Page 85 of A Remarkable Rogue

She heard herself scream, the sound tearing from her throat of its own volition. One last, desperate cry for help—

A pistol shot boomed through the woods. Sydney’s eyes flew open.

Above her, the man convulsed as red blood blossomed on his chest. Then he coughed, and bloody spittle dripped from the corner of his mouth. She screamed again as he fell forward on top of her, and she shoved him away with all her strength. He was dead by the time he hit the ground.

Nate stood behind him. A trail of smoke curled from the end of his spent pistol.

Tossing the gun away, he rushed forward and dropped to his knees to pull her into his arms. She clung to him. For several seconds, she was unable to do anything more than gasp for breath.

“Sydney,” he rasped hoarsely as he crushed her against him. “Are you all right?”

“Robert!” She craned her neck over his shoulder to see into the woods in the opposite direction where her son had disappeared only moments before. “He ran the other way! You have to save him. You have to—”

“Beasley and Clayton have him,” he assured her. “He’s safe.”

“No!” She pushed against him to free herself and gasped at the wincing pain in her shoulder where the kidnapper had twisted her arm. “Miss Jenner—I left her behind at the cottage.” Frantic to find Robbie and keep him safe, she struggled in his arms. “I have to get to Robbie!”

“He’s safe,” he repeated, cupping her face between his hands to reassure her. “Clayton handed him off to Beasley, and Beasley’s taking him straight back to Oakwood. He’s protected.”

“Clayton?” She stilled as his words slowly sank into her panic-filled brain. “The man who was with you at my town house?”

“He came to Oakwood to warn us but arrived too late.” He frowned with dark fury at the cut on her forehead as the trickle of blood seeped down the side of her face. “He helped me find you. We were ready to burst into the cottage when you and Robbie ran out.”

“It was Miss Jenner,” Sydney told him. “She arranged for the kidnapping. She was going to help kill Robbie and me.”

He traced his fingertips gently over her bruised cheek, and his face filled with guilt. “I know.”

She grasped desperately at his waistcoat. “She can’t be allowed near Robbie. He trusts her, and she—”

“She’s been captured and arrested.” He placed a kiss to her lips to soothe her. “She can’t hurt Robert now.”

She gave a soft cry and buried her face into his shoulder to weep. All the fear bubbled out of her, and her body slowly filled with his strength and solace.

“You’re both safe, Sydney,” he whispered into her hair, “and everything’s going to be all right now.” He soothingly stroked his hands over her back. “It’s all over.”

Twenty-Five

Nate frowned grimly at Clayton as the two men stood outside Oakwood’s front door. Sydney and Robbie waited inside the rented carriage at the bottom of the steps, ready to leave.

Behind them, the house was in an uproar. Mrs. Larkin had protested that they were risking their safety traveling on such short notice in the middle of the night. Beasley was following Clayton’s orders and searching Miss Jenner’s possessions for any evidence to connect her to the kidnapping, while Miss Jenner sat tied in the breakfast room with a rock-shaped lump on her head. One of the grooms had already been dispatched to London to deliver two coded messages. The first message from Clayton asked Lord Sidmouth in the Home Office to have the Marquess of Hawking placed under surveillance until an arrest warrant could be secured for treason and murder. The second message was from Nate to Brandon Pearce, his old friend turned earl, notifying him that Nate was bringing Sydney and Robbie back to the Armory and wanted Pearce’s man McTavish there to act as guard.

They needed to be gone from Oakwood as far and as fast as possible, even at the risk of nighttime travel, and he had paid the hired driver and tiger well for it. Even with the small number of staff at Oakwood, that afternoon’s events couldn’t be kept secret for long.

Nate shook his head, unable to fathom where their mission had brought them. “Why would Hawking do this? He’s a marquess, for God’s sake. He has a fortune and lands, the ear of the regent—he’s one of the most powerful lords in England.”

“I don’t know,” Clayton answered, “but I plan to find out.”

“You plan to torture him, you mean.”

“Torture, interrogation—who am I to quibble over definitions?” Clayton said dryly with a shrug. “I’ll spend the night here, then start back to London with the governess at dawn.”

“How should I contact you?”

“Through St James.” When Nate didn’t reply to that, Clayton asked quietly, “Does it bother you to work this closely with him?”

“No.” Nate flipped up the collar of his greatcoat against the night air.

He felt Clayton’s gaze swing curiously to him at his curt answer, but his friend wouldn’t find any indication of his true feelings about St James’s sudden and unwanted presence in his life, nor about the bevy of Sinclair ladies with their desperate desire to make amends with a recognition he’d never pursued nor wanted. Nate wasn’t certain himself how he felt about it all.