Page 47 of A Remarkable Rogue

“What happened?” Sydney followed them into the room.

“The delivery went wrong.” Nate shoved the soldier into a chair at the table and pointed the gun at his chest. “Your home was closer than the Armory.”

“Armory? I don’t understand.”

“My lady, I heard the front door and—” Disheveled in his rush to dress and hurry from his room, her butler, Danby, halted in the doorway and stared at the scene in front of him. “What on earth…?”

“There’s been an accident, but everything will be fine,” she assured him, stepping in front of him and blocking his entrance. The last thing Nate needed was an anxious butler fussing over scuffmarks on the dining room floor. “Fetch hot water and some towels, quickly!” Her eyes flicked toward the blood seeping from Nate’s arm into his jacket sleeve, and she pressed her hand against her sickening stomach. “Ask Mrs. Hodges to bring her sewing kit and Cook’s jar of kitchen salve.”

“And a length of rope,” Nate added, his eyes never leaving the soldier at the end of his pistol.

Danby gaped, his mouth opening and closing like a fish’s. The normally stoic butler was too shocked to move.

Sydney touched his arm to gain his attention. “Go—bring all of it. Quickly!”

Nodding, he scurried away and paused only to pull a half-dressed footman with him down the hallway toward the rear stairs.

Worry that Nate had once again recklessly endangered himself flared inside her, and she rounded on him. “What happened?”

He calmly threw a glance over his shoulder at the other man. “May I introduce you to Clayton Elliott? Clayton, this is Lady Rowland.”

When no further explanation was given of the man’s identity, she pressed in a low voice, “Whoishe?”

“A friend.” He turned his hazel eyes solemnly on her. “You can trust him with your life.”

Mr. Elliott paused in checking the latches on the room’s shutters only long enough to nod his head politely at her. “My lady.”

“But this one—” Nate’s eyes narrowed in contempt at the young soldier. “He’s a traitor who put your life at risk. Didn’t you, Baker?”

The soldier glared murderously at him. A black mark formed around his eye to go with the red bruise on his chin, and blood stained his uniform. She knew…Nate’sblood.

Sydney’s heart thudded. “What do you mean?”

“General Braxton’s delivery in St Giles went wrong,” Nate explained. “Someone told them to expect us, so Scepter’s men were waiting there to ambush us when we arrived. Our soldiers put up a fight, but their men got away.”

“How did they know you’d be there?” She glanced across the room at Mr. Elliott, wondering how much this man knew about Nate’s mission and how freely she could speak in front of him. She lowered her voice. “You didn’t even know until I told you at the party.”

“It was my fault,” Nate answered tightly. “I’d asked Baker to watch your house.”

As cold understanding seeped through her, she shrank farther away from the young soldier. “He was watching the house when the boy arrived with the message for Braxton, wasn’t he?” Her mouth was suddenly dry, yet a metallic taste of fear covered her tongue. “That’s why you didn’t know about it.”

“He was also guarding you the morning I found that thug in your garden. He let that man through so he could threaten you in your own home.”

The fierce shaking in her hands spread into the rest of her as she put all the pieces together. “He was the man in the horse stables, wasn’t he?”

“Most likely.”

She reached for the back of a nearby chair to steady herself. “They didn’t want you to know about the message to Braxton so you couldn’t stop them.”

He grimaced. “I wouldn’t have known if you hadn’t sent me the party invitation.”

“I’m so sorry.” Her throat tightened until her voice was barely a whisper.

Nate shook his head. “I should have known Scepter could get to anyone, even the Horse Guards.”

Danby hurried into the room with a length of rope, several towels, and a jar of salve. Mrs. Hodges followed behind with a kettle of hot water in one hand and her sewing kit in the other.

Sydney straightened her spine.Thank God.She now had something to do to take her mind off the night’s events.