaze toward the door. Now it wasn’t just Aurora’s companion, the one Imogen was certain she was in love with, in the doorway. No, the room was now filling with people. Two white couples and a tall, handsome Black man had all filled the room and stood silently.
And Oscar stared at them, all the color draining from his face, even as he glared in that commanding, almost menacing way he could sometimes muster. He looked truly troubled and she realized heknewsome of Aurora’s friends.
If his anger was any indication, he knew them very well.
His attention broke from them and pivoted to her. The betrayal was lit in his eyes. “Imogen, this wasnotour arrangement.”
* * *
As Oscar stared at her, Imogen caught her breath. He still couldn’t tell if she’d known about this ambush all along, or if it was a surprise. Still, when she stepped away from Lady Lovell and toward him, her hands shaking as she lifted them in silent entreaty, he wanted so much to reach for her. He had to fight that desire with all his might, fight to keep his gaze on hers, but not soften it.
“I didn’t know,” Imogen said, softly but firmly. She was all but willing him to see it was true. He could read it on every line of her face.
But he still wasn’t certain. After all, this roomful of people weren’t just some random collection of individuals. The man Aurora had come into the room with at first was Oscar’s half-brother, Nicholas Gillingham. One of the other women at the doorway was his half-sister, Selina Oliver…Huntington, he thought her married name was.
And the other couple with them was the Duke and Duchess of Willowby. Old friends of his brother, the newest Duke of Roseford. In fact, Robert was the only one missing from this merry band of intruders.
This connection between Lady Lovell and Imogen, that she’d brought his family, the one he’d banned from his life, along with her…
That couldn’t be coincidence. And the only one he’d told any version of that story to was Imogen. So how could she not be involved?
“Shedidn’tknow,” Lady Lovell said firmly as she crossed to stand beside Imogen. She really was lovely, though her beauty dimmed a fraction when next to Imogen’s light.
He also had no idea if she could be trusted. But she certainly surprised him when she examined him closely for a fraction of a moment, then held out a hand to Oscar.
“Mr. Fitzhugh, you have no idea how much I owe you for helping my friend,” Lady Lovell continued. “I couldneverrepay you.”
