Page 29 of A Remarkable Rogue

“I—I was sent after the lady who lives here.”

“Mylady,” Nate corrected through clenched teeth. “She’s under my protection.” Fury pulsated through his limbs to find this brute so close to Sydney while she slept helplessly in her bed. “Who hired you? Tell me.” Nate moved the knife in silent threat across Murker’s throat. “Or I’ll slit you from ear to ear like a pig.”

“I don’t know!” Panic widened his eyes. “A man came into th’ tavern—”

“A finely dressed gentleman with brown hair and eyes.” Nate’s guess wasn’t a question.

“Yes! Yes—that’s him.”

“What else about him?”

“Nothin’! He didn’t give no name.”

With the tip of the knife, he pricked Murker’s skin beneath his ear. A trickle of blood ran down his neck and dripped onto his dirty collar. “What did he hire you to do?”

“To come ’ere this mornin’ an’ give her a message. Fright’n her good wit’ it.”

Nate slid the knife down Murker’s throat until the point poised at the pulsing heartbeat at the base of his neck. Nate could kill him with one soft push. Frighten her good—bastards.Hadn’t they terrified her enough already? “What was the message?”

Murker recited carefully, “Keep yer silence, or we’ll kill Robert.”

Who the hell was Robert? Nate’s blood turned cold as he realized… Sydney’s lover. “And the baroness? Were you supposed to hurt her?”

“No! Just scare her.” The man swallowed, his Adam’s apple undulating against the knife’s edge. “But make her believe it.”

“Why?” Nate demanded. “What do they want from her?”

“I don’t know! I was only hired for this, I swear!”

With a ferocious growl, Nate released him and stepped back until he was out of Murker’s reach. He held the knife ready should the thug attack, but Murker remained at the wall, too afraid to flee. His only movement was to reach up to rub at the tiny cut beneath his ear, and his face blanched when sticky blood smeared his fingertips.

His eyes widened as he glanced from the blood to Nate. “The man who hired me—if he finds out I talked to you, he’ll kill me!”

“Then leave London on the next ship,” Nate ordered. “And if I ever see you anywhere around Lady Rowland again, I’ll kill you myself.”

Murker clamped his hand over his throat, turned, and ran. His boots scraped against the brick path as he fled toward the street as fast as his bowed legs could scramble.

Nate bit out a harsh curse and sheathed the knife. The danger for Sydney was escalating. They knew she’d been speaking with him; the toy soldier had been proof of that. It was their first warning. This thug was the second.

Nate feared there wouldn’t be a third.

He circled the house to check the perimeter and resume his post in the rear. He glanced up one last time at the brick town house and froze.

Sydney stood at her bedroom window and stared down at him through the light of the brightening dawn. In a white night rail framed by the darkness of the room behind, her sable hair hanging loose around her shoulders, she appeared as if she’d materialized from his dream…the woman in white who stepped from the darkness to drape herself across the red satin sheets and tangle her body with his.

He could go to her. Right now. Just scale the side of the brick house and climb through the window into her room, take her into his arms, and carry her to the bed. She wouldn’t refuse him. For God’s sake, she’d invited him and would welcome him with open arms, delicious kisses, and wanton touches.

But at what cost? Unfaithfulness to Sarah and an affront to all they’d wanted for their future? The destruction of his mission to stop Scepter?

Oh, the intimacy would be exquisite, certainly. But the price he’d have to pay would be far too dear.

Sucking a harsh breath through clenched teeth, he summoned what was left of his thin thread of restraint, turned his back to her, and walked away.

Eight

“Lady Rowland?”

Sydney frowned into her teacup, oblivious to the people around her in the drawing room of St James House. The tea had grown cold while her thoughts had once again strayed to Nate Reed.