Page 10 of A Remarkable Rogue

Nonsense.

Alexander Sinclair was one shade shy of being a rake, while Olivia Everett was a virtuous schoolmistress who’d been flustered scarlet from simply dancing with him. The two were as incompatible as oil and water and from completely different worlds. Allowing the girls to stay here was most likely his mother’s doing, since Isabel Sinclair graciously served on the boards of many children’s charities.

Or due to his aunt Agnes’s meddling. She had a reputation of always doing the unexpected, mostly with no other purpose than to boil the gossips into a tizzy. And truly, what could Lady Agnes have done to unleash a greater ripple through the currenton-ditthan to put two dozen girls still in braids into the home of one of society’s most notorious bachelors?

Sydney couldn’t help but smile at that. Lady Agnes was a force of nature.

As she waited for Bivvens to return, she paced the room, unable to find enough calm inside her to sit. Shehadto keep moving. Her body shook, her nervous heart pounded, and each trip she paced across the room made her feel like a trapped animal stalking in its cage, but she couldn’t stay still.

She raised her thumb to her mouth and chewed on the nail as she paused in midpace to stare thoughtfully at the doorway. Bivvens said that St James was in his study attempting to work. The study was undoubtedly on the ground floor and not part of the chaos unfolding on the floors above, or he couldn’t even beattempting.

Sydney stared at the door, so very tempted to go looking for the earl herself. After all, she and he were friends…of a sort. Surely, he wouldn’t be angry if an old friend went looking for him. St James would undoubtedly understand, given the current uproar of his household and her concern for Miss Everett.

She straightened her spine against thoughts that she would be breaking all kinds of unspoken social rules—and polite manners—and stepped into the hall.

Bivvens wouldn’t be returning for a good long while, judging from the high-pitched wailing and shrieking still echoing from upstairs that was nearly matched in volume by his frantic pleas for the girls to behave like proper young ladies. Surely, she was saving his sanity by giving him one less task this morning by taking her visit into her own hands… Or at least that was her excuse for wandering through St James House and peeking her head tentatively inside each room.

Hmm. Not a footman in sight. Smart men, those, staying as far away from the girls and their chaos as possible. It was good practice for marriage and—

Sydney stopped. Deep voices argued quietly in the next room.

She held her breath and moved slowly to the doors. Peering into the study through the tiny slit between the pocket doors, she could just make out half of the earl’s tall body sitting behind his mahogany desk, his expression grim as he spoke irritably to the man with him. The same man whose handsome face had invaded her dreams last night, whose deep voice even now fell through her like a warm summer rain…

Captain Nate Reed.

He leaned against the wall in the perfectly casual pose of a man who couldn’t care less about their argument—or one who wanted to appear that way, anyway. His arms were folded across his broad chest, and his head was bowed with his eyes focused on the floor as if he were bored, yet Sydney suspected he was keenly aware of every word St James was saying. A slant of morning sunshine highlighted the red in his chestnut hair, including the stray lock that fell rakishly across his forehead. Jacketless and scandalously relaxed in his shirtsleeves, he wore a workman’s coarse shirt beneath a tan waistcoat and matching breeches. He was dressed for a day of hard work rather than a meeting with an earl, right down to his age-creased, dusty boots. Yet try as he might, nothing could hide his soldier’s proud bearing.

Sydney frowned. How could it be possible that in his simple clothes he looked even more handsome than he had in superfine and brocade? The man was an enigma.

Last night, she’d been aware of him the moment he entered Barton’s, then pretended not to notice that he’d been watching her. Truly, how could she not have noticed him? His presence was like an oncoming storm, large and powerful, and when she’d glanced up from her faro cards to find him at her side, she’d lost her breath at the instant tightening low in her belly. She hadn’t felt such a hot rush of physical longing for a man since Michael, all those years ago.

But for it to be Captain Reed of all men, the one set on arresting her for treason—

Oh, what a blasted fool she was! All the threats and fears of the past few weeks had apparently driven her mad.

“…deep in Spain by the end of the sennight,” St James commented.

The captain shook his head. “…a mistake.”

“You would disagree with Clayton?”

“…the thick…as we are.”

“It’s done,” St James replied. The note of finality in his voice put an end to the argument.

Grudgingly, Captain Reed nodded and made a quiet comment Sydney couldn’t quite make out.

Whatever he’d said, though, it made St James clench his jaw in anger.

Alexander Sinclair, Earl of St James, had always possessed an imperial demeanor, one that had perfectly matched his major’s command during the years he’d served in the army. As for Captain Reed, Sydney would have expected the soldier in him to follow whatever orders were given, even from St James.

No. This argument was personal. The tension emanating from them proved it.

Sydney shifted closer to bring her cheek against the doors and give herself an unobstructed view of the man who inexplicably both excited and frightened her.

Whyhim, of all men, to snag her attention? After all, London was filled with dashing army officers freshly returned from the wars.

But none of those men possessed the confidence and strong bearing that radiated from every inch of him, a self-assurance that flirted on the knife-edge of arrogance. For that alone, she knew she should stay away from him. The past seven years had taught her never to trust any man, especially one with the power to hurt her.