Cecelia found her place, fighting both numbness and panicked disbelief.
I have done precious little good in this life, but I’ll meet whatever comes after knowing that my girls are safe and together.
You may or may not have heard of me, but I am who they call the Scarlet Lady.
Your mother, Hortense, was my twin, younger by seven minutes. We were each of us born into a life of poverty and drudgery, which I escaped into a profession equal parts glamour and guile. Hortense, however, did not. She bound herself to the contemptible Vicar Teague, who disdained me and forbade our relationship as sisters. Your mother and I kept in touch over the years because the attachment we forged in the womb could not be severed, even by her death.
Her last missive to me, dear Cecelia, was a plea to watch over you. To give you the life neither of us had. I have been an entrepreneur in many trades, one of which was that of a courtesan in my early days. I’m not ashamed of it. However, that is not the legacy I leave to you.
Our power does not reside between our legs, you and I, but between our ears. I do not steal hearts any longer, my dear, but I do collect debts. Debts and secrets. Secrets that could bring this empire to its knees. Secrets that hypocrites and charlatans have paid dearly for me to keep. It is my intention to take on the Crimson Council, Cecelia, but this is a dangerous endeavor. Everyone else who has attempted to do so has been killed. And so if I am gone, this is the why of it, and I have chosen you to carry on my work.
Cecelia closed her eyes against a well of tears.
Genny took advantage of this, relieving her of her spectacles before she ruthlessly powdered her face.
The Crimson Council? She’d never before heard of such a thing. How strange that her life seemed hued by a certain shade. The Crimson Council. The Red Rogues. The Scarlet Lady.
A distant pounding reverberated through the building like the hammer strokes of Hephaestus.
“Christ almighty,” Genny swore. “He’s at the school door. He’ll tear it apart before coming here to do the same. Hurry, darlin’.”
Cecelia’s eyes popped open and she sneezed white powder into the crook of her elbow. “Why are you making me up?” She sniffed, hiccuped, and sneezed again.
“He can’t know who you really are, not yet.” Genny kept her quiet by painting crimson rouge on her lips in thick, masterful strokes. “You must be the Scarlet Lady.”
“Who is he?” she finally asked. “And why can I not meet him as I am?”
“Can you read without these?” Genny motioned to her spectacles.
“I prefer to,” Cecelia said dazedly. “They’re for seeing distances. I’m nearly blind without them.”
Genny tucked them away, and didn’t have to tell her this time to continue reading.
Cecelia, you must watch over Phoebe. She is your sister in all but blood. If the law finds her here, she’s in imminent danger. You must keep her from her brutal father at all costs.
She opened her mouth to ask Genny about this Phoebe when a cacophony of masculine commands and feminine objections filtered through the walls of the residence from the school next door. Footfalls and doors crashing with no little violence sent her galloping heart into a sprint and caused her hands to shake.
“What do I do?” Cecelia asked, feeling suddenly very young.
“What you have to,” Genny said as though the answer were obvious. “Whatever you have to. Even if it’s offering up that generous set of tits, you hear? Whatever it takes to keep this household safe. That’s your responsibility now.”
Dumbfounded, Cecelia looked down at the bosoms in question, hidden by a billowing scarlet cloak that suggested she might wear something more interesting beneath it than a sensible day gown.
When she lifted her head, Genny plunked a towering pale wig upon her crown, one so blond it might have been silver. It added at least half a foot to her already impressive height and was bedecked with enough red bows and pearls to make a Christmas tree jealous.
Genny finally seemed to relax as she arranged a fall of silvery ringlets over her shoulder. “You actually look like Henrietta, give or take twenty-five years.” She fetched a mirror from a sideboard and held it up to Cecelia.
The transformation stole her breath. She couldn’t see her entire form, of course, nor did her reflection contain the top of her ridiculous wig, but it did, indeed, appear as though she’d stepped out of a bygone century as a glamourous ingénue in the court of eighteenth-century Versailles. Her cheekbones seemed leaner, contoured by rouge, her red lips fuller and more than a little wicked, her face a ghostly shade in comparison. Her eyes lined and colored, and her lashes thickened.
She didn’t look at all like herself. She couldn’t tell if she loved or hated the effect.
That same ominous knock echoed through the residence, this time coming from the door in the garden.
“Open the door. We’ve a warrant to search the premises.”
It struck Cecelia as absurdly funny that the representative from Scotland Yard actually boasted a Scottish accent along with a voice so deep, she wondered if he could simply bellow the entire house down.
Like the wolf in the story.
And here she stood, in her red hooded cloak, waiting to be devoured.
Cecelia pressed her fingers to her mouth to hold in a whimper.
“Sit here.” Genny guided her to the impressive velvet chair behind the white marble-topped desk. “Don’t stand unless they force you to. This is your throne. Your seat of power. Besides, you’re as tall as a lamppost and would be easily recognized by that feature alone.” She produced a black lace masquerade mask from the desk and tied it over Cecelia’s eyes and nose, securing it with a silk ribbon in the back. “Just use that brain of yours to get rid of him, honey. That’s all you have to do.”
Oh, was that all? Cecelia felt it was a terrible moment to mention that in times of stress her brain tended to go on holiday.
“I’m giving ye thirty seconds to open this door or I’ll kick it in,” the cavernous brogue threatened. “Nothing would give me greater pleasure.”
That voice …
Cecelia’s features crinkled behind the mask.
Something about the fathomless frigidity of the brogue was familiar. As were the chills it lifted on the fine hairs of her body. A voice like that belonged in a forgotten dwelling deeper than even the volcanic forge of hell.
In that place so cavernous and cold and full of shadows, only one being could hold court there.
One being whose sole reason for existence was to punish those who were wicked.
Genny hurried to the open window and leaned out of it. “Don’t you touch that door, I’ll be down to admit you directly.”
“Thirty. Seconds,” the Scotsman repeated.
Genny pivoted, running her hands down her bodice, visibly shaken. “I nearly forget how monstrous big he is,” she breathed. “I declare, he could rip the iron gates from their hinges with one hand.”
With that confidence-shredding observation, Genny took the space of a breath to compose herself, then swept out of the study before Cecelia could ask one of a thousand questions that sprang to her lips.
Fear twanged tight in her belly. She knew of only one deep-voiced Scotsman with monstrous proportions. However, he wasn’t with Scotland Yard. He wouldn’t be able to step away from his bench as Lord Chief Justice to break in the door of a common—or uncommon, as the case may be—gambling house.
Would he?
Cecelia was suddenly so frightened, she was tempted to rip off her ridiculous disguise and bolt.
She pushed herself into the desk, tugging at the cloak’s tightly laced collar as sweat gathered beneath her wig in the hot and humid afternoon. Glancing down, she read more of the letter, grasping at anything to do other than sit and tremble as the law advanced on her.
I wish I could have met you, darling. Your letters have been a comfort and a balm to me all these years. I gave you as long a life as I could without secrets. But now
it is up to you what you do with them. The school beneath my gambling enterprise is everything to me, and to the women who rely upon it. I know your heart. How good and soft it is, but you are of my blood, which means you’ve steel constructed to your spine. You’ll need it, I think, and for that I am sorry.
I’m delighted we share traits, a few of which are an affinity for numbers, codes, and formulae. These secrets I protect I have confided in no one, not even Genevieve. I have, however, written them down in a book, along with where to find the evidence you’ll need. You’ll discover the codex in a springboard beneath the top drawer of the desk at which you sit. Open the drawer and press the bottom of it. Use the Pollux cipher to decrypt the combination, which is the name of our favorite poem.
The one that pierced your heart when you were sixteen.
“Aeneid,” Cecelia whispered.
The key to the codex, Cecelia, is in the color we both find very dear.
Good luck, my heart, and goodbye.
Blinking back a bevy of emotion, Cecelia turned the clever dials, replacing the letters of the epic Greek poem title for numbers. She gasped when the bottom of the hidden compartment gave way, depositing a finely crafted diary into her hand.
She ran her fingers over the innocuous binding, finding the pale flesh color of the leather a little disturbing. Opening it, she leafed through the pages. It didn’t at all surprise her to see almost no words, only symbols, numbers, formulae. Dates, perhaps, if she remembered her Sumerian numerals correctly … or was this the Babylonian sexagesimal system? She squinted, turning the book sideways.
Voices echoed off the marble of the foyer.
Genny’s.
And the devil’s.
Even as her stomach turned an anxious flop, a part of her stirred. Parts of her. The section of her brain that came alive at the idea of solving a cipher.
And a different place, altogether.
A place she’d been attempting to ignore since she’d spied the frenetic copulation in the garden. A soft, feminine depth that hummed and clenched at the danger she instinctively sensed in the approaching man.
She was afraid, she realized. And stimulated simultaneously?
How tremendously bizarre.
Squirming in the thronelike chair, her boot connected with something soft under the desk.
Or rather, someone.
A little squeak from beneath produced a strangled sound of astonishment from Cecelia’s own throat. She launched back in her chair, nearly tipping over.
Steadying herself, she leaned to the side to peek beneath the desk, using one hand to stabilize the wig atop her head.
A pair of hazel eyes gaped back at her from a cherubic face.
A girl.
Cecelia quickly estimated her identity.
“Phoebe?” she whispered. For some reason, she’d suspected the girl from Henrietta’s note to be grown. It’d never occurred to her that she would harbor a child.
The girl nodded, honey-colored ringlets falling over her shoulder as she pressed her finger to her lips.
Cecelia nodded back conspiratorially, wishing she knew more about children and how to gauge their ages. She could be seven or so, though her eyes seemed older, perhaps? And it was impossible to tell for certain, what with her little body folded beneath the dark underbelly of the desk, half concealed by the ruffles of Cecelia’s own skirt and cloak.
Footsteps pounded up the stairs as Genny’s loud protests echoed down the hallway.
Blast it all. Just who was this Phoebe?
Sisters in all but blood … so it would seem they were not related.
Was she the secret Henrietta had been killed for? Was her life also in danger? And if so, from whom—this Vicar of Vice?
There was simply no time for answers.
“Phoebe, I need you to stay under there,” Cecelia whispered. “No matter what you hear, can you remain silent until those men leave?”
The girl smiled gravely, holding her finger to her mouth.
“Very good,” Cecelia praised. “I’m Cecelia. Henrietta has charged me to keep you safe and I promise to do so.” she vowed, doing her best to school the panic out of her voice. She’d never broken a promise; she hoped to God she could keep this one. “Can you guard this book for me, Phoebe? It belonged to Miss Henrietta, and I don’t want anyone to take it.”
The girl snatched the diary and clutched it to her chest, wedging herself further beneath the desk. Cecelia straightened and shoved the letter in her bodice just as the door to the study burst open with such force, it rebounded off the wall.
The man filling the doorway caught it in his enormous hand.
Had Cecelia been a fainting woman, she might have expired on the spot. As it was, her head swam with both rejection and recognition. Her eyes widened in an endeavor to take in the full magnitude of the masculine form before her.
Blood retreated from her extremities, and she became immediately grateful her pallor was concealed beneath the face powder.
Because even though she could make out none of his features without her spectacles, the unparalleled height, breadth, and specific hues of this particular Scotsman were undeniable.
She knew him. Of course she did.
Lord Cassius Gerard Ramsay.
They were practically related now that Alex, the sister of her heart, had recently married his brother.
And yet she knew little about him. He was a man of mysterious origin, strict principles, and, if his claims should be believed, zero indulgences.
She’d spoken with him on only two prior occasions, and their interactions had been—well—rather confounding.
He’d watched her that night at Castle Redmayne with a deep scowl and hungry eyes.
She often lay awake at night revisiting the evening and the two men who’d dominated it. One, an Italian count as handsome and sleek as the devil, dark curls tamed with pomade and Phoenician features alight with masculine interest.
And the other, Lord Ramsay, a golden-haired archangel. A stalwart warrior for all things he deemed just and right and good. A paladin of sorts, who might have been knighted years past by some fortunate maiden for slaying dragons and demons alike.
And now that self-same man stared at her from the doorway, his eyes the color of a winter’s moon glinting with that righteous warrior’s wrath.
In those eyes, she was the dragon he’d come to do battle with.
To vanquish.
The temperature immediately dropped in his presence, the atmosphere around them thick and preternaturally silent. It was the ethereal kind of muffled quiet one experienced during a fresh snowfall. Not the absence of dissonance, but a void in the center of it all.
A cold and lonely place.
Just as the chill he brought with him was discordant with the warm sunlight filtering through the windows, so was the sight of a body so large and rough-hewn as his trapped in such an expensive suit.
No, she’d been mistaken before. He was no angel. His was a barbaric build. One that belonged draped in Viking skins, furs, and armor as he bled for pagan gods on a battlefield. Indeed, it was as if the fabled gods of war crafted him for the distinct purpose to crush, to conquer, and then to rule. He didn’t occupy space, he filled it. Commanded it. He owned the earth upon which he stood as there surely was no man or army alive that could wrest it from him.
He advanced, clutching documents in his fist as though they were Excalibur.
Dumbstruck, Cecelia did nothing but stare as his features came into focus, sharpening with terrifying exactitude as he closed in.
She detected no recognition from him, only rage.
She groped for something to say, a witty, caustic introduction that she could use to chip away at the ice. But apparently, her shock at the sight of him had stolen not only her wits, but her breath as well.
He tossed the papers in front of her. Cecelia glanced down to find a Writ of Warrant signed by his own hand.
“Do ye ken who I am?” he rumbled in a voice m
eant only for them.
Genny tumbled into the room behind him, followed by a handful of constables and a detective in a smart suit.
“Everyone in the empire knows who you are.” The pitch of her voice was breathy, higher, and unintentional.
As was her French accent.
Genny let out a strangled noise.
Lord, what am I doing?
She’d simply panicked. She couldn’t risk him recognizing her voice. Who knew what kind of memory he possessed?
“It’s important that ye know my name,” the giant Scot said.
“I know your name,” she replied.
He lifted a golden brow in a silent dare. “Say it, then.”
Something in the command thrummed a sensual vibration deep in her body, and she had to squirm to quiet it. “Lord Ramsay.”
His chin dipped once in a curt nod. “And to what name do ye answer?”
Cecelia leaned back in her chair, to give her lungs more space as they seemed to be one breath away from eminent collapse. “Why, I should think you’ve heard of me as well, my lord, as you’re currently calling upon my establishment.”
Did he recognize her at all? Could this preposterous, overdone disguise be enough to keep the secret of her identity intact, at least for the moment?
He grimaced, scanning the room with an expression one might wear if one had stepped in sewer sludge. “It’s quite impossible that a man such as I would have the opportunity to suffer an introduction to a woman such as ye.”
If only he knew.
Her lids fluttered closed in what she hoped he read as a coy gesture and not the retreat it was. “I am known to all as the Scarlet Lady. It is a thorough pleasure to make your acquaintance, my lord Chief Justice.” She reached her gloved hand out to receive him.
He snorted, his lip lifting in disgust as he regarded her hand as one would rotten rubbish. “Pleasure has nothing at all to do with my visit, as ye can well see.” He gestured to his army of police.
“A shame. Such is not generally the case.” Cecelia found a measure of her fear replaced by indignation.
All Scot and Bothered Page 5