Page 49 of A Remarkable Rogue

“Take the scissors,” he explained calmly, “and cut off the sleeve above my elbow.”

She did as instructed and cut through the cloth around his hard bicep, then carefully slid the sleeve down his arm. Blood had already dried into the lawn where the sleeve lay over the cut and almost glued the fabric into the wound. She gently worked it free, but fresh, bright blood sprang up in her wake. Beneath her fingertips, she felt every wince of pain and sharp inhalation he took through gritted teeth, each one a small slice into her heart.

“What happened to you?” she whispered, desperate to distract herself.

“One of the men had a knife,” he explained evenly. “He was too fast, and I was too slow.”

She glared at him. His self-deprecation was not humorous. He’d been in real danger, might very well have been much more seriously hurt or perhaps even killed, and now he was joking?

Her hands shook, and she pulled them back. “Nate—”

“Sydney, I will be fine,” he interrupted. “I’ve had worse.”

He’d hadworse? “That’s not reassuring.”

“Makesmefeel better,” he mumbled.

Infuriating man! Her hands clenched into frustrated fists. He had no idea how much he’d frightened her tonight, how much she worried whenever he risked his life so recklessly—she could throttle him for it.

“Do you always put yourself into harm’s way like this?” She ticked off on her fingers. “Leaping into my carriage the night we met, then the runaway landau, that man in the garden, General Braxton at the party—now this.”

“It was all necessary.”

“Well, stop doing it.”Stop endangering yourself! And stop terrifying me.

“We’re in the middle of this now. I have to do whatever it takes to finish the mission.” He held her gaze intently as if he knew more than he was saying. “And to protect you.” Apparently deciding that was enough explanation, he frowned down at his arm. “This is really nothing.”

She didn’t believe that for a second.

“You’ll have to clean the cut before you stitch it,” he explained quietly, bringing her attention back to the task.

Her stomach lurched at the idea, and she pressed her hand against her belly to calm herself before she cast up her accounts. Yet she gave a jerking nod and summoned her courage. She poured some hot water from the kettle into a bowl and soaked a towel in the water, then wrung it out.

He clenched his teeth as she carefully and methodically dabbed the towel against his forearm.

After several minutes, he nodded sharply. “That’s good. Now sew it up.”

She reluctantly reached for the needle and spool of thread from the sewing kit. This was going to hurt him. Terribly.

“I don’t have any whiskey in the house to dull the pain,” she said, delaying the inevitable. “I can send one of the footmen to—”

“Just sew it.” He clenched his hand into a fist. “But no more stitches than necessary, all right?”

She bit her lip. The trust he placed in her—she trembled from the enormity of it. Yet the irony of their situation made her want to laugh because he didn’t trust her enough to give himself to her, and she couldn’t trust him enough to reveal her past. What a pair! Brave in facing physical pain, but cowards with pains of the heart.

Pushing her troubled thoughts away, she concentrated on the thread and needle. “That man who was with you…who is he?”

“General Clayton Elliott.”

She shot him a no-nonsense glance. “Whoishe?”

“Undersecretary for the Home Office.”

“He’s working with you to stop Scepter?”

“Yes.”

“And St James? He mentioned the earl.”