For the entire next morning, Cecelia had to bite her own tongue to keep from screaming the truth.
I kissed Ramsay.
She was adept at keeping secrets, wasn’t she? She’d helped to bury the body of Alexandra’s rapist in a poppy garden behind their school on Lake Geneva. She was one of the few people in the world who knew that Francesca, the Countess of Mont Claire’s real name was Pippa Hargrave. That she was an imposter bent on revenge against those who’d murdered her family and the real Francesca Cavendish.
She’d never revealed to anyone that Vicar Teague wasn’t her father. That she was a bastard and a fraud. Unwanted. Unloved.
Unclaimed.
She knew she’d made a mistake last night by being alone with Ramsay. She didn’t exactly want to hear the Rogues’ opinions on it, because certainly they’d be unfavorable considering she was lying to the man.
And because he was intent upon her utter obliteration.
So why did a confession regarding last night’s tipsy indiscretion burn her tongue, demanding to be spat out?
For the most part, she’d been able to contain herself. But during the rare moments her friends were silent, as they were now, standing in the foyer of a gambling hell that had recently become hers, the confession bubbled in her throat like expensive champagne. Threatening to burp forth, condemning her for an absolute fool.
I kissed Ramsay. I can still feel him on my lips. Taste him on my tongue. Sense the scrape of his callused fingertips across my cheek.
I kissed Ramsay, and I never wanted to stop.
“Oh my.” Alexandra’s breathy exclamation paralyzed her.
Cecelia swallowed. Twice, curling her lips between her teeth.
Had she spoken out loud?
Alexandra and Francesca drifted further onto the floor empty of people but full of every sort of gambling implement. Tables for dice were stacked next to a gilded roulette wheel. Next to that, card tables for baccarat, faro, and keno sheets were neatly stacked in rows of three, leaving plenty of room for men to make their way to the long oak bar behind which any drink could be served.
The place somehow endeavored to be elegant and garish at the same time, and Cecelia couldn’t wait to get her hands on some of the games. They were mostly about odds and numbers, after all.
Winston, the butler, gathered Francesca’s emerald gloves and parasol, Alexandra’s cream lace cape, and Jean-Yves’s hat, cane, and jacket from limbs gone rather slack with awe.
Thus loaded, he gestured for Cecelia’s own lavender parasol and matching lace gloves, but she didn’t want to add to the burden, so she declined.
“Thank you, Winston.”
His reply was stiff and diffident, though respectful.
“My, my.” Francesca craned her elegant neck, gawking at the lurid murals on the domed ceiling that would have made even Michelangelo blush. “Well, I never.”
Cecelia tilted her own head back, squinting through her lenses. She hadn’t noted the scandalous fresco during her prior visit. But then, she’d spent most of her time wanting to stare at the marble floor, not the ceiling.
Gasping, she clamped her hand over Phoebe’s wide blue eyes.
Jean-Yves gave the depictions of frolicking and fornicating nudes above him a scarce glance. His attention was arrested by the women of Henrietta’s School for Cultured Young Ladies as they glided down the grand staircase like proper Georgian butterflies.
Cecelia shared an astonished glance with the Rogues.
Did Jean-Yves frequent such places in his free time? He was so dapper, almost respectable in his afternoon suit, despite the craggy, sun-browned features of a man used to hard labor out of doors. His silver hair, now too thin for much pomade, stood out in little tufts without his hat. He smoothed at it self-consciously as a blush spread all the way to his scalp.
The Rogues each looked as though they might giggle … or gag.
The young ladies on the stairs were dressed both congruently and dissimilarly. Their gowns as varying in size and color as the women themselves.
A waifish nymph with straight, shining raven hair wore a pink gown with the front tied above the tops of her stockings and garters secured by two bows, allowing a peek of her smooth, bronze thighs. She could have been an Egyptian princess.
Behind her, a lady twice as large as Cecelia boasted a sleek, floor-length seafoam gown with a bodice that lifted her enormous breasts close to brushing her double chin. The tan crescents of her areolas rose above expensive lace, her nipples threatening to escape with every shiver of her abundant flesh. She gave a come-hither toss of her tumble of gold hair, and flashed a smile that promised boundless generosity.
Cecelia gawked at the women now in her employ.
One even boasted curls as coppery as hers, and … She adjusted her spectacles. Was that an Adam’s apple?
“Miss Cecelia,” Phoebe protested, her little fingers pulling at the hand over her eyes. “I’ve already seen the ceiling.”
Cecelia cringed. What else had the poor girl been exposed to so early? Lord, what kind of guardian was she to bring her back here? What sort of guardian had Henrietta been?
She thought of the missing girls. Girls not much older than Phoebe.
What if this place had something to do with them?
The Lord Chief Justice certainly seemed to think so.
I kissed Ramsay.
She shoved the thought violently aside.
“Bienvenue, honey!” Genny descended from the landing above, gliding down the stairs behind the carnal display, passing each brazen caricature of fantasy.
She rushed to embrace Cecelia and tweak a shy Phoebe under the chin.
Genny slid her dark eyes over Jean-Yves, rendering his pink blush a solid scarlet. “Well, hi there, handsome. I’m Genevieve Leveaux, but you can call me Genny.”
Jean-Yves sputtered for a moment, and Cecelia came to his rescue by making introductions.
Genny greeted them with a delighted kiss on each cheek. “The infamous Red Rogues. Henrietta used to read me your letters about these two.” She bowed to each of them before gesturing to the grand staircase. “Allow me to present the ladies behind the tables. You won’t meet sharper dealers, card sharps, dice throwers, or bookies in all of Blighty.”
A few chuckles echoed in the vast marble entry.
“I’m so eager to make each of your acquaintances.” Cecelia curtsied and petted Phoebe’s hair as she addressed Genny. “But first, I’m here to gather a few of Phoebe’s things. Do you mind if we take her to the residence and then have a look around and make proper introductions?”
Genny laughed long and loud. “Why you askin’ me, darlin’? The place is yours.”
Somehow it didn’t feel like hers. It might have belonged to Genny for all her knowledge and know-how. Her history.
But in truth, it belonged to a ghost. To Henrietta.
“Mademoiselle,” Jean-Yves said close to Cecelia’s ear. “Allow me to take Miss Phoebe to the residence to collect her things. Then you inspect your new … holdings without a care.”
“You don’t want to stay?” Genny winked at him, flashing brilliant white teeth. “A man as handsome and well turned out as you could make some money here, along with a few new friends.”
“A man as old and simple as I can only appreciate so much beauty at a time, madame, before it becomes a danger to my health.” He bowed over Genny’s hand before gathering up Phoebe’s. “Come along, ma petite bonbon. We can select your favorite things for your new room.”
Cecelia watched them go. She’d long since outgrown the name Jean-Yves christened her with the afternoon they’d met. Cecelia had been a chubby, bespectacled girl drowning her sorrows in bonbons. How lovely that another lost little girl got to enjoy the moniker, the sweets, and all the gentle masculine guidance that came with it.
Between her efforts and those of Jean-Yves, maybe Phoebe wouldn’t so much miss having parents. The idea cheered her exponentially.
“What about you, Duchess, Countess?” Genny offered. “Can I interest you in a little game of chance?”
“I think I’d like that, after our tour.” Alexandra primly tucked a stray curl the color of burnished teak beneath her wide-brimmed hat.
Francesca ignored them all, studying the place and the employees with forthright but indifferent assessment.
A rather resplendent man with a grand mustache toddled down the stairs, begging the pardon of the line of ladies. He was red-faced and sloe-eyed and nearly glowed with a besotted grin at them all as he accepted his hat and coat from a footman and whistled his merry way out the door.
“Was that…?” Alexandra stared after him as a coach trundled up the circular drive.
“It couldn’t be…” Francesca gaped.
Cecelia took her spectacles from her nose to shine on her sleeve, replacing them to search for a royal seal on the carriage.
Genny placed a finger under Cecelia’s chin, urging her mouth shut. “He’s not first in line to the throne or anything … and at the rate he’s goin’, his mother will outlive him.”
When none of the Red Rogues seemed inclined to recover from a royal sighting, Genny said, “We keep a few bedrooms upstairs in case people are disinclined to go home in a state of inebriation.” She linked her arm through Cecelia’s and tugged her past the staircase, where a lady she recognized as Lilly drifted down, lacing a white bodice with pink ribbons.
Cecelia found it difficult to meet the girl’s earnest, smiling gaze as the last time they’d met she’d been bouncing atop an earl. And she was certain the lovely girl had just serviced a prince upstairs.
Both dazed and amazed, she followed Genny past an intricate railing and toward a staircase leading to the lower level, this just as well appointed as the one to the second floor.
Before she stepped out of sight of the main floor, she caught a glimpse of a lithe masculine figure slithering toward the door, more shadow than man.
Count Adrian Armediano donned his hat over a shine of ebony hair and punched his fists into a dark jacket.
He glanced back toward their procession, and Cecelia nearly tripped down the stairs in her haste not to be seen.
“Is that the count from your do last month?” Francesca whispered from behind her. Never one for subtlety, she lifted on her tiptoes to watch him leave. “Where did you find him, Alexander? There’s something so off-putting about him, and yet familiar. As though I’ve hated him before, but I can’t remember why.”
“He’s done business with Redmayne,” the duchess replied pensively. “Supposedly he wields an immense amount of influence both here and internationally. I confess I was barely listening when the duke told me about him, because I was sifting through a trunk of samples sent to me from Syria at the time.”
“Redmayne should know better than to expect to distract you with conversation,” Francesca teased.
“Redmayne knows exactly what to do to distract me,” Alexandra said with a sly wink. “Cecil, you spent some time at the soiree talking with the count. What was he like?”
“Charming,” she answered. And a bit frightening, she didn’t say. Something about him bespoke a darkness—no, a deviousness—that had both intrigued her and set her on edge.
“Truly charming?” Alexandra challenged, “Or simply in comparison with your other conversation companion? My inscrutable brother-in-law.”
Cecelia wheezed out a nervous giggle, leaving the question unanswered. “Speaking of him, Genny, I’ll say the extra cleaning staff did a smashing job. One could never tell that only yesterday this entire place was crawling with police.”
With him.
She could feel his presence here. A sword over her head. A threat in her ear. A liquid weight low in her belly.
A thrilling, perplexing clench between her thighs.
I kissed Ramsay.
“The police did less damage than I feared,” Genny said with a relieved sigh. “More clutter than anything. We were even able to open for the evening. Now, let me take you on the tour.”
Belowstairs at Miss Henrietta’s School for Cultured Young Ladies was a revelation.
Because it was, in fact, a school for cultured young ladies. And uncultured ones. Older mothers. Immigrants. And people who might otherwise be sent to the workhouse.
Cecelia was barely aware of the enthusiastic Lilly joining their tour group as Genny led her and the Rogues past classrooms packed to the gills with women and, yes, even little girls, describing each class with aplomb and pride.
The ingenious arrangement both dazzled and humbled Cecelia. Some ladies sewed elaborate costumes, presumably for the employees abovestairs, training to be seamstresses and modistes. Others toiled in the kitchen with the chef, feeding the students, employees, and customers lavish meals while learning about a career in service to a grand house.
There were ongoing lessons in deportment, speech, civics, penmanship, and basic mathematics.
Genny led her past rooms of foreign ladies learning English, and beyond that, women operating a mock switchboard that resembled the one for the new telephone service the government had begun installing in the city.
Cecelia paused there, hoping to catch her breath as she took it all in. How brilliant. How utterly—
“One wonders”—Francesca’s sharp tone cut through her thoughts as her friend regarded Genny with narrow-eyed suspicion—“how these women, the young girls especially, afford their tuition.”
“The house pays it,” Lilly rushed to answer. “And men aren’t allowed belowstairs. Not ever. Even all the instructors are women.” She glanced over the line of ladies pulling large plugs from the switchboards and reconnecting them. Some worked with confidence, and others struggled, squinted, and became flustered beneath the regard of visitors.
To ease them, Cecelia moved down the hall away from the classrooms, toward a large arched door at the back of the manse. “How extraordinary,” she marveled, strange and unwanted tears threatening to brim in her eyes as the enormity of her new position impressed itself upon her. She turned to Lilly.
“You pay for their educations by—by entertaining the wealthy with vice? How do you feel about the arrangement?”
“It’s our choice and we make it.” Lilly’s answer rang with resolution.
Cecelia paused, searching the girl’s kohl-lined hazel eyes for fear or deception.
“Why?” Alexandra whispered.
“Why give any of those hard-won earnings to people you don’t care about?” Francesca pressed further. “Are you quite certain Henrietta doesn’t—didn’t force you to?”
Lilly’s eyes darkened, and her wig trembled with her outrage as she stepped from beneath the duchess’s touch. “I have the most honest profession in the world, Your Grace,” she answered with a dignified calm, though it was obvious she’d been offended. “I’d rather dress in pretty clothes than sew them. And I’d much rather fleece wealthy men for money than serve their food or clean out their chamber pots. I like what I do. Most days I love it. Show me many people who are so lucky.”
“Truly?” Cecelia asked, a bit heartened by the emphatic declaration. “Do many of the other employees feel the same?”
Lilly patted her on the arm. “Here at Miss Henrietta’s, we’re lavished with handmade clothing tailored just to us. We get to sleep late and play all night. We’re served meals that any toff would be proud to eat. We’re provided rotating days off and medical care when we need it. This is far better than what’s out there on the streets or in factories. All that’s required of us is to keep our mouths closed, our ears and eyes open, and we each give an equal percentage of our earnings to the running of the school.”
“Well…” Francesca breathed in disbelief. “I’ll be buggered.”
Genny stepped forward, smoothing her hands over the lavender bodice that accentuated the pink hues in her ivory skin. “Many of the girls here are the daughters, mothers, sisters, or other kin of the women who work or have worked upstairs. The customers often lavish the lucky girls with jewelry, money, and gifts that they’re allowed to keep or send to their families.”
“But … what about the other day, Lilly? You’re not expected to … service the clientele?”
Her brown shoulders shook with laughter as she met Genny’s eyes. “That was my own business, ma’am. Some women find a full-time keeper, and a few rare ones get themselves husbands.”
“Husbands?” Alexandra gasped.
Lilly let out a guffaw, the only slip in her articulate and cultured manner thus far that whispered of a life once lived in a very different part of London. “I receive more marriage proposals monthly than London’s most sought-after debutantes, I’d wager. But I have too many men I enjoy in my bed to tie myself to just one.”
Cecelia found herself filling with a strange well of emotion. Relief, she initially thought. Then pride. And after that … joy. Her legacy wasn’t simply a den of vice, it was an entire philanthropic endeavor. How brilliant. She could think of no other word but that. Brilliant.
Marvelous, perhaps.
And terrifying. That a man could take this all from her. A man of single-minded resolve and fathomless fortitude. A man on a relentless quest for justice. Bedeviled with an almost pathological aversion to what he considered sin.
And also, an unspeakably wicked tongue.
I kissed Ramsay.
“Would you care to see upstairs now?” Genny offered, gesturing to the arched doors at the end of the corridor.
“Lead on,” Cecelia murmured, clustering close to Alexandra and Francesca as they followed Genny out into the garden square in the center of the building protected on all sides by the manse.
The cool of the gardens caressed her face, the high walls of the edifice creating shade even in the summer. The lush evergreen grass and vibrant blossoms reminded Cecelia of another garden.
Cecelia’s gaze locked to the hedgerow where she’d first spied Lilly with Lord Crawford. She stared at the spot, fixated by a sight transposing itself over the memory. A man with gold in his hair and ice in his eyes. And the woman—the woman had a familiar form and features.
The ones she looked at in the mirror every morning.
A copulation that had never taken place. And never would. Because Sir Cassius Gerard Ramsay wasn’t the type of man to dally out of doors.
He wasn’t the type to dally at all.
Except …
“I kissed Ramsay!”
The gardens fell silent. Not just silent. But still. Too still.
Until all three women turned in tandem to gape at her.
“Tell me you’re jokin’,” Genny demanded, advancing forward.
“I’m joking.” Cecelia said obediently. “I didn’t kiss Ramsay.”
“Thank heavens,” Alexandra breathed.
“He kissed me.”
Genny shooed them all up several flights of stairs and into the private residence, where she pulled them into Henrietta’s old bedroom, closed the door, and leaned against it. “Tell us everything. Where did he kiss you?”
“Nowhere but the lips, upon my word.” Cecelia’s cheeks heated.
It was only when Alexandra put a hand on her forearms that she realized she’d crossed them in a defensive gesture. “I think Miss Leveaux is asking where, geographically. Was it in the gardens last night?”
Cecelia nodded, feeling like a child about to be chided.
“I knew we should have saved you from going out there with him.” Francesca paced the room. Even the swish of her emerald train managed to sound angry.
Cecelia shook her head. “That really wasn’t neces—”
“Was he cruel to you?” Alexandra asked.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Francesca demanded.
“Well, I—”
“Does it seem he suspects you of being the Scarlet Lady?” Francesca drew up to Cecelia’s other side, creating a familiar buffer the trio made whenever one of them was in distress. “Did he do this to ruin you? Seduce you, maybe, to lower your guard?”
Cecelia shook her head. “That didn’t seem to be what he—”
“We’ll murder him first,” Francesca vowed. “You know we will.”
Alexandra scratched at her temple and tucked a stray hair into her cap. “It just doesn’t make any sense that Ramsay would use such deplorable physical cruelty. Redmayne insists his brother has lived like a monk for almost a decade. He doesn’t even keep a mistress.”
“And the mighty shall fall.” Genny’s quiet murmur sliced through the room like a claymore, silencing them all. “This,” she laughed, her eyes sparkling with victorious mischief at Cecelia. “This is too good. Too delicious. I couldn’t have planned this more perfectly, honey.”
“What are you on about?” Francesca directed an indignant scowl at Genny, as though she didn’t appreciate an interloper into what should be a Rogue-exclusive discussion.
“Don’t you see?” Genny navigated the crimson furniture of the boudoir toward them, her finger toying at the ringlet brushing her clavicle. “The Lord Chief Justice does want to ruin Hortense Thistledown, the Scarlet Lady. However”—she took Cecelia by the shoulders and turned her to face her friends—“he desires to woo Miss Cecelia Teague, the shy, bespectacled spinster bluestocking and daughter of a simple country vicar.”
Cecelia squirmed as her fellow Rogues gawked at her.
Genny continued, “Your Cassius Ramsay is a Scotsman with Scots appetites buried deep beneath British repression. Cecelia couldn’t be more suited to him. A soft body built for sin, but sturdy enough to take a rough Scottish pounding.” She slapped Cecelia on the rear.
“Genny!” Cecelia gasped and hopped forward, pressing her hands to her face and then her rear. “I never!”
“Tell me I’m wrong, then,” the woman challenged.
She wanted to … but then she remembered the latent hunger she’d sensed beneath his kiss. The urgency that bordered upon danger.
Alexandra, the only married Red Rogue, assessed Cecelia with new eyes, the eyes of a woman well used to the desire of a man who shared Ramsay’s blood. The British half, granted, though her husband’s paternal ancestry was Viking nobility dating all the way back to before William the Conqueror. One look at him and it was impossible to doubt he’d been spawned by marauders and battle-hungry savages.
“Cecil,” Alexander prodded. “Is it possible there’s truth to what Miss Leveaux says?”
Cecelia reached for the delicate little leaves carved into the dark-wood bedpost, tracing them intently as she answered without meeting anyone’s gaze. “I do not believe the Lord Chief Justice recognized me as Hortense Thistledown.”
“He wants you?” Francesca screwed her face in disbelief.
“Is that so difficult to fathom?” Cecelia’s retort escaped more peevishly than she’d intended. “That someone like him could want me?”
“No,” Francesca rushed, reaching for both her hands. “God no, Cecelia. That isn’t at all what I meant. Genny’s right, you’ve the illicit appeal of the most buxom of courtesans and the respectability of a church mouse. It’s not that we don’t believe anyone would want you, it’s that it’s difficult to process that someone like Ramsay would do such a cruel and calculated thing as kiss you in the gardens after pretending to be a paragon of respectability. Not to mention threatening you.”
“He—he didn’t seem cruel. Nor was he impertinent or disrespectful.” Cecelia didn’t want to defend him, but neither did she want him condemned for something she’d fully consented to.
Even enthusiastically participated in.
“In fact, he was … well, he didn’t kiss like someone who’d lived as a monk for a decade. Or he must have an excellent memory. His kiss was…” She hesitated. Warm and wet and demanding. It had hinted at a dormant beast, something violent, volcanic, and eminently masculine. But also soft, deferential, and rather lovely. What word encompassed all of that, and still held her privacy intact?
“We’re not to believe you enjoyed it, are we?” Genny recoiled. “He’s your enemy, Cecelia, or have you forgotten? He’d have you strung from the closest lamppost if he could.”
“I haven’t forgotten.” Cecelia insisted. “It’s only that, we connected in a rather constructive way. He’s—different from my initial estimation. Better, perhaps. Kinder. He said he and I were similar souls. It was as though he could see parts of himself in me.”
“I can guess which parts,” Genny muttered.
Alexandra smothered a laugh with her dainty hand but composed herself quickly. “What do you think he’s after, Cecil?” she queried. “Did he speak to you of intentions? Courtship?”
Cecelia shook her head, feeling oddly bereft. “He seemed worried about my reputation. We did speak of marriage at length, but more in the hypothetical sense, not in a way that would make one assume he was about to declare intentions. Rather the opposite. Indeed, we shared our reservations about the institution as a whole. Though, he seemed amenable to the idea of us seeing each other again.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Genny exclaimed, slapping her hands together. “We have him right where we want him!”
“We do?”
“You’re in a very auspicious position.”
“I am?”
Genny clapped her hands in delight. “Oh, would that Henrietta were alive. She’d be thrilled to her toes. You have one thing Henrietta could never even dream of having, and now you can use the Vicar of Vice’s desire for you to bring about his demise.”
Cecelia chewed the inside of her lip. For someone so good with formulae and figures, Cecelia felt woefully lost in a labyrinth of shadows, sex, and deception. “I’m not comfortable with causing anyone’s demise, especially a man who’s only trying to do his job.”
“Did you forget he threatened to see you hanged for something for which you are not guilty?” Francesca surprisingly threw her lot in with Genny.
“Of course not, but surely there’s another way.”
“Are you all willing to resort to violence?” Genny asked.
“No,” Cecelia stated firmly.
At the same time Francesca answered with a vehement, “Yes.”
And Alexandra chimed in, “Only if strictly necessary.”
Genny addressed Cecelia, as it was her unfortunate decision to make. “If we can’t dump his body in the Thames, then we must consider other options.”
Cecelia had a feeling the woman was only half joking. “What about proving my innocence in the disappearances of these girls? He’d have no reason to bother me, then.”
“Perhaps, eventually.” Genny made a dismissive gesture and checked her reflection in the mirror on the wall. “But his indictment of you is immediate, Cecelia. There’s no time to conduct your own inquest. I’m tellin’ you. You must find that part of Ramsay that he would show no one. That secret that would destroy him. You dangle it in front of him, then you lock it away. If you keep him at an impasse, you’re safe.”
“Like Henrietta was safe?” Cecelia locked her fists into her skirts, clutching them in frustration. “Isn’t doing precisely that sort of thing what got her killed?”
Genny sighed, slumping into a straight-backed chair. “I know Henrietta left you that letter, honey, but the truth of the matter is she was found dead in this very bed and I was the one who found her. She looked peaceful…” Genny released a troubled sigh and pressed her fingertips to her forehead, massaging at what appeared to be a gathering headache. “The old bird was a bit paranoid these past few years, and I’m startin’ to wonder if her death wasn’t exactly what it appeared to be. A woman succumbing to nothing more insidious than time.”
“What are you saying? Henrietta couldn’t have been much older than fifty.” Cecelia was stymied by Genny’s change of tune. Just yesterday they’d discussed the probability of murder. That perhaps Ramsay or his ilk had had something to do with the demise of her infamous predecessor.
“I’m saying that your immediate problem is Ramsay. He’s a powerful man in all ways, physical, financial, and legal. But you are a woman. And a woman’s power is in her sex and her secrets. And here at Henrietta’s School for Cultured Young Ladies, we collect secrets like jewels.”
Cecelia puffed out her cheeks, feeling very overwhelmed. “I wouldn’t even know how to go about discovering his secrets. We’ve only interacted yesterday, and I can’t say I behaved in a manner that would instill anyone’s confidence in my intellectual prowess in that regard.”
But then, he had been open with her. Well, perhaps open was the wrong word. Forthcoming, if not confidence sharing. They’d had a more intimate conversation than she’d ever imagined they would.
“Luckily, you have an entire stable of women who make a living of manipulating men.” Genny smiled deviously. “Every man is a puzzle of need, little doll. Find the missing piece and snap it into place, and he will do whatever you want. He’ll tell you whatever you ask. He’ll be yours to command.”
Cecelia’s first inclination was to laugh, but in the woeful manner that staved off threating sadness and the accompanying tears. She couldn’t imagine even wanting the power Genny alluded to, let alone wielding it.
The men in her life had made her feel nothing but helpless, worthless, or some strange amalgamation of both. The Vicar Teague, classmates at university, scholars, bankers, and solicitors. They either condescended to her or over her or ignored her outright. Most men made her feel more deficient than desirable. More fatuous than formidable. She was ever too much or not enough.
Too plump, tall, educated, shy, or independent. Or not pious, respectable, noble, or young enough.
Her only power had been in her wealth, and even that came with its social limitations, especially now because of the origin of said moneys and the secrets willed to her along with it. Secrets she never asked for. Secrets she might be forced to use as weapons in a fight for survival.
“Ramsay’s part of your extended family, Alex,” she pleaded. “Is there anything you can think of that could help? Any way we could get him to leave this, leave me, alone without taking such drastic measures?”
Alexandra’s freckled nose wrinkled. “I confess Ramsay has always been such a mystery to both Redmayne and me. A rather grumpy, obdurate mystery.”
“Henrietta had some of us perform a bit of reconnaissance on him in the past,” Genny supplied. “Not that it will be of any help to us now.”
Cecelia tried to picture a company of reconnaissance-gathering revelers and had to fight a giggle. “Why not?”
“He’s just so tremendously boring.” Genny slumped down and rolled her eyes. “He wakes at dawn, goes to work behind his lofty bench. Ruins people’s lives. Goes home at the end of the day, or to his club where he often leaves red-faced and sweating. Then he eats alone and retires at a disgustingly early hour.” She made a noise of antipathy. “I’d pity him if I didn’t hate him.”
“Then what makes you so certain that Ramsay has any secrets?” Cecelia fretted. “He could be as virtuous and steadfast as he claims.”
“I know he does,” Genny said. “We just have to find the evidence.”
“How do you know?”
Genny’s lovely eyes darkened to a char black, her features pinching with distaste and loathing, finally etching her forty years into her skin. “Because men like him always have secrets. Before he was a barrister or a justice, he was a Scotsman and a soldier. He has blood on his hands and shameful marks on his soul, I’d wager my life on it.” She leaned forward, her features hard with purpose. “We just have to get you closer to find out what they are.”
Did Ramsay have blood on his hands? Square and rough and mercilessly strong as they were, it didn’t stretch the imagination.
And yet they’d been incomprehensibly gentle as they’d stroked her jaw, cupped her face, grazed her lips.
Could it be that his piety was really penitence? Perhaps he’d done something so wrong once that he’d devoted his life to fixing it.
Or to cultivating a persona to hide sins he still committed under the cover of darkness.
Was she brave enough to find out the truth? Maybe, but not through dishonest means.
She opened her mouth to say so when a ripple of electric power vibrated through the air. Every hair on Cecelia’s body stood on end as a strange silence engulfed her. Then a curious rumble threw her off balance as a white light blinded her. A force as powerful as a kick from a horse’s hindquarters knocked her into the other Rogues with a thunderous sound no less than apocalyptic.
They clung together, dropping to the ground as glass bulbs shattered from the sconces on the walls, emitting electric-blue sparks. The chandelier swung violently on its chain above them, and for a terrifying second Cecelia was certain it would fall, fragmenting over them all.
Just as suddenly as the quake began, it passed.
A gentle ringing settled into the darkness for the space of three breaths before noises permeated the muffled void.
Screams. Running footsteps. Cries and chaos.
Not a quake, Cecelia realized with alarm.
An explosion.
“Is everyone all right?” Francesca asked, even her unflappable demeanor pale and shaken as she gripped their hands almost painfully.
An acrid scent clung to the air, like char and smoke but more bitter.
Cecelia did a swift self-assessment, checking to make certain her limbs all worked. They, too, trembled but were otherwise unharmed.
“I think so.” Alexandra struggled to her feet, dusting some of the plaster from the ceiling off her skirt. “Cecil?”
“I’m not hurt.” She and Francesca helped each other up and turned to Genny, who’d taken shelter behind the chair. “Genny?” Her voice seemed over-loud in ears that refused to unplug.
Fingers curled over the chair’s back before Genny used it to pull herself to a standing position. Her eyes were as round as saucers. Plaster flecked her hair, causing her to look like an angel in a snowstorm. “What … just…?”
“I’ve been to enough dig sites to recognize the percussion of a bomb,” Alexandra said unsteadily, her amber gaze fixing on Cecelia, though she addressed them all. It was the terror and the tears in her eyes that affected Cecelia more than her words ever could. “Ready yourselves for what we might find when we go out there, ladies.”
Cecelia’s limbs were jolted with energy as she surged for the door. “Jean-Yves,” she cried desperately. “Phoebe!”