Page 9 of A Remarkable Rogue

“Good morning, my lady.”

Sydney gave a tired smile to the butler at St James House as Bivvens opened the front door and welcomed her into the foyer with a formal bow.

Allof her was tired, in fact, from a tortured night spent tossing and turning over troubled thoughts and through endless sobs about Henry Everett. During those rare moments when exhaustion pulled her into sleep, she suffered grief-stricken dreams of Michael mixed with darker visions of the old baron that made her wake with a shudder.

And then there was Captain Reed. Her unbidden dreams about him—

Well,thosehad left her trembling for completely different reasons.

“I’m here to call on Miss Everett.” She pulled off her kid gloves and untied the ribbon of her bonnet. “Can you inquire if she’s accepting visitors?”

No funeral wreath decorated the front door of the grand house, which Sydney had learned from her maid now served as the temporary Everett School for the girls who had been displaced by the fire, so she assumed that the house wasn’t closed to visitors. That, plus an inability to sleep at all once dawn peeked over the city, had her up and dressed at the earliest polite hour to call.

“My apologies, ma’am,” Bivvens answered. His drawn face told her he was just as fatigued as she was. “Miss Everett is residing at Harlow House with the countess.”

Her chest fell. “I’d heard she was here.”

“The girls from the school are here, ma’am.” As if on cue, running footsteps pounded overhead, followed by high-pitched laughter and a slamming door. His haggard face drew into a brief scowl. “Until a new building can be found for them.”

“I see.” Sydney tried not to flinch as another slam echoed through the stately old town house. “I’m sorry to have bothered you. I’ll call on her at Harlow House, then.”

More shouts and shrieks of laughter, more footsteps pounding up the stairs to the second and third floors… Goodness! The commotion sounded like a herd of stampeding cattle, and every loud noise jarred the already aggrieved butler, whose nerves were visibly frazzled from having his normally distinguished household set on its ear.

“Unfortunately, Miss Everett is not receiving visitors due to being in mourning for her brother,” he informed her in monotone as if reciting a preapproved response should anyone inquire about the schoolmistress, “and due to recovering from the fire.”

Recovering?Her throat tightened. If Olivia had been hurt, too, because of what Sydney had done… “What happened?” She swallowed hard. “Was she injured?”

“I am afraid I cannot—”

A scream echoed through the house, and Bivvens jumped with a startled gasp. If he wasn’t already bald, the man would certainly have lost all his hair by the time the girls vacated the premises.

“My apologies.” He glanced nervously up the stairs. “The house is in a bit of a state.”

Sydney ignored a second scream. “It’s quite all right. I only wanted to pay my condolences to Miss Everett.” And to give Olivia the bank draft she carried in her reticule, one equal to twice the sum of money she’d paid to buy off Henry Everett’s gambling debts. Donating money to the school could never make up for the harm she’d done to the woman’s family, but it was all she could think to do. Yet now, if Olivia was also hurt in the fire, what could Sydney ever do to make amends?

“The earl is in residence this morning.” Bivvens did his best to ignore what sounded like wild animal grunts and growls coming from the floor above, but he was unable to hide an annoyed scowl. “He is attempting to work in his study.”

Sydney noted the unintentional emphasis he’d placed onattemptingas another door slammed overhead and shook the house.

“Perhaps his lordship might have more information about Miss Everett for you if you would care to wait.”

“Would you inquire for me, please?” She removed her shawl and bonnet. She was willing to stay here all day if necessary. She certainly wasn’t ready to return to her town house and be alone with her guilt and fear. Now that it was nearly noon, she wouldn’t even have the pretense of trying to sleep to occupy her worried mind. “I would be most grateful.”

“Certainly, ma’am.” He gestured toward the drawing room with a sweep of his arm. “If you would wait—”

Another scream came from upstairs, followed by a thudding crash and the shatter of breaking ceramic.

Bivvens groaned and slapped his forehead in defeat. “Not the Grecian urn!”

“Go,” Sydney urged and motioned the flustered man toward the stairs. “I know the way. I’ll settle myself.”

“Thank you, my lady,” he called out as he scurried toward the stairs and somehow dropped a shallow bow to her as he ran. Exasperation reddened his round face as he took the stairs two at a time and grumbled something beneath his breath about the Ming vase in the library, schoolgirls, and slow ships to Australia.

Poor Bivvens! Sympathy for the man rose inside her as the sound of high-pitched wailing joined the shrieks and crashes. If St James House survived the girls’ sojourn, it would be a miracle.

She walked into the drawing room off the front hall, carefully placed her gloves inside her bonnet, and set it on the side table with her shawl and reticule. No footman appeared to take her things. That absence was a telling sign, indeed, about the household’s current state.

Still, St James was generous to open his home to the girls. Uncharacteristically generous, in fact. Had more happened between the earl and Miss Everett the night they waltzed at his mother’s ball than anyone had assumed?