Page 56 of A Remarkable Rogue

Then he turned his back to her again.

She did as he asked. After all, she knew she’d get nowhere pressing him now about what he’d told her in London. But hewouldtell her more eventually. She wouldn’t let him keep his silence about that.

By the time she’d finished pouring the feed and water into the troughs, he’d stripped the tack from both horses and tied them to the manger. The two horses were ready for a well-deserved night’s rest. So was Sydney.

“This way.” He guided her through the darkness to the front of the cottage. Instead of pounding on the door, though, he reached down into a broken clay pot and withdrew a key. The lock turned, and he swung the door open.

“Wait here.”

He disappeared into the dark cottage, and Sydney peered after him as she tried to discern what he was doing but failed. After a few moments came the sound of metal striking flint, followed by a bright spark, then the catch of a flame. The fire slowly blossomed in the hearth with a small glow.

Closing the door behind her, she was drawn inside the wattle-and-daub cottage as he deftly built up the fire. Its soft light revealed a tiny but comfortably furnished house of one room downstairs and narrow wooden steps leading up to what she assumed was a bedroom beneath the rafters.

“Will this do for the night?” he asked and tossed two more logs onto the fire.

The comfort and warmth of a fire after such a hard, cold day… She sighed out, “Perfectly.” She glanced around. “But whose cottage is this?”

He rocked back onto his heels and wiped his dusty hands on his thighs. “Mine.”

“Yours?” She couldn’t possibly have heard him correctly.

“You think I live only in an army barracks, Baroness?” He crooked a brow in her direction.

“Well…yes.”

His lips curled into a wry smile. “Mostly, perhaps.”

He stood and reached for a pot hanging on the swing hook beside the hearth. He carried it to a barrel at the end of the long cupboard in the corner.

“We’re on the estate of the Earl of Buckley. My mother works in the manor house at Buckhurst Park.” He placed the pot beneath the spout and twisted it open until water poured from the barrel into the pot. “Most of the time, she stays at the manor house. It’s easier for her to sleep there instead of making the trek from the village every day as she did when I was a boy. But I keep this cottage just in case she wants to use it and for whenever I come to visit.”

“Keep it?” she repeated with a confused frown.

He returned the pot to the hearth and set it to boil. “I pay rent to Buckley for it.”

That made no sense. “But it’s a tenancy, and your mother works for him.”

“And as part of her pay, she’s given a narrow bed in an attic room that she shares with two other maids in the manor house. No landowner worth his salt would ever give unmarried help a cottage to themselves when he can extract rent for it.” He opened the cupboard bins and withdrew an armful of root vegetables, then dumped them onto the table. “At least Buckley lets it to me cheaply.” His mouth twisted distastefully. “He likes to brag that his tenant is the hero of Toulouse.”

Nate let him, she knew, for his mother’s sake. Yet it surely pricked his pride to subject himself to that in order to secure a lower lease price, something he’d need with only his captain’s commission for income.

Soldier, hero, dedicated son, illegitimate half brother to an earl…he was proving to be far more complicated than she’d first assumed that night at Barton’s when he sat beside her and piqued her interest by being the complete opposite of every other man in the room. She hadn’t realized until right now, though, exactly how different he was, and not just from the men at Barton’s but from every other man she’d ever known.

“The Home Office has promised reward money for stopping Scepter,” he admitted quietly. “Not much, I’m sure, but if I sell my commission, there should be enough between the two to permanently secure a better cottage where she can be pensioned.” He muttered beneath his breath, “Somewhere far away from here.”

Sell his commission? But his position in the army meant everything to him—his identity, his career, his future. “You can’t!”

Both of his brows raised in surprise.

“I mean—” An embarrassed blush heated her cheeks. Heavens, she’d overstepped. His commission was his to do with as he pleased, including selling it, and how busybody of her to stick her nose into his business where it didn’t belong…even if he would be making a grand mistake. “I mean, you can’t leave this place. You grew up here.”

“Yes, I did. Which is why I want to leave it behind.” He tossed her an apple, and she easily caught it. As easily as he switched topics with, “I don’t suppose you know how to cook.”

So…he didn’t want to talk about his childhood home. He didn’t want to talk about his father or brother. And from the all-day silence following his announcement about his late wife, he didn’t want to talk about her either.

Was there anything he was willing to share about himself? Or did he simply not trust her the same way he expected her to trust him?

Conceding the conversation to him—momentarily—she shook her head. “Not even tea.”