Page 11 of A Remarkable Rogue

Yet she also suspected that in his arms she might find the peace and security she’d not felt since Michael.Thatwas why she couldn’t shake the man from her mind.

But she had best find a way to rid herself of him, or his arms wouldn’t be the only things around her. The noose would come next.

“Nothing,” St James answered a question Captain Reed had asked too quietly for Sydney to hear. “Everett’s dead to the world and all the evidence destroyed.”

Henry Everett.Her eyes stung with the same grief that had kept her in tears for most of the night.

“…can’t be happy…gone.”

“She isn’t,” St James answered. “She’d do anything to bring him back.” He paused. “And your lead, Reed?”

He shook his head, his eyes still fixed on the floor. “…refused to answer any questions…left me stranded along Pall Mall at two in the morning.”

The little hairs on Sydney’s arms prickled. They were talking abouther. Holding her breath, she strained to catch every word over the deafening rush of blood pounding through her ears.

“…denied any connection to Everett beyond his gambling debts.”

“You think she’s lying?”

The captain’s broad shoulders shrugged. “She mentioned messengers.”

“The same as with Olivia and Sir George Pittens, then? Blackmail?”

Captain Reed shook his head. “…one way or another. Whatever her secret, she’s keeping silent, even now that she thinks Scepter’s coming after her.”

Sydney drew a ragged breath and swallowed hard her resolve. Shewouldcontinue to keep that secret, too, until the day she died. Even if that day came far sooner than she’d hoped.

“They’ll kill her if they think she knows too much,” the captain added grimly.

Sydney’s heart lurched into her throat. St James gave a muffled reply that Sydney couldn’t hear. She shifted closer to the gap in the door.

“…any more innocents be hurt.”

“I won’t let that happen,” Captain Reed answered decisively. “Not to Lady Rowland.”

“You believe she’s innocent, then?”

“I think—” He raised his eyes and looked straight at her.

Caught.With a startled gasp, she shoved herself away from the doors and ran.

Four

“Tea, Captain Reed?” Lady Agnes Sinclair lifted the teapot from the tray. Around them, the small sitting room at Harlow House was filled with sunshine nearly as bright as the woman’s yellow turban.

“Please.” Nate smiled and shifted uncomfortably on the small chair as she poured his cup. In truth, the whole meeting made him uncomfortable.

He stared with incredulity as she pulled a bottle of whiskey from the sideboard behind her and splashed in a generous amount.

“There we are.” Dozens of bracelets jangled from her wrists as she handed him the teacup and saucer. “Strong tea for one of His Majesty’s strong soldiers.”

He blinked.Whiskey?“There’s really no need to…” He fell silent as he watched her pour even more whiskey into her own cup, take a quick sip, and breathe a softahhof satisfaction.

Well. The Sinclair family was certainly interesting, although her odd, if endearing, behavior did little to put him at ease.

As Agnes’s bastard nephew, he shouldn’t be in Harlow House at all. England was filled with the unacknowledged by-blows of peers, so many that no one gave them a second thought…except the families to whom they should have belonged.Thosepeople avoided their illegitimate offspring as if they carried the plague.

But not the Sinclairs. There was certainly no love lost between Nate and the old earl’s family, but far from pretending he’d never been born, the Sinclairs seemed to be welcoming him into their lives. If tangentially.