“Your warrant does not suggest that you may put your hands upon my person.” She could not help but stare at his hands, now fisted at his sides. They resembled hammers, square and large and inelegant. The skin stretched over knuckles interrupted by old scars. Evidence of past violence, perhaps? “B-besides,” she managed. “It is ungentlemanly to remark upon a lady’s attire.”
He snorted. “Ye are no lady.”
“Granted, but what, pray, would happen to me were I to burst into your courtroom and demand to know what you’re hiding beneath your robes and white wig? I’d probably be hanged or publicly flogged or some such hideous thing.”
He swiped at the air, drawing an invisible line between them. “Don’t ye dare compare your vocation to mine.”
“I wouldn’t dream of comparing our vocations, my lord. Mine is much more honest, more ancient, and historically the most vital to any empire.”
“Outrageous!”
“How so?”
He paused, a victorious gleam creeping into his vitriolic glare. “Are ye admitting, Hortense, that ye are a bawd?”
“My dear Justice, I was referring to the education of young ladies, obviously. Every great empire thrived considerably better when they began educating their females.” She injected a matching victory into her smile. “Now kindly take your leave so I may continue my work. And I’d request that the next time you take it into your mind to call, you do so on more friendly terms.” She gestured to the door as if the room didn’t appear as though Typhoon, himself, had visited, leaving nothing but disarray.
He whirled, stepping over the carcasses of her upended furniture as he stormed to the door. He held it open as constables filed from the room, some of them with rather sheepish looks on their faces. Others with disappointed expressions.
Cecelia didn’t give in to the urge to celebrate that victory. She’d made no friends today. Not by making fools of the police and one of the most powerful men in the realm.
Ramsay paused before he took his leave, his chin touching his shoulder. “The next time I come back, it will be with shackles and chains.”
He slammed the door behind him hard enough to shake the entire house.
“I’ll be goddamned,” Genny marveled, her eyes sparkling. “You were magnificent!”
“I was?” A trembling overtook her, threatening to shake the wig loose from her head.
“Lord, I took you for a bluestocking, but I never knew you had that kind of poise and sass in you. And the accent? Where’d that come from?”
Cecelia could only shrug. “My butler is French.” She pushed back from the desk, moving to the window to watch Sir Ramsay stalk to an imposing, somber carriage, tucking himself inside with grace rarely observed in a man of such heft.
“Genny.” She said the woman’s name with unmistakable gravitas. “Genny, please tell me they won’t find anything. If you’re honest, I vow to keep you safe, to absolve you of any punitive actions. I’ll pay you most handsomely, but I must know if Henrietta was a bawd, or if anyone has ever been kept here against their will. I must make reparations if Henrietta’s committed such heinous crimes—”
“Hush, honey.” Genny was at her side in an instant, taking Cecelia’s hands in hers to turn them face-to-face. “Look into my eyes so you know the truth. The women who work here dress provocatively and, like Lilly, they occasionally take lovers and we look the other way. That’s the whole of it. We—you—do not sell sex, and certainly not children.”
Cecelia searched Genny’s earnest features for a lie, but was only reminded of the woman’s kindness and unabashed affection. Her savior. Her friend.
When she nodded, Genny squeezed her hands, bringing them to her mouth to press a fond kiss to her knuckles, like she was a beloved sister.
Genny released her to reach for the wig, removing it.
Cecelia expressed a sigh of relief to be rid of the heavy thing, and she divested herself of the cloak as Genny poured a pitcher of water into a bowl and wet a cloth.
Bending down, Cecelia peeked under the desk where little Phoebe still huddled.
“You can come out now, darling,” she soothed. “The men are gone.”
The girl peered out at her from the shadow under the desk, her features a bit blurry as Genny hadn’t yet returned Cecelia’s spectacles. Phoebe tugged on a crisp white pinafore tied over a somber black mourning dress. “If it’s all the same to you, miss, I’d prefer to stay, but here is your book. We didn’t let him find it, did we?”
“Indeed, we did not.” Cecelia took the book from her, puzzling over the girl. This was no sort of place for a child, what with a gambling hell next door and cruel lawmen kicking the doors in. What could Henrietta have been thinking? “Are you not lonely under there? Would you not like to come out so we may be properly introduced?”
The girl shook her head. “I have my dearest friends, Frances Bacon and Fanny de Beaufort.” She held up two plush dolls, one with golden curls, and another with red. “They are excellent company, but they only like to talk to me, Miss Henrietta said so. I might like to come out, but they’re not ready to meet you yet.”
Cecelia understood. “How fortunate you all are to have found each other,” she said, unwittingly adopting the over-bright cheer she’d always despised people for addressing children with.
Phoebe peeked at her shyly. “Do you have anyone like Frances and Fanny?”
“I do, indeed,” Cecelia explained with the requisite warmth that accompanied thoughts of the Red Rogues. “My two dearest friends are Francesca Cavendish, the Countess of Mont Claire, and Alexandra Atherton, the Duchess of Redmayne. We met at school and formed a club for girls with red hair called the Red Rogues. They are also most excellent company, and often wary of strangers like Fanny and Frances are. But they’ll love you instantly, and I think you shall like them a great deal.”
A sharp pang of agony pierced the softness she intrinsically felt for the girl. To alleviate the boredom and isolation of her childhood, the same imagination that had conjured monsters in her nightmares could also summon friends from the motes of dust in the cellar she’d been locked in or from shadows on a moonlit night.
She’d willed them into existence like a God, creating full and vivid characters with which to laugh and dream and converse.
They’d provided most excellent company. They’d kept her safe from the ghosts she heard in the wind, or the demons the Vicar Teague had convinced her were encircling her endlessly, awaiting the right moment of weakness in which to drag her soul to hell.
Or worse, possess her body.
She might have gone mad without these imaginary friends. She might have given over to the dark.
Still, there was nothing like true human companionship.
Phoebe studied her silently for a moment, and then scooted her friends deeper into the recesses of the desk. “If you’d like to get Francesca and Alexandra, I can keep them safe under here.”
Cecelia’s heart became a puddle of tenderness. The sweet child thought her friends were dolls.
It struck Cecelia with dizzying gravity that she was this girl’s custodian now. The closest thing she had to a mother. The responsibility weighed heavier on her shoulders than did the entire ordeal with Ramsay.
She’d never had real parents of any kind, the closest paternal relationship being that of Jean-Yves. And if she really inspected it, the Frenchman had no real duty to her beyond that of a beloved employee. She loved him like a father, truly, but she also paid his wages and sent him on errands. He was both confidant and occasional adviser, but he’d never exhibited any kind of authoritarian tendencies.
Mostly he just went along with whatever new schemes she and her Red Rogues hatched with a very Gallic sort of bemused acceptance. So long as he had his wine, his pipe, and his papers, he was a generally easygoing sort of fellow. His affection was gruff but his disposition always warm and open. He’d befriended her when she was little older than Phoebe, and without his guidance, she’d have been compl
etely alone.
Fervently wishing for that guidance now, Cecelia tried one last time to cajole the girl out. “Francesca and Alexandra wouldn’t fit under there, I’m afraid. They’re rea—” She caught herself, understanding that Phoebe’s dolls were as real to her as Alexandra and Frank actually were. “They’re grown, like me, and have homes of their own. I’m going to a party tonight at a duke’s manor to see them. Would you like to put on a pretty dress and come along?”
“But he’s coming back.” Phoebe shook her head, shrinking away. “He’s bringing chains and shackles, he said so.”
“Lord Ramsay won’t be back today, darling,” she soothed.
“How do you know?”
At that, she paused. She really didn’t.
A tide of uncharacteristic anger rose in Cecelia against Lord Ramsay. She realized he’d some history with Henrietta, but as far as he was concerned, he’d never been introduced to Hortense, and he still treated her as if she were rubbish he desired to discard into the Thames.
And to think, her best friend was married to his half brother. Lord Ramsay and the Duke of Redmayne were as different from each other as inverse numbers on a grid. Ramsay, of course, being the negative integer.
Lesser than.
Except in stature, because by her estimation Ramsay outweighed the duke by a half stone and was slightly taller. And also in appearance, but only because Redmayne had been disfigured by a jaguar. Not because she found the rather brutal planes of his face arresting.
She supposed Ramsay might have the upper hand auditorily, as well. Where Redmayne’s voice was as smooth as silk sliding over velvet, Ramsay’s had a sonorous commanding depth, graveled and grisly. Much like the stones shaped to make a cathedral. Rough to the touch but contained. Orderly.
Echoing with no small bit of judgment.
Genny bent to hand Cecelia the wet cloth and pointed to a door to the adjoining room before offering Phoebe an indulgent smile.
Cecelia took the cloth gratefully. “You stay there for a while longer, Phoebe, and look after your friends,” she said. “I’ll come check on you in a moment.”
Phoebe nodded.
Rising, she accompanied Genny through an upturned bedchamber to a washroom, where she grimaced at her reflection in the gilded mirror.
She wouldn’t have come out from under the desk, either. The wig had ruined her hair, and without it and the mask, Cecelia’s makeup appeared clownish and overblown. Applying the washcloth to her face, she scrubbed away at it, revealing her familiar features with relief.
“You’ll have to excuse Phoebe, honey, she’s a shy little thing,” Genny explained. “Henrietta cared for her like she was her own, spoiled her like nothing I’ve seen, but rarely let her out of this house.”
“Do you know who Phoebe’s father is?” Cecelia queried, plucking the pins from her hair to shake it down.
“Another secret Henrietta took to her grave. Maybe it’s in that book there.” She motioned to the coded diary Cecelia had set on the counter.
“Perhaps.” Cecelia accepted the brush Genny handed over and tamed her mane as best she could, expertly knotting it and stabbing with pins to keep it in place. It would have to do for now. “Do you think he has anything to do with why Henrietta was killed?”
“Ramsay? Or the father?”
“Either.” Cecelia huffed out an anxious breath. “Both?”
“He might, at that,” Genny frowned, rubbing her forehead, her eyes glimmering with grief. “This establishment has long been a playground for the rich and the powerful. There are more transactions made here than poker and roulette. Business, trade, politics, and sometimes a criminal enterprise or two are struck at our tables. Fortunes won and lost. And perhaps lives bought and sold. None of us are safe until this puzzle Henrietta left for you is solved. If we can’t figure out who our enemy is, we won’t see them coming.”
“Well…” Cecelia stuck the final pin in her hair and accepted her spectacles from Genny, grateful for the world to be in focus once more. “We certainly know one of our enemies, and next time he comes at us, we won’t be caught unaware.”
“We most certainly will not,” Genny said vehemently.
“I want to find these missing girls.” Cecelia worried at her lip. “We need to help.”
“Oh honey,” Genny took her arm firmly. “You have to forget Katerina Milovic. It’s a tragedy, terrible to be sure, but that little girl is long gone. Young ones like her disappear all the time, taken by men with unthinkable desires. If they’re found, it’s usually their corpses, or worse, the shells of what is left of them after these men steal their souls. There isn’t anything we can do but protect our own.”
Helpless tears pricked Cecelia’s eyes. “That can’t be. There must be something that can be done.” She plucked up the book of codes and slipped it into the pocket of her skirts. First she’d hire more staff to put the residence and the business to rights, then she’d coax Phoebe out from beneath the desk by promising to take her to her flat in Chelsea, where men with chains would never find her.
Once the girl was safely in the care of Jean-Yves, Cecelia would be about her business.
In order to succeed in her endeavors, she would need to acquire a great deal more information about Sir Cassius Gerard Ramsay, as he seemed determined to bar her at every turn.
Luckily, she was invited to dinner at his sister-in-law’s house this very evening.
Which would be the perfect time to learn his weakness.
CHAPTER FOUR
Ramsay cursed his traitorous body to the outer reaches of hell and back as he let his head fall back against the carriage cushion.
That damnable book, the one with the depictions of every imaginable form of intercourse, had brought his cock to attention. Not the woman to whom it belonged. She had nothing to do with it.
He did not desire the Scarlet Lady.
He was a man. A Scotsman, no less. And the renderings of fornication woke within his body pulsating temptations to which he’d vowed never again to succumb. Memories of positions he’d preferred, longings for depravities he’d not yet tasted, and also for those he’d denied himself for so long.
Hortense Thistledown had casually turned the pages of said text, running her silk gloves over the pictures as though discovering them for the first time. Her manner had been cavalier, but her rouged lips parted as though the depictions of iniquity astonished her.
Or perhaps they’d a similar effect upon her as himself.
Perhaps she’d experienced a rush of desire.
He wished he could see what she hid under the mask, the wig, and the frippery. Was her skin truly pale under the white powder? What color was her hair? Was her figure as voluptuous as he’d imagined beneath the shapeless crimson cloak, or had she padded it for effect?
Even though Ramsay detested her ilk, the photos in the book had elicited unbidden thoughts. Had invaded his mind, threatening to rob him of his moral high ground.
Did the Scarlet Lady take famous, wealthy lovers as her predecessor had?
His fingers gripped the cushions of the carriage bench as he rejected the question slithering through his thoughts like a serpent in Eden.
He shouldn’t wonder such things. He shouldn’t want. Crave. Ache.
He must forget those lips. He must not imagine them wrapped around his cock, leaving rings of rouge and silken moisture behind.
His breath hitched as his body hardened further.
Nay, her mouth was, no doubt, too practiced to tempt him. A woman in her profession learned well and early the yearning of a man for such an act. In fact, she was arranged with artifice to fuck a man’s wits right out of his head.
Her scent, for example, not a French floral or an expensive musk, only a sweet vanilla with a tinge of something spiced. One meant to rouse several physical hungers at once.
Her makeup, the crimson color of sin, applied to articulate that talented mouth.
Her wit had made her all the more desirable. A
sense of enjoyment hummed beneath his rage, plucked by their repartee. Her challenge had made him feel … awake. Alive.
She’s a viper, he reminded himself. A woman who’d possibly sold her soul to the devil, along with the innocence of young girls.
The prompt was enough to douse his desire.
He could not allow himself to become beguiled. Not like so many of the men with whom he operated.
Titled lords and wealthy judges, magistrates, and politicians were so often led about by their cocks just as easily as their purse strings.
Crafty old Henrietta Thistledown had held many of those purse strings in her own hand.
She’d chosen her successor wisely; he’d give her that. Hortense was a force to be reckoned with in her own right.
The death of Henrietta had seemed the perfect time to strike against the gambling hell. The old woman had always been so deucedly careful. Every time he thought he’d had her dead to rights, she seemed to reach out and pluck the strings of one of her powerful puppets, and yet again she’d be pulled out of the mire. It was as though the entire haute ton owed her favors.
For Christ’s sake, he’d taken down Afghani warlords and Barbary pirates in Algiers more easily than Henrietta, and he had to admit to some relief upon the news of her death.
The head of the snake had been severed, which he’d hoped meant fewer girls would disappear from his city.
When he’d garnered news of poor Katerina Milovic after Henrietta’s death, though, he knew he had to act. Because the kidnappings did not stop once she was in the ground.
He’d swarmed the establishment today, a Friday afternoon, when the working wealthy in the emerging merchant class struck out early in search of a good time at the sides of the idle rich.
They must have known he was coming, because there wasn’t a card sharp in sight and the place had been devoid of customers.
And then there had been belowstairs, which oddly enough resembled an actual school.
A stern butler named Winston had followed Ramsay and his constables around the bottom floor, insisting he leave the belowstairs tenants alone. These women had not all been glittering butterflies who ran the tables and the dice. Many of them had the hollowed eyes of refugees; some of them didn’t even speak English.
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