A Remarkable Rogue by Anna Harrington

Author:Anna Harrington
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2022-05-16T00:00:00+00:00

Fourteen

Her son.

Sydney’s words pierced into Nate as painfully as the slash throbbing in his forearm.

Robert was her child? All this time, he’d been convinced Robert was her lover, and that was why she’d risked her life to protect him.

But a child…

Impossible. There were no signs of a boy, not once in all the days he’d been guarding her. Lady Agnes had never mentioned a baby; neither had St James and Olivia Everett.

Yet the pain in her eyes—

The cold realization seeped over him like ice water. They hadn’t told him because none of them knew. The boy hadn’t been missing from her life for just the past few weeks since Scepter had been blackmailing her. He’d been absent for far longer than that.

He narrowed his eyes on her. “Where is he?”

A stricken expression darkened her face. “In Warwickshire. I have a country house there.”

The confusion inside him gave way to complete disbelief. “Why isn’t he in London with you?”

“Because I can’t have him here. He isn’t—” She wrapped her fingers in her skirt to keep her hands from shaking and finished, “He isn’t Rowland’s son. The scandal that would happen if anyone found out…”

She swallowed hard, unwilling to put words to her fears.

As she began to rise from her chair, he clasped her arm and stopped her. “Why isn’t he in London?”

Unexpected anger flared in his gut. Situations like hers happened all the time among ladies of the ton who got with child. They would place the baby with distant relatives to raise as their own, then return to society a few months later as if nothing had happened.

But Sydney wasn’t one of those women. She was brave and generous, independent and strong, and she couldn’t have cared less about scandal.

Or so he’d thought.

Apparently, he didn’t know her at all.

He clenched his jaw. “Your son deserves your love and protection.”

“He has both.” She tried to pull her arm away, but he refused to let her go. Not now, not when she had a great deal of explaining to do. In frustration, she added, “I bought a farm in the country where he lives with a wonderful governess. He has toys, books, friends—for God’s sake, he even has a pony!” Her anger matched his own. “I have given him everything he needs.”

His eyes locked with hers as he accused quietly, “Except his mother.”

“He has me,” she said firmly, as if trying to convince herself as much as him. “As much of myself as I can give.”

This time when she pulled away, he let her go, but not before he saw her glistening tears.

She slipped off the chair and crossed the room to the fireplace to stare down at the flames. Her arms folded over her chest like a shield. At that moment, she appeared so fragile and vulnerable that he feared a harsh word would shatter her. Anguish for her rose inside him, and although he was too ashamed to admit it, so did a deep jealousy.

Fate had given her what it had so cruelly ripped away from him.

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