Sins of a Ruthless Rogue

She snatched up the sheepskin coat from where it had fallen and shoved her arms inside, leaving his on the floor. She’d freeze a


thousand deaths before she accepted his jacket again.

Clayton stared at her long and hard. If she thought her outburst would spark any remorse in the coldhearted bastard, she was wrong.

“All of your injuries are superficial.”

“You think I did this to myself?”

“I’ve seen people do far worse.”

What had he seen that— But any pity she might have felt disappeared at his careless shrug. “Would you have been happy if you’d

found me broken and near death?”

“I would have been less surprised.”

She spun toward the stove, unable to look at the creature who used to be the boy she loved. “How clever do you think I am? I just

happened to have a devious plan in case a man I thought was dead returned?”

“They could have told you I was alive long ago.”

“If they wanted you, why didn’t they take you? They knew where you were. They followed you.”

“They knew they would never be able to get me to break the code for them.” But something flickered deep in his gaze.

“You aren’t positive of that, are you?”

“Where did the money for the new machinery come from?”

The change in topic momentarily stunned her, but she lifted her chin. “It doesn’t concern you.”

“Where?”

That was an answer she could never tell him. She’d been desperate. She’d found the fresh banknotes hidden in her father’s

belongings when she sold the London house that was to have been her dowry, but she’d vowed never to use them.

But then she’d had no choice if she wanted to save the mill.

There’d been no way to know for sure where the banknotes had come from. They might have been from any of a dozen other

investments. It could have been coincidence that they were all fifty-pound notes.

The money Clayton had hanged for.

No. She didn’t know that for certain.

“Why should I tell the man who wants to destroy the mill?”

“Because then I might consider trusting you.”

“I don’t want your trust.” Not now. Not ever. Clayton would never understand her actions. Her determination to restore the town.

But spending the money she’d found hadn’t been an easy choice. And now looking at Clayton, all that uncertainty and guilt washed

over her. What if it had been the money—

If it had been her father’s illegally printed money, then she’d used it to help the very people her father had hurt. She’d sworn not to

agonize over her choice after it was made.

The lines on his face deepened, as if he hadn’t slept for days. He rubbed his palm over his jaw. “Nothing about you makes sense,

Olivia.”

It was the first time he’d said her name since he’d come back. The familiar cadence rumbled through her to the hidden part of her

soul that had never let him go.

Part of her wanted to stay angry at him. To rail at him for his distrust and coldness. But every terror she’d felt over the past few days

slowly ebbed away. “I spent the past decade thinking I had blood on my soul.” Blood that had marked her. Blood that had burned.

Blood that had torn aside her naïveté and made her see herself crimson and ugly in the mirror. “I won’t spend the rest of my life

knowing it to be so.”

If only he could believe that her anguish was real. But he still had far too many doubts.

And mingled with those doubts was regret. The discomfort was foreign and distasteful. He’d done truly horrible things in his time as

an agent of the Crown. Followed orders that should have kept him awake at night. But he didn’t regret those things. He’d never

allowed himself the luxury of uncertainty. It reeked too much of weakness.

But looking at the dried blood on Olivia’s neck and the wounds on her wrists cracked open pieces of his soul he’d long since

sealed.

“Ouch.”

The single word stopped Clayton in his tracks. “What happened?”

Olivia shook her head, but her bottom lip was caught tightly in her teeth. “Nothing, just a splinter from the fence. That is what I get for

choosing to meet you in the woods, I suppose.” But her words wavered.

He settled her on his lap in the grass. “Let me see.” He caught her hand, and after a moment plucked out the dark fleck.

“Thank you.” But her exhale was breathy, shuddering.

“Hmm . . . I believe more care might be needed.” He drew her finger to his lips and pressed a kiss to the reddened spot. “Better?”

Clayton exhaled, trying to banish the memory, but failing to succeed completely. What if he’d still been the kind of man to pull her into

his arms, and ask if she was all right? What if he’d kissed the frozen tears from her cheeks and felt her sigh against his lips?

Yet that would have done nothing but show her the power she still held over him.

His training had taught him not to be such a gullible fool.

He didn’t want to be dragged back into all this espionage. The Foreign Office was finished with him and he was finished with the

Foreign Office. He wasn’t bitter like Madeline had been; he was simply . . . done.

Besides, he had no love for the czar. The man had Madeline tortured for three days before Clayton and Ian had been able to get her

out. Clayton had saved the ruler’s life once; this was the perfect opportunity to rectify that mistake.

Olivia’s eyes narrowed. “You still think I have something to do with all of this, don’t you?”

He didn’t deny it.

She exhaled in disbelief. “Fine. But will you at least help me send word to St. Petersburg so I can warn someone?”

Hell, he’d been in this business too long. “I have contacts at the port. We can send word once we find a ship to return to England.”

Something passed over her face, a hesitance. A slight pause.

He wanted nothing more than to pluck that thought from her head and examine it. To know for certain whether she worked for the

revolutionaries.

“Do you trust these contacts?”

Clayton shrugged. “For the most part.”

“Then we must go to St. Petersburg ourselves.”

Further proof she was working with the revolutionaries. Otherwise, sending a warning would have been enough. “The revolutionaries

will be looking for you.”

Her hand lifted to the wound on her neck but then lowered. “I won’t slink away and let them win. What kind of person would I be?”

“A living one.”

She bared her perfect white teeth but didn’t let him distract her. “If there is a chance we can break the code and save lives, we must

try. And what good will it do us to understand the code if we’re on a ship in the Baltic Sea?”

He had no obligation to scamper around Europe propping up Britain’s allies, but he’d pass the code to one of the British spies in

St. Petersburg. Even he hesitated before allowing cold-blooded murder. “This isn’t my fight any longer.”

“I thought you cared about justice.”

“Only my own.” He let the words sink into her, feeling nothing at the shocked light in her eyes.