Page 3 of A Remarkable Rogue

“A woman as regal and self-possessed as you? You should be.” He boldly met her gaze. “Or perhaps the men of the aristocracy don’t wish to be bested.” He lifted his glass to her in a toast and purposely misstated, “Baroness.”

Her lips curled into a smile with a surprising touch of shyness at the rim of her glass. “Captain.”

There. Introductions made, conversation begun. He let out the breath he’d been holding. That hadn’t been so difficult…so why was his gut clenched in a knot?

Sydney Rowland was nothing more than a mission asset, after all, just another link in the chain he had to sever before Scepter could kill again. Tonight was simply questions and answers in a polite conversation…or in an interrogation session if she failed to cooperate willingly.

“You’ve never been here before?” she asked. Now that she knew he wasn’t interested in ravishing her, she visibly relaxed into the conversation. Still turned toward him, she draped her arm along the back of her chair and smiled faintly. Her presence was as soft as her lilting voice against the boisterous club around them. “I thought everyone had been to Barton’s.”

With her full attention on him, she was even more beautiful now than only a few moments ago. Nate realized like a punch why Scepter had chosen her as their liaison for mathematician Henry Everett. A besotted schoolmaster who desperately wanted to be included in society’s ranks would never have stood a chance against the baroness’s beauty and charms.

But she’d have no such effect on him, no matter that he wondered if her lips tasted of brandy.

He cleared his throat. “A friend recommended this place. Perhaps you know him.” He watched her over the rim of his glass as he raised it toward his mouth. “Henry Everett.”

Her eyes flashed wide, startled. Yet within a heartbeat, she’d skillfully recovered.

She turned back toward the table. “I’ve met his sister, Olivia, on a few occasions. She’s a wonderful woman, very dedicated to reform.” She expertly maneuvered the conversation away from Henry Everett. “We’re both interested in children’s charities and so had a natural connection. I’m certain I’ve met her brother, but only in passing.”

If she wasn’t working for Scepter, Nate mused, then her talents were being greatly wasted. The Home Office could use someone like her,ifshe didn’t turn them all double agents first.

Her hand returned to the locket at her neck. “They run a school in Westminster, I believe.”

“They used to.”

“Oh?” This time, she’d been prepared for his peculiar correction, and there was no widening of eyes, no catching of breath. Nothing except a heartbeat’s hesitation. But he noticed.

Of coursehe noticed. How could any living man not notice every move this woman made, no matter how small?

“Haven’t you heard?” He forced himself not to stare at her red lips. “It burned down a few days ago.”

Her hand began to tremble. “Burned down?”

He nodded, then told her the same lie the Home Office was reporting to the world: “Henry Everett died in the fire.”

The glass slipped from her fingers.

He darted out his hand and caught it but not before the brandy splashed onto her skirt. He set the drink down, but her outstretched fingers remained empty in the air as she stared at him. A stricken expression blanched her face.

Slowly, she lowered her hand and brushed futilely with shaking fingers at the liquor as it seeped into her gown. All of her trembled as harshly as her hands, and she didn’t lift her gaze from the stain. “I-I didn’t know,” she stammered. “I hadn’t heard…”

From her stunned reaction, she was telling the truth. For once.

Nate narrowed his eyes on her. Was there more between Henry Everett and Sydney Rowland than he knew? Henry Everett had denied they were lovers when Clayton questioned him after the fire, yet her shock at hearing the news of his death was not the reaction of a passing acquaintance.

Nate knew grief—and guilt—and both flashed across her pale face.

“I’m…so very sorry to hear that.” Her voice emerged so softly from her lips that it was almost lost beneath the noise of the club. “I’ll have to…send my condolences and…”

Unable to finish, she pressed the back of her hand against her mouth.

Regret pierced him. She was truly distraught. Not even a Covent Garden actress could pretend such distress. But she could never learn the truth—that Henry Everett was alive and on his way to exile in exchange for information about Scepter, that the Home Office faked his death and left another charred body in the school’s ruins to take his place. The well-orchestrated ruse meant a few days of grief for the baroness, but the lives of countless others would be saved.

Still, Nate knew the shattering pain of losing a lover, and if she truly hadn’t known about Everett until that moment…Christ.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured sincerely and low enough that no one around them could overhear. “To lose someone you loved that way—”

Her head snapped up, and her glistening eyes flared in the lamplight.