“I always worry about your heart, bonbon, it is the softest heart in the whole world.” Jean-Yves leaned back, closing his eyes and breathing slowly. “I just don’t understand,” he murmured as though talking to himself. “A man does not hold a woman like he held you the night of the attack unless she is precious to him. I thought—perhaps—you’d finally found someone who would try to be worthy of you.”
Cecelia shook her head, unable to lend voice to the suspicion that she might never be deemed worthy in his eyes. “He thinks he is not broken,” she murmured, turning her face to the window. “But I know different. And he’ll have to admit it before he can be put back together.”
“I am glad you are intelligent enough to see that,” Jean-Yves praised her. “So many women try to fix a man that is broken, and he ruins her, instead.”
Cecelia dropped her head into both hands for a moment, fighting the tears back instead of giving in to them. She had work to do, a family to care for. She hadn’t time to nurse a broken—no, bruised—heart. “God, I’m such a child. Why do I cry so often?”
“Because you feel so much, it easily spills over.”
“I just…” A hot tear tracked down her cheek, and she dashed it away. “I just wish I were not so difficult to love.”
“Your love is a treasure, Cecelia,” Jean-Yves said. “I do not know this Lord Ramsay well, but I think perhaps he does not question your worth to him, but deep down he knows he is not worthy of you.”
She very much doubted that, but didn’t want to give Jean-Yves more ammunition against the man upon whom their survival relied at the moment.
“Why do affairs of the heart have to be about worthiness at all?” she lamented. “Why can’t people simply accept themselves and each other for the lovely, flawed beings we are? If one is doing one’s best, can that not be enough?”
He sent her a fond smile. “You are always enough, mon bijou. Just remember that.”
Cecelia took his hand and kissed it before turning to her work.
Or trying to, anyhow.
Yesterday, the waters of the River Esk could be heard through the open window, meandering somewhere out of sight of the main structure. But today all Cecelia could focus on was the tireless sounds of Ramsay’s ax splitting through wood.
Agitated and distracted, she had let the cool summer breeze ruffle the pages of her books and lift tendrils of her hair to tickle her cheek. She wished the surly Scot would cease to dominate her ponderings. That he wouldn’t pose yet another problem to solve.
They were searching for her would-be murderer. For evidence relating to the mysterious Crimson Council. Why couldn’t she focus on that rather than her would-be lover?
One may not have a lover if one is dead, and so one must concentrate, she admonished herself.
She gave it her most valiant effort, squirming in her chair for the time it took for Jean-Yves to fall back asleep. Eventually, his snores coincided with the sounds of cracking wood to completely drive her bonkers. The numerals and symbols, dots and dashes coalesced into nonsense, and it was all she could do not to go cross-eyed.
Heaving a sigh, she pushed herself away from the desk and swept out of the bedroom. She’d never been one to let a thing fester. She needed this fixed between them before she could work.
Opening the door, she blinked against the sun and let the sounds of summer filter over her.
Phoebe waved at her from over by the fence, where she constructed something like a woven hammock of blooming hollyhocks for Frances Bacon and Fanny de Beaufort. A newly woven butterfly net rested next to her, unused.
Had Ramsay made it for her?
Cecelia waved back, affixing a smile for the girl before turning toward an overgrown trail that led behind the house.
Branches and bushes snagged at her, and she had to pick a thistle out of the eyelet lace at the cuff of her sleeve. So apropos for a path leading her to Ramsay. To get through to the man, she’d have to reach past the overgrown brambles and thorny vines protecting his unused heart.
When she sighted him, she reached a hand out to catch herself against the wall of the house.
Naked to the waist, Ramsay lifted an ax over his head like Odin’s own woodsman. The early-morning sun glinted off the razor-sharp edge of the tool as he brought it down with a brutal swing, shearing through a thick stump of wood as though it were made of paper.
Cecelia lurked in the shadows of the west side of the house like a voyeur, doing her best to regain her composure.
His marble skin glistened with a light sheen of sweat as he sank the ax into the stump he used as a chopping block. He tossed both halves of split wood onto a growing mountain against a ramshackle shed that was little more than a lean-to.
He’d chopped enough firewood to heat a small village in the dead of winter.
Cecelia took the moment to appreciate the sheer height and breadth of him. He was built like a conqueror put on this earth to shame and dominate lesser men. He might have been a warlord in days past. A marauder or pillager, perhaps.
Come to think of it, that he’d become a good man was nothing short of miraculous. He could have quite easily used all that impressive strength for evil. Indeed, he might have used his tragic past as an excuse for cruelty.
It took a singular kind of man to commit such consummate drive, intellect, and sheer power to strive for excellence. To succeed. To become an unstoppable force for justice rather than tyranny.
Cecelia studied him as he split log after log with one mighty blow like an executioner. There was a rhythm to his work, so much so that she timed it out in seconds.
Split. Gather. Toss. Take up ax. Lift. Swing. Split. Repeat. It was mesmerizing, hypnotizing even. She might lose time here, and reason, watching the ridges of his ribs and abdomen gather strength and collapse with every swing. Tracing the unfamiliar angle of his arms as he lifted them over his head, showcasing the power of his arms.
That tremendous body had been at her mercy last night. Had belonged to her hungry gaze and hungrier mouth. She’d locked every bit of his astonishing strength into a seizure of bliss.
And then he’d returned the favor with a supreme skill that had both humbled and terrified her.
She was becoming increasingly attached to the churlish Scot. There was no dancing around it. The sight of him stimulated her in every conceivable way. The scent of him enticed her.
And the taste of him intoxicated her beyond all reasoning.
What had Jean-Yves said only this morning? I don’t want to develop at taste for oblivion.
Ramsay had taught her last night the oblivion sex could offer. And it appeared she’d developed the taste for it in a single dose. She felt craven, as though he’d woken a new hunger in her body just as vital as that for food.
She had very few innate talents, but the rhythm and structure of sexual relations apparently came as easily to her as maths.
What was it about the discovery of her virginity that vexed him so? Did he blame himself for taking what she gave? Or was she at fault once again for a lie of omission?
There was only one way to find out.
Breaking away from the shadow of the house, Cecelia smoothed down the soft cotton of her robin’s-egg-blue day dress and drifted through an overgrown graveyard of what might have been a vegetable garden once.
Ramsay brought the ax down with a particularly brutal swing, embedding the blade a good two inches into the platform of the ancient trunk.
“Lovely day for it,” Cecelia called, her cheeks bunching around the rims of her spectacles as she squinted against the sun.
Wasn’t Scotland supposed to be gloomy and gray?
Ramsay’s nostrils flared on a grunt, though he didn’t look at her as he bent to retrieve the split wood and toss it on the woodpile. Instead of settling into the grooves created by the other logs, they crashed against the lean-to and clattered to the earth.
She’d thrown off his rhythm, it seemed.
Inside the lean-to, a coarse
pallet was spread over straw and grass, two heavy patchwork quilts folded neatly at the edge.
Had this been the “structure” in which he’d slept? Lord, she felt awful.
“Speaking of lovely days,” she said, forging ahead. “I might remind you that it’s July, and you’ve split enough firewood to keep us here through Christmas. I don’t know about you, but I’m not planning on staying that long.”
She’d meant the teasing observation to perhaps create a crack in the wall of ice he’d constructed between them, but his frown only deepened as he snatched his shirt from where it hung on a peg of the lean-to and punched his fists into the sleeves.
“Did ye make any progress on the codex?” he asked without ceremony.
Cecelia’s smile faltered.
“Not as such,” she answered honestly, mourning the lost sight of his chest as he did up the buttons.
He barely flicked a glance her way. At least not one long enough to notice that she’d taken extra time with her coiffeur and unwrinkled her most comely summer frock that brought out the blue in her eyes and the darker shades of crimson in her copper hair.
“Did ye require something?” he asked as he did up his cuffs.
Her shoulders slumped as even the pretense of optimism abandoned her. “I feel like we should discuss … last night.”
He astonished her by shaking his head. “There is no need.”
She blinked after his broad back as he grabbed his vest and pulled it across his wide shoulders while stalking toward the house.
She willed her feet to move, jogging after him. “I have need. I want to explain—”
“Ye owe me no explanation,” he replied shortly.
Now, there was a fine turn of events for you. Cecelia puffed a little, forced to trot behind him on the brambly path. All this time he’d demanded nothing but endless explanations, and now when she was dying to give one, he’d have none of it.
They each waved to Phoebe on their way inside, pretending all was well for the darling little girl.
Cecelia’s smile died the moment she crossed the threshold. “But things have changed between us, have they not?”
“Aye.” He ran his fingers through his hair, darkened to the color of sand by sweat and dirt as he searched the small room for something, still refusing to look at her. “They’ve changed irrevocably.”
“Shouldn’t we—explore that? Perhaps come to some sort of comfortable understanding?” Please, she wanted to beg. I can’t stand the silence.
“We will.” He finally looked at her, or rather, looked through her. “Just not now.”
“Why?” she asked, trailing him still as he turned and tromped across the kitchen floor.
“There isna time.”
“Why not?”
Stopping before the fireplace, he took up his bow, quiver, and several of the arrows he’d been making the night before. “I have to hunt.”
“To hunt?” She echoed, looking back at their pile of food and sundries, both dried and fresh. It would keep them for a great while. “Hunt what?”
“Deer,” he answered gruffly. Clomping back toward the door.
“Deer?” She was beginning to sound like an annoying, monosyllabic parrot, even to herself. But he was acting strange, and her nerves were so shot she could hardly string a thought together, let alone absorb and analyze his strident behavior. “Where … where will you go to hunt deer?”
He turned around in the doorway and thrust a hand toward the forest. “In the direction of deer.” His obtuse answer combined with his impatient intonation smothered her fear with frustration.
“Why are you angry?” she demanded, doing her best to keep her voice reasonable. “What did I do?”
“I’m not angry, Miss Teague.” The harsh note in his voice belied the claim, but his features gentled from barbaric to merely austere. “Not at ye, anyway.”
Miss Teague? Why did his respectful moniker sound like a punishment? Cecelia stepped forward, reaching out to him. “Then talk to me.”
He flinched away from her touch, putting a hand out to stop her. “I am not myself today,” he offered by way of explanation. “I canna be trusted with discussions or decisions. Not now.” He looked up at her, his eyes both beseeching and bleak. “Just … do what ye can to figure out the codex so we can go back to our lives, aye?”
Cecelia pressed her lips together, biting her cheek hard enough to draw blood.
She managed a nod, and he turned away and tromped toward the tree line.
Go back to their lives. Their separate lives. Was he in that much of a hurry to be rid of them? Of course he was. He hated this place, almost as much as he detested her company in it. He might desire her, but he didn’t want her. There was a difference. He’d made no compunctions about that.
She didn’t fit into his life. Not in Scotland, and surely not in London.
However, as a man so vehemently against any moral turpitude, he must be panicking. Because he’d absconded with her, performed sexual acts with her, and if anyone were to find out about it, society would dictate they marry with all due immediacy.
They neither of them desired a spouse.
Was he so upset because he, as a self-proclaimed honorable man, was now obligated to propose?
She’d turn him down, of course she would. She was no one’s obligation. Furthermore, her family belonged nowhere near the office of the Lord Chancellor. She’d be his ruination; they both knew it.
Cecelia made certain his broad back disappeared into the forest before she sank to the table over which they’d shared wine the previous night.
Burying her face in her arms, she finally succumbed to her tears.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
If idle hands were the devil’s workshop, then this precarious situation made Ramsay the devil.
Because his thoughts, urges, and desires were endlessly wicked, and it wasn’t only his hands Cecelia Teague need worry about.
Nay, it was better he remain outside and give in to other masculine urges.
Such as bashing things. And killing things.
Ramsay didn’t stray far from the cottage, not when his only directive was to protect those within. Rather, he took up a perch he’d erected years ago in a tall oak directly above a path where the deer meandered down to graze and drink at the river’s edge. From this vantage, he could see for miles. The cottage, the road, the river, and anyone who might be coming or going.
Deer were not his only prey.
It seemed he’d learned an affinity for perching above the world at a young age, from this very spot.
Deciding what lived or died.
If his peers could see him now. Trading the white wig and dark robes of his station for a sodden shirt and the trappings of a huntsman.
It’d prove them right. Everyone who’d whispered that a savage Scottish nobody with a grasping, devious legacy didn’t deserve the station to which he aspired.
Theirs were the voices that had haunted his dark hours, that drove his every decision for so long. He achieved not despite them, but to spite them. He studied harder, worked longer, and did better than them all so that when he entered a room, the naysayers dare not breathe in his direction. In fact, they all had to bow and address him as my lord.
And he knew the title tasted like ashes in their mouths.
He used to live for it. Dine on it. The power, the prestige, and the prescience awarded to those within the circles he’d forced his way into. Because it didn’t matter what title they were born with, or what privilege they enjoyed; they still couldn’t keep him beneath their boots.
No one would again. Because his word was law now. And his judgment final.
Except a new voice rose in the night. A soft, husky alto that sounded of smoke and sex.
Cecelia Teague.
He whispered the two words to the wind in reverent tones. It felt as though her name should always be spoken thus.
There were gods whose names were never allowed to be uttered, whose d
epictions were forbidden.
Ramsay had never understood such worship.
Until now.
A part of him had known the moment his lips had touched hers that the cosmos had shifted.
Nay, before then.
Perhaps in the gardens at Redmayne Place when they’d spoken of the numerous reasons a union would be disastrous for them both. Or even at Redmayne’s wedding almost a year ago, when he’d spied her across the ballroom in a peacock mask, lingering at the refreshment table.
He’d been mesmerized by her even then, so much so that he’d gone out of his way to not be introduced, because something fierce and ferocious he’d thought he’d buried decades ago stirred at the very sight of her.
He’d thanked God the moment he’d found out she was innocent of Henrietta’s crimes.
And cursed that same divinity the moment he’d discovered she was innocent in every sense of the word.
By taking that innocence from her.
A branch broke in the distance, and Ramsay froze at the sound of footsteps approaching.
He held his breath, and gripped his bow. He’d a rifle at his side, as well, but he avoided using it whenever possible. Gunshots tended to advertise one’s position.
A doe stepped from the brush, her long downy ears twitching this way and that, her nostrils testing the wind.
Ramsay nocked an arrow, pulling it taut as she stopped and looked behind her.
A little fawn, no larger than a hound, toddled out from the safety of the thicket. It glued its little speckled body to its mother’s haunches, scampering to keep up with her careful strides toward the river.
They hadn’t spotted him above them, but they sensed danger was nearby.
Ramsay dropped his arm, resting the arrow at his side.
No matter how hungry he’d been in his life, he’d never killed mothers. Didn’t even set snares at rabbit burrows. Once, a fox had stolen some smoking fish, and he’d hurled rocks at it, stopping only once he’d realized she was quite obviously nursing kits.
Mothers should live to protect their young.
He thought of Cecelia. He always thought of Cecelia. His every stream of consciousness seemed to lead back to her. In this memory, she was desperately fighting to save her little ward. She’d been struck down in the alley, threatened, and witness to bloodshed, and still her first thought had been for Phoebe.
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