“Don’t you worry that pretty red head of yours.” Genny settled across from her and spread her skirts before patting Cecelia’s hand. “He’s just signing some papers.”
“What papers?”
“Tell me about you, darlin’,” Genny encouraged with a gentle smile. “What do you do to keep occupied? What have you been taught other than prayin’?”
Shyly, Cecelia she pulled her notebook away from her middle where she’d kept it, extending it to the woman.
Genny looked down at the book for a pregnant moment, opening it with two careful fingers as though she expected a monster to be flattened between the pages.
Cecelia held her breath as the woman began to turn the pages with increasing speed until she met her gaze with shining eyes.
“No one told me you were an artist, little doll.”
Cecelia crinkled her forehead in bemusement.
She was no artist. No poet or otherwise. She’d attempted those pastimes with painstaking effort when she was isolated, to disastrous effect.
She snatched the notebook that was extended back to her and looked down at what she found there. Just exponents and theorems, limits and derivatives, formulae, functions, and corresponding graphs.
She glanced up to see a satisfied smile reveal Genny’s brilliant white teeth. “You’ll take to where we’re goin’, honey, of that I have no doubt.”
Cecelia nodded, afraid to ask. She sank into the cloak, trying to pluck an emotion from the bevy of them swirling through her like a storm. Was she relieved? Apprehensive? Sad? Elated?
Some perplexing concoction of all these things, she decided as she watched Wexler leave the parish cottage.
Mostly, she was hungry.
“I’m famished.” Genny once again seemed to read her mind. “Let’s stop at the Crossland Inn for the night and get you fed and washed. I hear they have these splendid little cakes sprinkled with—”
“Oh, I’m not allowed cakes,” Cecelia informed her with no little distress. “To indulge is to sin.”
Genny reached forward and grasped her hands, imprisoning both of them in her firm, strong grip. Her eyes glowed like bronze heated in the forge of her temper as she tossed her tight blond curls away from her cheeks.
“You listen to me. You push all notions of sin and abstinence out of your head, hear? Your life is your own. From now on, you want cakes? You eat cakes. You drape yourself in color and you eat and wear and enjoy whatever you desire whenever you fancy. From this day forward, you deny yourself nothing. You feel no shame. You are who you are, and what you are is beautiful.”
The kindness stung Cecelia’s eyes with tears. “I’m not beautiful. I’m fat.”
Genny contemplated that for a moment, her lips twisting pensively before she said, “Honey, some people are going to tell you that, but when they do, you remember my words and you mark them because this is my area of expertise. When you grow, you are going to devastate men. With those eyes and lips, that hair and skin, with what you have beginning to show beneath that dowdy old frock…” Genny rocked back, fanning herself as though the temperature in the carriage had suddenly spiked.
“You’ll be a force to be reckoned with and make no mistake. ’Course, there will be those who prefer little waifs with little waists. And you’ll find that most men are too delicate to abide a woman whose brain can do what yours can. It’ll intimidate the tarnation right out of them. But honey, you’ll wield a power you don’t yet understand. You’ll capture, control, and destroy any number of men.”
Cecelia bit the inside of her cheek, suddenly feeling very overwhelmed and light-headed again. “I don’t want to destroy anyone.” And she’d never imagine holding a captive, not after what she’d been subjected to.
Genny’s face softened, and she tucked back a renegade curl from Cecelia’s cheek. “I was told you’d be sweet, like your mama.”
“You knew my mother?” Cecelia grasped onto that with both hands, brimming with questions.
“I met her once, when she visited,” she said vaguely.
“Visited wher—”
“Let’s go see about those cakes!” Genny rapped on the ceiling of the coach, and the horses lurched forward with a slap of the reins. “After a huge supper, a hot bath, and a good night’s rest, we’re gonna go fit you with some proper gowns in any color you want. You never have to worry about money again, and isn’t that a blessing? You’ve a fortune at your disposal now, as you’re the heir to one of the most important, most influential people in London society.”
It took several tries for Cecelia to regain her breath to ask, “Is it … is it my real father?”
Genny’s lips pressed together. “I’m sorry, sugar, but I can’t say. Just know that it’s someone who cares for you very much. Someone who loved your mother.”
Cecelia allowed that answer to assuage her for a couple of weeks as she was whisked into a cocoon of expensive hotels, ships, and villas. Of seamstresses, chefs, haberdasheries, and lady’s maids. She visited Paris on her way to their destination, awestruck by the glamorous city and even more dazzling inhabitants.
The Ecole de Chardonne institute for girls might have been the most romantic Gothic castle she could possibly conceive of. The staff there fell over themselves to accommodate her as she was escorted to the enchanting tower with a collection of windows overlooking the sparkling Lake Geneva. This was to be her new home.
She was humbled. Grateful. Sufficiently awestruck.
And yet when she sat upon her bed in the tower at the end of the day, the same emptiness tormented her. Because even though her windows were large and grand instead of small and grimy and she had all the food, warmth, and care she could conceive of …
She was still alone in the dark.
CHAPTER ONE
Castle Redmayne, Devonshire, 1891
Seven years was too bloody long for any Scotsman to go without tupping a woman. Or was it closer to eight?
Cassius Gerard Ramsay, Lord Chief Justice of the High Court, convinced himself the extended abstinence had to be why he was currently plagued with a physical malady he hadn’t suffered since his adolescence.
An unwelcome, agonizing public erection.
He’d be forty before too long. Surely he was immune to such afflictions at this age. Indeed, he’d trained such weaknesses out of himself years ago.
Life had taught him a man must rein in his appetites with an iron fist and unshakable self-mastery lest he be controlled or irreparably damaged by them.
And yet here he was, a captive to his cock, posturing to hide his body’s instant—nay, violent—reaction to the sight of the buxom and mystifying Miss Cecelia Teague licking truffle chocolate from her ungloved fingers.
In the middle of a soiree at Castle Redmayne, no less.
Despite his stern inner admonishments to keep his notice elsewhere, his gaze was tugged back to her by an invisible rope over and again to linger at her heart-shaped features.
He needn’t waste time wondering why. She was exactly the sort of women he’d always found himself drawn to. One with more curves than straight lines. Lush. Luxurious, even. Her skin the color of rich cream, her lips the hue of his favorite cordial.
All wrapped in a silky violet confection that contrasted with her extraordinary copper ringlets shining in the luster of the chandeliers.
Her azure gaze was a paradox. Wide and candid … but mercurial.
Damned if he didn’t find that the most intriguing combination.
A living sin, was Cecelia Teague. A wicked brew of both innocence and indulgence. The female equivalent of a truffle.
The tip of her finger disappeared into her mouth as she sucked the last bit of flavor from her skin.
Ramsay swallowed a tortured groan, biting the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste blood as he crossed his legs. Uncrossed them. Shifted positions and crossed them in the opposite direction.
Seven. Fucking. Years.
Or is it longer? The entirety of his thirties
seemed to be one long endless span of labor and loneliness, bereft of the splendid visual feast that was the naked female form.
And what a delectable morsel Miss Teague would make, after all the laces, ruffles, and ridiculous contraptions were peeled away, leaving only honest curves, intriguing dimples, fine hair, and supple, pillow-soft skin.
How had he gone so long devoid of the warm weight of a woman’s thighs testing the strength of his shoulders as he brought her to shuddering completion?
Long enough to nearly forget the feel of a woman’s sex. The secret moisture, the yielding, intimate flesh, the unholy pleasure.
Cecelia Teague bent to select another truffle from the crystal dish, affording him a view of her more than generous décolletage. Every wicked thing he’d done, every act he’d fantasized about or even conceived of flashed through his mind in a heart-pounding storm of lust.
Sweet Christ, those breasts would tempt a saint. They’d spill over his hands like fresh cream.
A trickle of sweat slid from his nape into his collar as he inhaled sharply, imagining the warm, inviting scent of the downy skin in the cove between them. The salt of it under his tongue, the unbearable softness—
“May I offer you a taste, my lord Ramsay?”
It took him an eternity to process Miss Teague’s casual suggestion. Finally, he blinked and eloquently inquired, “Er—pardon?”
“You were staring as though you desired them.” Her spectacles magnified her curiously dark eyelashes as they lowered shyly across her cheek. “And I grant you, they taste every bit as good as you’re imagining they would. Creamy and rich, with a hint of salt. You’ve never had better, I’d wager my life on it.”
All the moisture abandoned Ramsay’s mouth. His gaze flicked down to her breasts and he swallowed, dragging them back up to her earnest expression.
Surely she wasn’t offering a taste of her flesh. Not … here. He was no stranger to the propositions of society maidens and matrons, alike, but never so explicitly.
His turgid arousal twitched and strained, making no mistake about what his unruly libido hoped he would do with her offer.
He glanced helplessly around at the soiree’s other guests, milling like over-bright hummingbirds at a lilac bush, never staying in one place for too long.
Had anyone else marked her shocking proposition?
“Alexandra and I share a weakness for decadent chocolate, you see.” She selected one from the dish with the discretion a jeweler would show a selection of diamonds. “These are imported from Belgium. The texture is indescribably above par, and just wait until you find out what’s at the core.”
Confounded, Ramsay stared at the chocolate, cursing himself for nine kinds of fool.
She’d been offering him a truffle. Of course she had. What on earth had led him to think she’d proposed a taste of her flesh? Perhaps he’d been so mesmerized by her husky voice, like smoke swirling over the finest brandy, the words hadn’t registered properly.
He cleared his throat and glared daggers at his half brother, Piers Gedrick Atherton, the Duke of Redmayne, who was too absorbed in the animated story of his wife, Alexandra, to notice.
Ramsay hoped if he simply glowered hard enough, the reprobate duke would come save him.
No such luck; Redmayne and the duchess busied themselves with their peers, doing their utmost to ingratiate the prodigal Countess of Mont Claire, Lady Francesca Cavendish, into select society.
Christ, Miss Teague was only invited to this blasted castle because she was longtime school chums with Lady Francesca and Lady Alexandra. The three women had been inseparable for decades, as he understood it, and his brother had married Alexandra knowing that Francesca and Cecelia were part and parcel of the bargain.
So why wasn’t the beguiling Miss Teague mingling with them rather than tormenting him?
The lady in question smiled a little ruefully and sank her teeth into the truffle, savoring it as a condemned man might his last meal. “I’m still sated from our sumptuous dinner, all told,” she said from behind the hand she held in front of her lips to protect her chocolate-filled mouth from view. “But I find my appetite for dessert forever unquenchable.”
Ramsay almost swallowed his tongue. Unquenchable. Like his ravenous, devious desire. His skin was sensitive, hot, and stretched very thin over his frame. Everything felt more sumptuous. Decadent. The velvet of the couch beneath him. The fragrance in the air.
This was dangerous. This moment. This lust.
This woman.
It was in instants such as this a man lost everything by making the wrong choice. Like asking her to dance, or to walk with him in the gardens so he could ruin her in the rosebushes.
He was not that man. He never would be that man.
Grinding his teeth together, Ramsay hoped that if he was taciturn enough, she’d merely wander away.
Ignorant of his lustful thoughts, the woman bent over again to select him a truffle. “You should take one. Alex won’t mind, if that’s why you hesitate. She’s endlessly generous.”
Ramsay flinched. Miss Teague blithely called the Duchess of Redmayne, lady of perhaps the longest-standing title in the empire, “Alex.” As if nothing had changed since their childhood. As if she were utterly secure in a room full of ancient aristocracy, impervious to the fact that people went out of their way not to talk to Cecelia because they considered her beneath their notice. She was neither titled nor rich, as far as anyone knew or cared. If anything distinguished her in this company, it was her lambent hair and uncommon height.
Was she truly as nonchalant over their rebuffs as she appeared? She must be, to eat three truffles in a room full of cruel opinions.
“Go on, have a try,” she prompted, extending the chocolate toward him.
“Thank ye, but nay,” he clipped, unable to school a husky rasp from his reply. “I doona indulge.”
“In chocolate?” She pulled back, regarding the truffle as though offended on its behalf.
“In anything.”
She gaped at him as though he’d committed treason, or a blasphemy. “Come now, my lord, one taste can’t hurt. Besides, I’ve already taken it from the dish and would be thought very rude to put it back.” A mischievous smile deepened the dimple on her cheek as she wriggled the sweet between her thumb and forefinger in a dainty dance of enticement.
“I canna imagine why ye want me to partake so avidly.”
“It’s obvious you’re ravenous,” she answered. “You won’t stop staring.”
Was it possible she was being coy? “I give ye leave to enjoy it on my behalf. I’ll not be tempted,” he said through clenched teeth.
Her mouth twisted as though she was deciding whether or not to frown. In the end, she shrugged and popped the delicacy past her lips, letting out a contented little moan of appreciation.
Christ, he was a bloody liar. He’d bloody well be tempted. He’d been tempted by Cecelia Teague since he’d first laid eyes on her at Redmayne’s engagement soiree several months prior. Then again at the wedding.
They’d been introduced formally, and he’d bowed over her extended hand. Kissing it had felt wrong, somehow, because of the swell of lust even that innocuous gesture provoked.
Since then, he’d avoided her at all costs, not that it was difficult. They certainly didn’t share any social or professional spheres, but for the attachment to his half brother Piers and her friend Alexandra.
However, it seemed the duke and duchess were unnaturally attached to each other since their hasty wedding, so the tempting Miss Teague would be impossible to evade.
Ramsay let out an impatient breath and tried to focus on someone—anyone—else.
He should be pressing hands with visiting diplomats like the Count Armediano, an Italian businessman and shipping magnate with mysterious origins. Or perhaps discussing tomorrow’s address to the House of Lords with Sir Hubert, the Lord Chancellor, or probate taxation with the Prime Minister.
Aye, he should be working, exer
ting his will upon those he required to attain his various political and legal objectives.
And yet … he couldn’t stand until he’d brought his unruly cock under control, which would be easier to do were he not in Miss Teague’s voluptuous vicinity.
“How very lamentable.” The true pity in her voice returned his gaze to her vibrant beauty.
“I’m sorry?” Unnerved at her propensity to address his innermost thoughts, he shifted once more and considered the merits of agricultural property law, just to see if that would cool his physical distress.
“We were discussing your lack of indulgences.” She slid him a mischievous half smile that produced the most diverting dimple in her cheek. “My lord Chief Justice, if you’re half as distracted when hearing cases, I fear for those presenting evidence to you.”
To his utter surprise, amusement spiked rather than his ire. It was a rare individual who ever dared tease him.
Rarer still that he enjoyed it.
“Ye’ll have to pardon me, Miss Teague, it’s been a trying day. My manners were peeled away by interactions with the odious dregs of our society, leaving my thoughts unduly burdensome.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” She seemed to smother a curious anxiety with an over-bright but sympathetic smile as she spread her hands over her skirts. “Would you care to discuss it? Often, I find if I unburden myself, I go away feeling much lighter.”
“I would not.” He hadn’t meant for the words to escape in such a terse manner, but the subject of his current worries was not fit for the fairer sex. Indeed, it concerned the disappearances of young ladies. Young girls, rather. Which was not a rare thing in such a metropolis as London, but the investigators of the case had found evidence of an insidious ring of smugglers, traffickers, and profiteers. Ones who might be trading in the flesh market, turning the poor and immigrants into slaves, pricing them per pound of flesh.
A few of the captured criminals pointed their fingers in astonishing directions when interrogated regarding their suppliers and customers. The aristocracy, the government, the military, and even the church.
All Scot and Bothered Page 2