She’d been right about one thing: It was his duty to protect all the citizens of London and beyond. Even those he did not approve of.
It was their right to live without fear of remonstration or danger.
Unless they perpetrated the crimes.
Redmayne took his silence for acceptance. “Don’t be hard on yourself, either. You didn’t know who she was when you wanted her.”
Wanted. The word implied past tense.
If only he knew.
The truth hadn’t extinguished his hunger.
Ramsay slammed the glass down harder than was necessary, wishing that he could punch more things. That he could incite Redmayne to beat the memory of her lips, her flavor out of his mind.
“I’m not angry because I kissed her,” he confessed. “I’m not even that angry at her for being who she is.”
“Then what—”
Ramsay swiped at the entire table, sending glass shattering to the floor. “I left yer house that night with the word wife on my lips, for Christ’s sake!” he roared. “A handful of minutes in the garden with her and I was ready to hand over my—” He couldn’t say heart. He couldn’t give what he didn’t have. “My name. Even in the wake of her telling me why she didna want it. I should have guessed. I’d met her that morning and then allowed her to seduce me that very night and I never connected the two women. What kind of miserable imbecile does something like that?”
“Jesus.” Redmayne scrubbed a hand over his already tousled ebony hair. “It’s worse than I thought.”
“I forgot myself for a moment.” Ramsay’s voice dropped so low, he could barely hear it as his shoulders sagged with shame. “I forgot what people are. I wanted to believe…” He let the sentence die, because it made him feel weak.
Redmayne reached for his shoulder and Ramsay shrugged him off, not knowing what to do with the affectionate gesture. “Never ye mind. My point is that any man who would take such a crafty woman at her word is a fool.”
Redmayne sobered, speaking with the conviction due his station. “Then you must uncover the truth, for everyone’s sake.”
Ramsay stalked toward the exit, stretching the skin of his knuckles over tight fists.
“That, my brother, is exactly what I intend to do.”
* * *
In the two days since the explosion at Henrietta’s, Cecelia had taken every precaution to hide her identity. To her employees, the workmen she’d hired to clear the disaster area, and the students at the school, she was Hortense Thistledown, Henrietta’s niece.
Only a select few people knew Cecelia Teague.
She arrived and left by way of a secret tunnel entrance and had spent most of her time at hospital with Jean-Yves. From there, she’d retrieve Phoebe at Frank’s in Mayfair or Alexander’s in Belgravia and never took the same route home.
Redmayne, bless him, had twice escorted her in a hackney rather than his ducal carriage, keeping one ever-vigilant eye on their back. He’d assured her they’d never been followed.
I’ll be the hot breath down yer neck and the chill from the shadows.
The threat reverberated through Cecelia as she hurried through the darkness. The clack of her shoes on the cobbles echoed her loneliness back at her. The streetlamps seemed too dim and pallid, even in her posh part of town.
She clutched Phoebe’s hand and drew the girl closer to her skirts, doing her best to pretend she wasn’t afraid.
When they’d visited the chemist around teatime to pick up an opiate pain tonic for Jean-Yves, the man had been furious that his shipment of supplies was late. He’d begged them to return in the evening, and Cecelia felt sorry for his missing an entire day’s revenue. She even bought a digestive aid she hadn’t needed to assuage her guilt, and his pocketbook, with a promise to return after hours.
It seemed ludicrous to take a hackney a mere five blocks from her tidy row house in Chelsea to the market street. But now, as a bank of summer fog drifted over from the Thames and washed the cobbles with an eerie glow, the fine hairs on her body sang with electric awareness.
Her usual habit was to send Jean-Yves or an errand boy for a carriage if one didn’t loiter nearby. But she hadn’t the time in the two days since the incident to hire another man-of-all-work. Besides, she’d been afraid doing so would hurt his feelings. Unlike Alex and Frank, she’d not previously possessed the kind of fortune for footmen, and traveled too much to make them necessary.
Since her cookmaid had been out of town visiting an ill sister, and Jean-Yves had been stoically sweating from pain without his medicine, Cecelia could stand his suffering no longer, and had no choice but to take Phoebe along for the errand.
She scurried past a particularly dark alleyway in between two cozy buildings, peering into the gloom that seethed with malice.
If Ramsay was out there in the shadows, wouldn’t his watching her make her feel safer? She certainly wasn’t breaking any laws. So why did fingers of dread dance along her spine?
Because the last time they’d spoken, she’d truly feared him. That brutal visage would intimidate anyone, and combined with the cruel threats on his lips, he’d been downright terrifying.
Cecelia picked up the pace, earning her a protest from Phoebe, who had to trot just to keep up with her long stride. The child would much rather give her attentions to the candy the chemist had offered her than navigating the dark cobbles.
“I’m sorry, darling,” Cecelia murmured, measuring her stride to make the girl more comfortable.
Something in the air, in the mist, whispered to instincts she’d never honed. A primal, perhaps untapped maternal intuition that told her to snatch up her young and flee.
But she was being ridiculous, surely.
It was at times like these one might wish for a man. Someone to perhaps rely upon to look after one’s safety. A strong set of shoulders and heavy, scarred hands with a masculine penchant to protect his family.
She tried not to give this fantasy man thick, orderly strands of fair hair or an uncommonly square jaw. Nor did she paint his lips full or his eyes quicksilver blue. Of course she didn’t, because any semblance of just such a man in her life was impossible now.
Because he detested her.
A strange sound from across the street startled her. A can or a bottle grinding against the cobbles as it rolled. Something, someone, had to have disturbed it.
Cecelia’s breath burned in her lungs. She reached into her pocket, palming the knife Frank had given her. Both the Countess of Mont Claire and the Duchess of Redmayne had taken to carrying pistols in their purses at a young age, but Cecelia was too skeptical of the contraptions to be comfortable having one upon her person. She knew how to shoot one, because the ladies had taught her, but to carry one around at all times unsettled her in the extreme.
She was simply too clumsy for all of that. She’d be certain to shoot her own boot off or, worse, kill someone accidentally. Besides, her poor eyesight did not a good markswoman make.
Though at this very moment, she reconsidered her position most heartily.
If she’d been alone, she’d have run the two blocks home, but with Phoebe at her side she couldn’t go very much faster.
She opened her mouth to suggest she carry the girl home when another sound broke through the mist from up one of the stairways leading to the landing of row houses behind her.
This one metallic. Like the click of a key in a heavy latch, or maybe the hammer of a pistol? She’d have to hear it again to be sure.
Footsteps dogged her own. Heavy footsteps.
Someone tall was behind them, taking one step to every two of hers and four of poor Phoebe’s. This time, when Cecelia’s walking turned to rushing, the girl made no argument, as she, too, sensed the same danger in the dark.
The footsteps behind didn’t hasten, and Cecelia breathed a little easier as she gained some distance.
Until she ran headlong into a wall of solid male chest.
One quick inhale told her it was categ
orically not Ramsay.
This man reeked of unlaundered clothing, cigar smoke, and gin with a pungent, almost astringent, cologne.
Cecelia gasped and hopped back, looking up into a half-rotten smile covered by an ill-kempt mustache.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” she breathed, shoving Phoebe behind her and stepping to the side to go around him.
He matched her movement, blocking her escape. “Ya might beg.” His posture and tone remained agreeable, making his words all the more chilling. His breath smelled of refuse as a smile of relish spread over his craggy features. Evil gleamed in dark eyes much too small for such a large man. “Aye, you’ll beg aw’right. But there’ll be no pardon.”
Panic flared, and Cecelia drew the knife from her pocket, brandishing it at the brigand. “Step aside,” she commanded, in a voice she wished were stronger. “Or I’ll scream for the watch.”
“We timed this so’s that ’e won’t ’ear ya.” His smile became a rancid leer. “But ’e will find what’s left of ya, sure enough.”
We. He wasn’t alone.
Cecelia did the only thing she could think of. She tossed Phoebe around the man. “Run!” she called. “Don’t look back.”
Phoebe’s little pumping legs were the last thing Cecelia saw before the man charged her.
His heft lifted her bodily off her feet as he dragged her into the darkened alley and slammed her against the bricks hard enough to deflate her lungs. “You’ll pay for that, ya fat cow,” he vowed before he jerked his head in the direction Phoebe had fled.
Another bruiser streaked by. The man with the pistol. The one whose footsteps she’d heard behind her.
Cecelia’s anxiety gave way to the instinct from before. She could not allow him to get to Phoebe. She’d die first.
Or kill.
Cecelia slashed out blindly with her knife, fighting to draw breath into lungs that refused to obey. She was able to drag the blade in a short slide across the man’s chest before he grasped her wrist and pressed hard against a tender spot.
Her fingers went limp of their own volition, and the knife clattered uselessly to the ground, taking her hopes of survival with it.
“I’ll cut ya slow for that.”
Anger gave way to rage, intense and absolute. At herself just as much as her attackers. If any harm befell Phoebe it would be her fault. She’d taken the girl from the safety of their home.
Gathering a burst of strength, she squirmed and fought like a wild creature. She clawed and scratched and pushed at her large assailant with enough effect to throw him off balance.
She might be a fat cow, but her weight lent her strength many delicate females just didn’t possess.
Jacket buttons scattered. Her spectacles were dragged from her ears and her hat was wrenched painfully from her head, ripping some hair along with it. The sound of it separating from her scalp was loud and dreadful.
She finally drew in enough air for a wretched semblance of a scream. Could anyone hear? Would they come to her aid?
A fist snaked out of the darkness, striking her with enough strength to snap her neck back and bash her head against the brick.
The second man? Had he gotten to Phoebe? Or was this a third attacker?
She crumpled to the ground. Cheek throbbing. Vision swimming with darkness and strange flashes of electric light.
Her periphery dimmed and her vision tunneled, focusing on a flash of silver.
The knife.
She made a desperate, half-blind grab at it, but a boot stomped on her fingers, hard enough to draw a sob, but not to break the bones.
Not yet.
The man who’d struck her, slimmer than the first, bent to retrieve the knife. His teeth were white, his nose long enough to thrust out from beneath the shadow of his bowler cap. But she couldn’t make out his features. Not in the half dark without her spectacles.
“You all was warned what would happen if one of them girls ran.” His voice was young and sharp, though it sounded as though his nasal passages were blocked with a cold.
“What?” Cecelia shrank against the brick, trying to make herself small. Doing her best to understand what he was saying. This wasn’t the man who’d chased Phoebe. He was too thin.
Had the girl escaped? Please God let her get away.
“We need one more now. Your littl’un will do nicely.”
“No!” Cecelia’s cry erupted as a moan. “No, take me. Don’t touch Phoebe. She’s just…” She fought for breath, for consciousness. “She’s just a child.”
“Yeah.” The bigger thug grabbed her by the hair, yanking her head back and exposing her throat. “That’s rather the point.”
“Where’s the book?” The thin man pressed the knife to her throat, its cold steel biting into the thin skin. “Give it over to the Crimson Council and we might let you live.”
She knew they were lying. They had no intention of letting her live.
A raw, strangled noise filtered to them from the street. A gunshot broke against the stone.
The two men looked at each other.
“He’d better not have shot the girl,” the lean one said.
Cecelia gave a desolate cry, her heart withering in her chest. No. Not Phoebe.
A shadow shifted, lunged, and Cecelia was roughly released.
She blinked a bit dumbly as the knife dropped to her lap.
The brutish man crashed against the brick wall opposite Cecelia and was held there by an even larger, taller form.
Cecelia squinted, struggling to see.
The thin man sprawled out on the cobbles, though how he’d gotten there was a mystery to her.
The crunch of flesh meeting flesh drew her notice back to the two shadows at the wall. One was large, the other enormous.
Ramsay.
He was the only man of her acquaintance with such a tremendous build. The only one who could move with such astonishing quietude.
The only man who even growled in a Scottish accent.
The names Genny had called him made so much sense now. He was the devil, relentless and inescapable, bringing with him all the punishing castigation the dark could devise.
He’d a pistol in his left hand, but he subdued the thrashing brute easily, shoving the gun beneath his chin. He ignored the one blow the man managed to land at his temple and drove his right fist into the thug’s face again and again with single-minded acumen and unparalleled skill. Little cracking sounds might have been bones breaking, or rotten teeth falling to the cobbles.
Cecelia found that she didn’t care.
The thin man gained his feet, and for a moment Cecelia thought he might save his compatriot when he surged toward the tussle.
She took up the knife, opening her mouth to warn Ramsay, but there was no need.
With one mighty roar, he grasped the brute’s head and snapped it to the side. The man’s spine made a sound Cecelia would never forget.
Ramsay lifted the pistol and executed the thin man with one expert shot to the forehead before the thug with the broken neck had folded to the dirt as though he had no bones left.
Cecelia clapped her hands over her ears, tucking her chin down as the deafening blast of several more shots rang out through the narrow alley.
Even when the last echo died, she didn’t move. Barely dared to breathe. The clicks of the empty pistol matched the painful rhythm of her heart.
Ramsay hadn’t stopped pulling the trigger.
Whatever world she found out in the darkness might be untenable. The tragedy too great to bear, the failure enough to crush her. She’d never live with herself if—
“Cecelia?”
The small, watery sound of her name tore a raw sound of pure joy from her chest.
“Phoebe!” She scrambled to her feet and lunged for the little shadow that stood backlit by the entry to the alley.
Scooping the girl against her, Cecelia cradled Phoebe’s head into her neck as little arms and legs latched around her middle and clung like a burr. Th
e child’s tears slid down her throat into her collar, and her own leaked into Phoebe’s silky, honey-colored ringlets.
“Are you hurt, darling?” The question dragged from her throat with a husky horror. “Did he harm you?”
Phoebe shook her head, pulling back to look over her shoulder. “The man chasing me grabbed my arm, but he saved me.”
Cecelia whirled in the middle of the street to find Ramsay standing in the entry to the alley a mere three paces away. His heavy shoulders and chest heaved with labored breaths. His nostrils flared and his eyes flashed, locking with hers.
Not a wolf, she thought again. A lion.
He stood over his kills proud, unrepentant. His broad features etched with a ferocity she’d assumed civilization had bred out of the modern gentleman. It was why their empire espoused such rigid strictures. Because might had once taken precedence over manners. The men who were able to incite the most fear were the ones who wielded the power.
And man forever desired to separate his kingdom from that of the beasts.
But it just wasn’t so, she realized. Not really. Not in times such as this when threats to one’s life stripped away the layers of courtesy, civility, and superior intellect.
Leaving the soft animal exposed. Vulnerable.
It didn’t matter how many tall steel buildings contained the economy and the empire, or how many layers of finely spun clothing contained the flesh. People were essentially predators. They’d forever prey on one another.
And if that was so, a woman might count herself fortunate to rely upon the protection of the king of beasts.
She might not be ashamed to succumb to the possession electrifying his unblinking stare.
Something welled within Cecelia she’d never before experienced and couldn’t identify.
Was it emotion? Or sensation? Or strictly a primitive physical reaction? She hadn’t the time to analyze it.
Lights were beginning to appear in the windows of the row houses, splashing gold over the mist. Some brave souls peeked out into the night, though none of the gentlefolk dared to venture where gunshots had been fired.
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