Page 57 of A Remarkable Rogue

As an heiress, there was no point in learning to cook. For that matter, there was little point in learning anything that didn’t directly relate to catching a high-ranking husband. But now, when she thought about all the hours she’d spent practicing the pianoforte and learning to watercolor, she felt like a fool. She should have been in the kitchens instead for all the good those husband-hunting skills did her.

“Then I’m afraid it’s army stew for you tonight, Baroness.” He pulled out his knife to chunk up the vegetables and tossed them into the pot on the fire.

Sydney watched him work. This was how he must have looked in camp on the Peninsula, rugged yet making do without complaint. But the man who now cut up vegetables for a stew was the same one who had shone so brightly in his evening finery when he approached her at Barton’s. He’d taken her breath away then. And he did so now, too.

He gestured over his shoulder with the blade. “There’s a bottle of whiskey in the sideboard. Fetch it, will you? We’ll need it to choke down the stew.”

Snapping out of her reverie, she retrieved it. The liquor shimmered golden in the firelight as she splashed it into a pair of mugs, then held one out for him when he’d finished with the vegetables.

He mumbled his thanks and sank onto a chair at the small table, with no place else to sit save for a wooden settle on the other side of the fireplace. The rest of the room was just as sparsely furnished, with various cabinets and cupboards against the walls and a thick, tightly woven hearth rug covering the rough floorboards. Yet the place felt cozy, warm, and welcoming, and more like a real home than her grand London town house. She felt safe here.

Yet ghosts haunted this place.

She sat down across from him, cupped the mug between her palms, and stared awkwardly into it. Her heart pounded at what she was about to do. Was this what soldiers felt like before they charged into the fray?

She gathered her courage and blurted out, “Did you and Sarah live here?”

He froze, the mug raised halfway to his lips. She held her breath and waited for him to tell her to mind her own damn business.

Instead, he quietly answered, “No,” and raised the mug up to his mouth for a large swallow of whiskey.

After a long stretch of silence when it became clear he wasn’t going to willingly disclose anything more, Sydney gently pressed, “Where did you live?”

His eyes flicked across the table to hers, then just as quickly darted away. “I was in the Guards when we married, so she lived with her parents on a small farm about five miles from here. I stayed there whenever I came home on leave, which wasn’t often.”

“How long were you married?” Her fingers tightened around the mug. She had no business prying into his life like this, yet she desperately needed to know. If she was going to depend upon Nate, then she needed to trust him completely, and this woman was keeping him from her, all the way from the grave.

“Two years.” He finished the mug of whiskey in a single, gasping gulp. “You think I’m a fool to mourn for a woman longer than she was part of my life?”

“No,” she assured him softly. She’d lost her fiancé of less than three months over seven years ago, and her heart still missed him. Perhaps it always would. “You must have loved her a great deal.”

“Very much.” But he’d paused before he answered, and Sydney suspected he was attempting to persuade himself as much as her. Then he confessed, “Not enough.”

Her heart lodged itself in her throat. “You weren’t happy?”

“We were happy in our marriage.” He leveled his gaze at her across the table and accused, “But you weren’t.”

The change in conversation took her by breathless surprise. She knew why he’d asked—he wasn’t going to pour out his heart alone. Tonight, they were in this together. If she wanted to learn his secrets, she would have to share hers.

“No, I wasn’t.” Despite a defensive stiffening of her spine, she answered honestly, “I hated every day of it. We never shared a marriage bed, and I never mourned for him, not one day.”

He stared at her for a long moment as if deciding whether to believe her. “Yet you remained faithful to him.”

She gave a slow shake of her head in correction. “I remained faithful to Michael. My fidelity in my marriage was simply an overlap.”

“But you took a lover after your husband died.”

“Not a lover. It was only for one night. I was so very lonely, and I needed to feel wanted and alive. That was all it was.” She needed him to understand the difference. “I’ll always love Michael, but I no longer mourn.” She paused. “But you haven’t stopped mourning your wife, have you, Nate?”

Avoiding her eyes, he reached for the bottle and refilled his mug. “My past is more complicated than yours, Baroness.”

“We both lost people we loved,” she insisted gently. She understood his grief because it was the same pain she’d suffered and somehow managed to survive. She wanted to help him do the same. “People we thought we’d have with us for the rest of our lives, but we can’t—”

“Sarah died in childbirth.”

Her heart stopped. She fixed her eyes on him and noted every detail of his face, every change in his expression no matter how slight. His face remained emotionless, but the sudden grief she felt for him was excruciating.

“I was away on the Peninsula,” he continued quietly. “When I received word that Sarah was having problems, I came as quickly as I could, but I was too late.”