The Redemption of a Rogue (The Duke's By-Blows #4) - Jess Michaels Page 0,1

a staircase that led to a little courtyard one floor below, closed in by the building’s walls. It wasn’t a pretty garden, though, but a dirty bricked-in place, smelling of piss and garbage and despair.

She moved forward to look down into the square, hoping to find some direct exit onto the street. There would be hacks there, waiting for the customers to leave. She had just enough blunt stuffed in her slipper to get home.

And then she’d have to work out what to do next.

Her fingers closed around the rusty metal railing, and she looked down into the abyss. To her surprise, there were people down there. Maggie, from the looks of it, and two men with her. They were talking, not overly loudly, but the closed-in walls made the sound bounce back up toward Imogen.

“Wrap her up in the damned carpet!” Maggie was snarling, pointing toward something at her feet.

When she moved, Imogen gasped. A woman laid there on the dirty brick, unmoving, blonde hair fanned out around her, her body twisted at an unnatural angle.

Dead. Imogen realized in a horrible flush of a moment that she was dead.

“Shut your whore mouth, Maggie,” one of the men said. “I’m a bloody earl—I don’t work for you.”

“You’re an earl who just killed one of my best girls,” Maggie snapped back. “I swear, Roddenbury, you can’t keep doing this just because they don’t please you. Now help Charlie. We can have her in the river before sunrise and that will end that.”

Imogen’s hand came up to cover her mouth as the full realization of what had happened dawned on her confused and horrified mind. Roddenbury…an earl…a friend of her late husband…had murdered one of Maggie’s girls, and they were working to not only cover up that fact, but dispose of her body before anyone else knew.

Imogen’s breath was coming sharper and harder as the truth of this matter washed over her. She needed to get out of here. Before they saw her. Before she joined that poor girl in the carpet. Bile lifted in her throat, and she swallowed hard to keep it down as she pivoted to go back into the bawdy house and find another escape route.

As she did so, she staggered and her fist hit the door with a clang that echoed through the courtyard as surely as the voices below had. She froze in horror and then looked back over her shoulder.

All three faces were turned up toward her from below. Maggie, Roddenbury and a huge hulk of a man she now recognized as the door guard.

“You there!” Maggie called up. “Stop!”

But Imogen didn’t stop. She tore the heavy door open and ran.

Oscar Fitzhugh sat in his carriage in the alleyway behind the Cat’s Companion, staring up at the imposing building. His hands clenched against his thighs as he struggled to rein in the emotions that threatened to overwhelm him. It was the same any time he came to this place. Anger. Grief. Bitterness.

But mostly guilt. He came here and guilt washed over him.

“You should have done bloody better,” he muttered.

But doing better was why he was here, wasn’t it? Why he came here once a month, every month. Why he circulated into the crowd and tried to determine facts that would somehow absolve him. Or at least facts that would avenge her.

With a sigh, he opened the carriage door and got out. His driver glanced down at him with concern, but Bentley had long ago stopped expressing his uneasiness with this endeavor out loud.

“Wait here,” Oscar said.

“Yes, Mr. Fitzhugh,” Bentley said softly, his gaze darting away with something suspiciously like pity.

Oscar’s stomach clenched at the sight. No one fucking pitied him. Even when he was pitiable. He stepped forward, ready to make his way through the unlocked back door to the place. He’d been banned from the official entrance months ago. But this entrance allowed him to sneak in and blend in. Another faceless man in a sea of faceless men there to take their pleasure. Take advantage.

But before he could open the door, it flew out toward him. He stepped back, just barely missing being cracked in the face, and opened his arms to regain his balance. Which allowed the woman who had thrown the door wide and now raced from the darkened, smoky hall to collide directly into his chest.

Oscar closed his arms around her, a natural reaction to keep them both from depositing themselves on the dirty ground. The moment he did so,