“We could…tell the guard…” she began.
He shook his head slowly. “Without any evidence, you’re going to tell the guard that an earl murdered a woman who worked at the Cat’s Companion? I have lived in this world a long time, my dear—I can tell you they’ll turn away without a thought.”
Her bottom lip began to tremble. “Because she doesn’t matter.”
“And he does.”
“Then there is no hope,” she whispered. “What would you have me do? Change my name and run away to the country? Look over my shoulder for the rest of my miserable days?”
He shifted because the fact was, it might turn out that way in the end. “Let me help you. I have resources—I’ll work with them to try to figure out how to manage this. If we gather enough evidence, we might be able to stop these people. In the meantime, you will stay with me.”
She had gotten up from the table and walked away while he spoke, and now she pivoted to face him. “No!”
He arched a brow. “That option is so distasteful to you?”
“No.”
She stepped forward and he watched as her amber gaze flitted over him. She licked her lips, a tell that she wasn’t immune to him, just as he wasn’t immune to her. He ignored it. The circumstances were still the same, after all.
“No,” she repeated, more softly. “I just…I can’t…you wouldn’t want…” She huffed out a breath in apparent frustration. “You are a busy man. You have a successful club built on catering to men like Roddenbury. And I am nothing to you. Nothing at all. Why would you do this?”
He gripped his hands at his sides. Confession wasn’t in his nature, it never had been. It was too…dangerous. But these circumstances called for something like it. Some way to make her understand that he was on her side. That they would fight this together.
“There was…a woman,” he said through clenched teeth. “She…she disappeared from the same brothel six months ago. There is evidence she is also dead.”
Imogen’s hand came up to cover her mouth and she moved toward him with a long step. “What did she look like?” she whispered.
He understood why she asked. The same reason he’d asked about the dead woman she saw. “Not the woman you saw last night,” he assured her. “Louisa was red-haired.”
Some of the tension left her face. “Her name was Louisa?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
She reached out and touched his hand with hers. The barest of grazes of her fingers across his knuckles. A touch meant to comfort, and he supposed it did. But it also did something else. He stared down into her upturned face, and for a moment he felt nothing but desire for her.
It had been a long time since all the other emotions bled away. There was something peaceful about that, even if it resulted in a cauldron of need.
He moved away from her. He had to. And he cleared his throat. “I should have protected her and I didn’t,” he said. “But I will protect you. I will work out how to…save you.”
“Can you?” she whispered, her voice a little rougher.
“Save you?” he asked.
She nodded.
He moved toward her then. He hadn’t meant to. He hadn’t wanted to, but he found himself coming across the distance between them in a few long steps. She reacted. A catch of her breath, a frisson of fear, but also something else. Something that called to the need in his own blood. Something that was so very unexpected.
“I swear to you on my own life that I will do everything in my power, Imogen.”
She stared up at him, their gazes locked, and her breath shuddered. She opened her mouth as if to say something, and there was nothing in the world he wanted to hear more than whatever that was.
But he couldn’t hear it. Couldn’t want it. Couldn’t pursue it.
He stepped back. “You must want to change,” he said.
She glanced down at her dress. “I…yes. But how? Unless you are going to send someone to my home?”
He shifted. “I’m watching your house, but I assume I’m not the only one. Sending someone there would be too dangerous at present. But I…” He shut his eyes. “I have a few things here. They won’t be a perfect fit, mind you, but close enough. I’ve arranged a bath to be drawn for you. You can tidy up while my staff finds those things and readies them.”
