All Scot and Bothered

by Kerrigan Byrne

  Her heart gave an electrified lurch as she found Phoebe hunched over a prone Jean-Yves in the gardens, shaking his limp shoulder.

  Cecelia let out a raw sound of denial, unable to even form a word so simple as no as she rushed forward and sank to his side in a tuft of filthy skirts.

  “He won’t wake up.” Phoebe half climbed into her lap. “He threw me across the hedge when the wall fell, and now he won’t wake up! Is he dead?” Her tiny body trembled in time with Cecelia’s as she struggled to speak through hysterical hiccups. “He can’t. Be dead. I’ve only. Just. Lost. Henrietta!” She gulped, her ability for speech dissolving completely.

  Cecelia held Phoebe’s stricken face against her, clutching her close and crooning to her so the child couldn’t watch the tears stream down her own cheeks. All she wanted to do was collapse over him and dissolve into the mess of terrified sobs that had been threatening to overwhelm her since the day began.

  But she simply couldn’t. Not now. Not yet. Jean-Yves needed her, for once, and she’d die before she failed him.

  His shoulder and upper torso were covered in debris, and a small trail of blood leaked from one ear. He was so disturbingly still. His body, built wiry and strong with years of labor, seemed small against the pile of rubble and stone and a film of white chalk.

  But his chest rose and fell with steady breaths.

  Rejoicing, Cecelia pulled young Phoebe away from her bosom to look her in her watery eyes. “Darling, look, he’s breathing. He’s alive.”

  “He is?” Phoebe sniffed.

  “Yes, pet. But someone needs to go fetch an ambulance medic for Jean-Yves from the front lawn. Do you think you can do that whilst I try to lift these stones from his shoulder?”

  Phoebe surged to her feet. “Don’t let him die before I get back!”

  A lump in Cecelia’s throat obstructed a reply as Phoebe scampered away in her little black shoes and soiled pinafore.

  It wasn’t a promise she was equipped to make on his behalf.

  “Jean-Yves,” she whispered through a fall of tears as she reached over him, gingerly pulling bricks from his arm and shoulder. She spoke as she worked, trying to school the despair from her voice, careful not to start a fall of more stone and debris that could crush them both.

  “I shouldn’t be surprised if you are tired of doing your best to look after us Rogues. You’ve spent ten years wiping our tears, suffering our absurd hilarities, and enduring our schemes.… I promise we won’t cause you any more trouble.… Just … don’t…” Her throat closed. She couldn’t say it. “I’m not ready to be without you.” Her voice broke, and she smoothed a mat of silver hair to his head.

  “I know your sweet wife and lovely daughter might be calling you from the beyond, and I won’t hold it against you if you go to them.” She heaved and trembled beneath a particularly heavy stone before swiping at her tears with her sleeve. “Perhaps I’ve kept you too long,” she fretted. “Longer than I deserve. But … Phoebe needs a fatherly figure, and I can’t think of anyone better to—”

  “You must not weep, mon bijou.” Jean-Yves’s hoarse, breathless voice washed over her like a miracle. “I cannot lift my hand to wipe your tears.”

  Relief drove Cecelia to her knees, and she lifted his uninjured hand for him, holding it against her wet cheek. “I won’t!” she promised, even as her sobs increased.

  “You ridiculous rapscallion,” he drawled, a grimace overtaking him as he coughed weakly. “I cannot open my eyes. The light, it is too bright, and I am so fatigued.”

  “Don’t fall asleep,” she admonished, frightened that if he did, he truly would never wake again. How she wished she could dim the sun or call the eternal gray back over the London skies, if only to comfort him. “Phoebe will want to make certain you are all right. Promise me you won’t sleep before she returns.”

  The girl in question arrived dragging a burly ambulance medic in her wake like a tiny blond tugboat. Another medic was followed by Francesca and Alexandra, each of them pale, filthy, and alarmed.

  The medics freed Jean-Yves from the rest of the rubble, wrapped his head wound, and secured his arm to his chest with no small amount of foul language on Jean-Yves’s part.

  “Do not fret, mon Rogues,” he grunted when they could finally load him onto a stretcher. “You are not ready to be unleashed upon an unsuspecting world unchaperoned.”

  “I’ll follow you to hospital.” Cecelia clutched his hand.

  “No need. I’ve had enough bruised or broken ribs in my day to know what they feel like,” he said. “They’ll patch me up, set my shoulder, and send me home with the most wonderful morphine.”

  “We’re coming to hospital, old man,” Francesca declared, her stubbornness doing little to conceal the hard-won fondness softening her gaze. “You’re too wounded to fight us on this.”

  “A herd of stampeding rhinoceroses wouldn’t keep us away,” Alexandra chimed in, smoothing his hair with cautious gentility.

  “The three of ye are going exactly nowhere,” growled a most unwelcome voice.

  Cecelia’s mouth turned to ash when she looked up to see Ramsay storming into the gardens like an advancing general. With his features drawn into a furious mask of wrath, she had to fight a very primal instinct to flee such a masculine, mercenary onslaught.

  It was a wonder that nations didn’t fall before him, with a countenance that fierce. That rivers didn’t divert at his word and mountains shouldn’t move to make way for his march.

  Genny had been right: It was easy to forget how astonishingly large he was until one was faced with two-hundred-plus pounds of Scots muscle and icy wrath charging forward like a golden bull. Head low. Nostrils flaring. Untouched by the chaos and destruction around him.

  Untouchable.

  Cecelia was surprised to find that she rather disliked the idea of him trailing his disgust and self-righteousness all over her establishment.

  Indeed. Whether she liked it or not, it was hers. She owned it.

  And she would now be forced to own up to it.

  There would be no seducing secrets from the Vicar of Vice. Not now that he was about to find out just who exactly she was.

  Her tongue felt like sandpaper as Ramsay planted his boots a few feet away from them, his gaze making a trail of blue fire up and down Cecelia’s filthy frame.

  “First of all, is anyone wounded?” he snarled.

  “Other than the Frenchman on the stretcher and nine others being hefted into ambulances?” Francesca retorted, folding her arms.

  “The wounded on the lawn are being seen to. My question is directed at ye ladies.” The word dripped from him with acerbic sarcasm as he adopted the exact same posture.

  Cecelia noted how his suitcoat stretched over the bulk of his shoulders, straining at the seams. It seemed he could flex but once and the entire thing, though very well made, would be forced to give way.

  What a strange thing to notice at a time like this.

  She put a hand to her forehead. Perhaps she was concussed.

  “We’re unharmed, thank you, Ramsay.” Alexandra answered her brother-in-law’s query when it became apparent no one else was about to.

  “Does my brother know ye’re here, Yer Grace?” The last syllable slithered from between his teeth like a hiss.

  “Of course he does,” Alexandra replied. “Which is why I expect him to burst through the doors any moment wild and disheveled and terrified for me.” Alexandra’s bravado had begun to fade, her bright brunette eyes now pinching with strain. “I should like him to hurry.”

  Cecelia wrapped her arm around Alexandra’s waist to offer what comfort she could until her husband arrived.

  What would it be like to have someone care and worry for her as Redmayne did for his wife? With all of himself. The duke would have thrown his own body over his duchess in a blast such as this. He’d have carried her to safety on two broken legs. He’d have bled out before allowing harm to come to her.

  Cecelia didn’t want t
o feel sorry for herself, but with Jean-Yves so frighteningly injured and a new charge to look after, she felt heavier than she ever had both physically and otherwise. Weighted down with unknown secrets and unidentified enemies, the blood of four innocent souls, the innocence of missing girls, and the safety of everyone now in her care and employ.

  Ramsay blinked at Alexandra, disbelief etched into the hard frown lines bracketing his mouth. “Ye mean for me to believe Redmayne allows ye to come to this place?” He gestured to the rubble.

  “Redmayne allows me nothing. I am my own person and ask permission of no one.” Alexandra slid her gaze to Cecelia. “However, I was touring the school to see if I wanted to add it to my more philanthropic endeavors. As it turns out, I categorically do. Especially now.”

  Cecelia would have expressed her undying gratitude to Alexandra had she not been interrupted by the explosive din of an enormous burning beam of wood, which chose that moment to roll down the mountain of rubble toward them.

  In a manner that very much remind her of a charging bull, Ramsay lunged forward with his arms open and scooped up all three women, sweeping them back as the log landed in a volcano of sparks and dust and ash in the exact spot they’d gathered.

  It was rather like being swept up by a brick wall.

  He jerked away the moment they’d been deposited to safety, leaving Cecelia feeling oddly bereft. To wield such tremendous strength was unimaginable to her.

  But to be buttressed by it. Shielded and supported by it.

  To rely upon and be rescued by it.

  How extraordinary.

  Ash and dust filmed her spectacles, obstructing her vision completely. The grit of it gathered on her face and settled in a chalky-tasting skein on her teeth. A fit of wheezing coughs overtook her, and she bent forward with her hand over her mouth to regain her breath.

  No one said a word, but a handkerchief was thrust into her hand.

  Cecelia wiped the dust and ash from her lips, nose, and chin so she could breathe.

  It smelled like him. Like clean linen, sharp soap, and … books.

  She paused to pull the scent deep into her beleaguered lungs before swiping off her spectacles to clean them with the unsoiled side of the soft cloth.

  She searched the gardens anxiously, noting that Frank and Alexander were gaining their balance and their breath behind her, but were otherwise unharmed.

  Phoebe stood safely some distance away, pressed against the far wall, her features indistinguishable.

  Jean-Yves had thankfully been conducted from the room by the medics before the log fell.

  No harm done. Cecelia opened her mouth to thank Ramsay, but he spoke before she was able.

  “Jesus kilt-lifting Christ. It’s ye.”

  It was hard to discern from his voice if he was more furious or incredulous.

  Cecelia glanced over at him, finding nothing but the blunt shapes of his features and the stunning size of everything else. Then she held her glasses up to bring the world—and the man—into focus.

  Catching her reflection in the one window that remained intact, she saw what Ramsay did. The soot about her face was shaped very much like a masquerade mask. Covered thusly, without her spectacles on and her hair dusted with ash and debris, she unequivocally resembled the woman he’d met only yesterday in the ruined residence.

  The woman he detested.

  The Scarlet Lady.

  “It is I,” she confessed upon a wistful sigh.

  She’d kissed Ramsay …

  And never would again judging by the antipathy with which he currently regarded her.

  His hair had become disheveled, and the high collar of his crisp suit was now smudged with grime, his necktie missing. But his eyes. His eyes glinted with silver storms, the blue vanishing almost completely.

  If the storm wasn’t about to be unleashed upon her, she’d have taken all the time she could to admire and absorb it.

  To bask in the ferocious beauty of it, as she’d always been fond of storms.

  Lud, she thought wryly. The blast must have blown the wits right out of her head.

  He took a threatening step forward, his shoulders seeming to grow along with his wrath such that Cecelia was ashamed to notice she’d retreated a step into the safety of the Rogues.

  He didn’t yell. Indeed, his voice lowered several impossible octaves. But something in the depth and precise enunciation of his orders lent them more gravitas than a thunderous roar.

  “Someone kindly tell me just what in the veriest fuck is going on here, and who the bloody hell ye really are.” He stabbed a condemning finger in Cecelia’s direction, and she put her hands up as though said finger were the end of a pistol.

  “I would be happy to explain, my lord.” She fought to keep her voice even. “Although … I’d request that you mind your language in front of—”

  “This house is so entirely sullied, my language willna make one jot of a difference, madam,” he sneered, raking her with a glare so sharp and loathing it might have had claws.

  His disgust, while expected, still stung. No, it burned. Igniting a fire of indignation within her breast.

  “I beg your pardon, sir,” Cecelia said with just as much control as she could muster. “You obviously have a personal vendetta to discharge here. However, you are in the presence of a countess and a duchess of the realm, and as such, it is beholden upon you as a gentleman to show them, your betters, the deference due their station.”

  “Betters?” he snorted with derision. “Ye no more believe someone can be born yer better than I do, regardless of the company ye keep.” He thrust his jaw toward the noble ladies. “But vendetta or no, I’m here because an explosion just endangered my city, and I do intend to ken how and why.”

  My city, Cecelia thought mulishly. As if he owned London. The sheer arrogance of the man. The abject pomposity. If she’d had the courage to engage her wit in confrontations, she’d tell him exactly what she thought of him. But it seemed her courage had begun to fail her.

  “What’s going on here,” Francesca answered from behind her, “is that someone tried to murder our Cecelia in her own establishment. Now, just what do you plan to do about it?”

  Ramsay ignored Francesca like an oak would a gnat.

  “Which introduction of ours was a lie?” A severe note underscored his question, and Cecelia wondered if he, too, thought about their enchanted evening.

  About their kiss.

  “I didn’t lie to you,” Cecelia said.

  “Ye told me yer name was Hortense Thistledown,” he accused.

  “I said you may call me Hortense Thistledown,” she corrected. “Think of it as a … business moniker. A nom de plume, if you will.”

  “And the French accent?”

  “I’ll admit that was a bit of … improvisation on my part,” she hedged.

  “Call it what it bloody was. A falsehood.” Though his voice remained even, Cecelia sensed she’d reached the edge of a very long rope. The edge that might have a noose attached to it.

  If he wanted the truth, Cecelia decided, then the truth he would get. “Yesterday morning I found out that I had an aunt named Henrietta Thistledown in the same sentence that I was told she’d expired and willed to me her business. You rudely interrupted my initial assessment of the place by threatening to kick my door in, and I was forced to defend my inheritance by whatever means I deemed fit.”

  He’d begun shaking his head in the middle of her statement. “I’ll pretend for a moment that doesna sound like utter horsewallop, and ask why ye would feel the need to defend yerself from the police if ye’re not breaking the law?”

  “Because Henrietta told me in a letter that her enemies had become my enemies, and those enemies were lawbreakers as well as lawmakers. If you’re familiar with her, then you must be aware of her clientele, half of which sit in the House of Lords and on the justice benches beneath you.” Cecelia gauged his reaction, treading carefully here. How much should she reveal? How much did she tr
ust Cassius Ramsay? She took a deep breath.

  In for a penny … “Henrietta told me she was possessed of debts and secrets that could get her killed. That put me and the school in danger. And … just look what’s happened.” She swept her hand to encompass the disaster.

  His eyes narrowed to thin shards of ice. “Ye want me to believe that Henrietta left ye one of the largest of the ill-begotten fortunes in the land and ye’d never even met her?”

  That’s what he focused on?

  “We might have done,” Cecelia corrected. “Genny said she remembered meeting me as a very small girl—”

  “I’m to believe that ye, the daughter of a widowed country vicar, were planning on taking up the mantle of the Scarlet Lady with no training, knowledge, or know-how of such an endeavor?” Condescension edged out suspicion as he spoke.

  “I took plenty of classes in economics at university, I’m fairly confident in my abilities to run a successful gambling venture—”

  “Ye simply sat down at a solicitor’s office yesterday, learned of the death of an infamous family member, and thought to yerself, why not contribute to the depravity of an already rotting and decrepit city?”

  “That’s not at all what I—”

  “Ye think I’m naive enough to believe that ye stumbled into this profession yesterday?” He advanced as he spoke, until he was almost nose-to-nose with Cecelia. For the first time maybe ever, she was grateful for her height and her heft, and drew upon every inch she could claim.

  And still he loomed over her.

  How did one do that? she wondered. Turn standing into looming. She’d never wished so intensely as in that moment for the knowledge of a proper loom.

  As it was, she simply threw her shoulders back and lifted her chin, wishing that any kind of conflict didn’t make her stomach roil and a cold sweat to bloom. “You don’t have to believe a word I say, my lord. I suppose your only task would be to find out who has done this to my establishment and why.”

  At this, his eyes went flat. All the electricity leaching out of them as if disappointment deflated his anger.