Page 71 of All Scot and Bothered
Even the Reverend Teague’s humble vicarage boasted two bedrooms in addition to the cellar, and they’d enjoyed the patronage of wealthy parishioners to keep them fed and clothed.
As far as she could tell, she and Jean-Yves currently occupied the lone bedroom of Elphinstone Croft, above which was a tiny loft Phoebe had immediately claimed as her own.
Cecelia had spread out her volumes of ciphers and references beneath the open window, and had quickly succumbed to her curiosity, dragged into the world of Grecian and Etruscan cryptology.
Before she knew it, her pen dropped from fingers suddenly stiff with abiding cold. She applied the icy hand to the back of her aching neck, kneading at the knotted muscles there as she blinked around the bedroom.
When had night fallen? Had Ramsay left that candle on her desk?
Oh dear, she’d done it again. Alexandra had teased her endlessly about her predilection at university.Mesmerism by maths, she’d called it.
The entire world would drop away, cease to exist, for hours upon hours until she was able to solve a particularly perplexing problem.
Except… this time, she’d solved nothing. Her only notable progress was the alarmingly long list of codes and ciphers she knewwere notapplicable to the codex.
Cecelia drew in an exhausted breath and was suddenly aware of a miracle.
Or rather, a miraculous aroma. The distinct mélange of garlic, onion, and rendered succulent meat underscored with—she sniffed once again. Was that thyme?
Her stomach made a rude and rather insistent noise that drove Cecelia to venture out of the cupboard-sized bedroom. She turned to close the door behind her as quietly as she could, though it would probably have taken an entire symphony of off-key bagpipers to wake Jean-Yves at this point.
Once she turned to the main room, Cecelia had to swipe off her spectacles, shine them with her handkerchief, and replace them on her nose in order to process the mighty transformation the cottage had undergone.
When she’d arrived, it’d been a graveyard of ghostly furniture covers and grimy windows. With the application of the supplies Ramsay had sent ahead for in town, the tiny windows now sparkled. The one rough, wooden table—which she’d previously feared would leave anyone who approached it speared by several splinters—had been covered by a clean blue cloth.
A rocking chair hunkered in the corner, as though being punished for a slight, and an old but sturdy couch faced the modest fireplace. Tools and sundries were piled neatly next to the door, while a few scattered around the corner that seemed to function as a kitchen complete with an antique water pump that must draw from an old well.
Cecelia found herself utterly charmed by the entire room. One could believe that fairy-tale gnomes had once lived there. Or perhaps witches.
A cauldron even simmered over a cookfire in the stone hearth, and she couldn’t imagine a better-smelling brew.
A large and surly Scot perched on said hearth and whittled at a long thin stick with a knife long enough to rival that of the kukris Alexandra had brought back from subcontinental India.
Cecelia caught her breath and pinned her feet to the floor. The firelight gilded his hair with every conceivable fine metallic hue. Copper and bronze sifted like sands beneath the desert sun on the shorter strands near his neck and above his ears. A forelock of gold fell over a brow pinched with concentration, and even threads of silver dusted the thick hair at his temples.
Resting his elbows on knees thrust high by the low hearth, Ramsay appeared to be almost squatting rather than sitting as he worked intently, and Cecelia found the pose both indecent and intriguing.
He’d shucked all but his shirtsleeves and a pair of fawn trousers stretched over thighs tensed to hold his weight and spread so he could hold his work between them. His sleeves had been rolled up to the elbows, revealing muscled forearms dusted with a down of gold hair.
Cecelia watched his large hands make deft and quick work of shaping the stick and stripping it of all bark.
His jaw, generally set into a stubborn square, relaxed with the absorption of his attention to his work enough to soften his lips. It was easy to forget that his hard mouth could be full, as he so often kept it tightly drawn into a frown.
The only other time she’d witnessed that mouth relaxed like this was the night he’d kissed her. That night seemed so long ago, and yet she remembered it with the fresh detail of yesterday.
Because she thought of that kiss every time she lay down to sleep.
Did he?
Next to him, a pile of firewood that appeared to be a decade old hunkered in the corner waiting to be immolated.
She could suddenly relate. She tugged at the high collar of her slate-gray traveling kit as heat licked over her skin.
“Where’s Phoebe?” she asked by way of greeting.
Avid eyes found hers, and she offered him what she hoped was a nonchalant smile.
Ramsay jutted his chin toward the ladder leading to the closed loft hatch above the front door. “She collapsed into bed hours ago.”
