Page 59 of All Scot and Bothered
His brother’s dark brows lifted with deliberate skepticism, and Ramsay took a swig of water to escape it.
“Which opportunity should she have taken? Before or after you kissed her?”
Ramsay choked on his water.
“Women talk to each other,” the duke offered by way of explanation. “And my wife talks to me.”
“Then ye should be eternally terrified.”
Redmayne’s self-satisfied sneer made him wish they were still in the ring so he could wipe it away with his fist. “On the contrary, I know my wife is more than gratified.”
One. Good. Hit… and he could knock Redmayne flat on his arse. “Ye bloody, bourgeois bastard,” he muttered drolly.
“Call me what you want.” Redmayne poked him in a bruise forming on his ribs, just as he’d done when they were tussling boys. “But I’m not the one who kissed the same woman I’m trying to indict. I imagine that won’t go over well in court.”
When Ramsay didn’t reply, Piers ventured, “Forgive her, Case. I’d stake my life on the fact that she’s done nothing wrong.”
Ramsay could still bring himself to say nothing. Despite everything, he respected his brother too much to verbally accuse him of being blinded by his affection for his wife. One of them had to keep a level head. One of them had to keep their eyes open, because if Cecelia was a criminal, her entire band of Rogues could be implicated.
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 wordwifeon 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 sayheart. 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 twowomen. 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.
