If only he knew.
Her lids fluttered closed in what she hoped he read as a coy gesture and not the retreat it was. “I am known to all as the Scarlet Lady. It is a thorough pleasure to make your acquaintance, my lord Chief Justice.” She reached her gloved hand out to receive him.
He snorted, his lip lifting in disgust as he regarded her hand as one would rotten rubbish. “Pleasure has nothing at all to do with my visit, as ye can well see.” He gestured to his army of police.
“A shame. Such is not generally the case.” Cecelia found a measure of her fear replaced by indignation.
“Tell me. Yer. Name.” This he demanded through gritted teeth, though his voice never rose even one octave. The effect was most terrifying.
“I believe I already did.”
“Yer Christian name.”
“I am not a Christian.”
At his silent glare of effrontery, she shrugged. “I’ve noticed that often a church is a structure to confine God built by those who claim to speak to or for him. I find other ways to edify my soul. Besides”—she lifted an overdramatic hand to press against her chest—“why would you want to be acquainted with someone as lowly and woebegone as I?”
“I doona want anything resembling an acquaintance with ye.” He leaned over, spreading both of his enormous square hands on the desk between them. Threatening to mesmerize her with those silver-blue eyes. “But ye should ken the name of yer enemy, so ye ken what name to curse when I destroy ye.”
CHAPTER THREE
An unsettling awareness paralyzed Cecelia as she stared into the eyes of her enemy.
Awareness of the child hiding at her feet. Of the book containing possibly lethal secrets clutched in her innocent hands. Of the expectation and caution in Genny’s demeanor.
Of everyone’s gaze glued to her, waiting to see what she’d do next. What she’d say to the brutishly large and powerful man leaning over her desk.
His nostrils flared and a vein pulsed at his temple before disappearing into his thick, luminous hair.
She could almost feel the heat of his breath, like that of a dragon. A dragon, she noted, who’d dined on something sweet for his last meal and washed it down with coffee rather than tea.
Strange that they should both prefer coffee in the morning. What else did they have in common, she and her adversary? Must they be adversaries at all? If she revealed herself, explained her situation, might he soften?
No. No, his expression was diamond-hard and uncompromising, as was his reputation. He was the Vicar of Vice, the sworn enemy of her aunt. And just because his brother was a good man didn’t mean he was.
As she well understood, so many men used piety to disguise their cruelty.
In that case, she decided, if this man insisted upon being her adversary, she’d have to kill him.
With kindness.
Drawing on every bit of her finishing school education, she did her level best to smother her panic with politeness. She pressed her hands flat on the desk and forced herself to remain still.
“You may call me Hortense Thistledown.” She plucked her mother’s name out of pure desperation, hating that it would become a blasphemy on this man’s tongue.
What would her name sound like in that graveled brogue of his? Cecelia.
As soon as the unwanted thought filtered into her mind, she shook her head to be rid of it.
“Might I invite you to sit down, my lord, whilst I peruse your documents?” She gestured to one of three dainty chairs facing her desk, belatedly concerned for their structural integrity against his impressive bulk. “Genny, would you please fetch His Worship and associates some tea and refreshments?”
Genny looked as though she’d asked her to consume the contents of a chamber pot.
A few of the constables brightened at the mention of food and tea, immediately deflating when Ramsay put up a staying hand. “Doona be absurd. This isna a social call, madam.” His eyes flickered around the room, his expression suggesting he would rather be surrounded by a Whitechapel cesspool than her aunt’s tasteful décor. “I’m inclined to touch as little in this place as possible. Who kens what depravities have occurred on which surfaces?”
“Oh come now, what sort of wickedness could possibly be conducted upon such dainty furniture?” She gestured to the Louis XIV settee and chairs, genuinely stunned when a few of the constables muffled a chuckle or two.
Heat spread to Sir Ramsay’s eyes as he glanced at the furniture in question and then back to her. Her question had angered him. She read something else in the heat, as well. A banked emotion beneath the anger, something leashed. Chained.
Dangerous.
“It is not in yer best interest to mock me, woman.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it, sir,” she answered, bemused. “But I vow the only blasphemies this room is subject to are taxes and paperwork.” She summoned what she hoped was a charming smile, though her mind whirred with unknowns—she couldn’t have said for certain the surfaces hadn’t been sullied.
“And whilst this visit of yours might not be social,” she added, “we can still be civilized, can we not?”
His eyes narrowed. “Search everything.”
The constables made quick work of the room. They pulled books from shelves, turning them upside down to leaf through pages; took drawers from sideboards, looking beneath them; and upturned the furniture.
Ramsay stood with his arms locked behind him, completely still in the midst of the chaos, his eyes never leaving her. “Civilized,” he scoffed. “Nothing about ye belongs in a civilized society.”
“Upon that, we must disagree.” It was perhaps the most argumentative statement she’d ever made in her life, but the circumstances of the day had frayed her nerves to the snapping point. “As most of civilized society seems to spend their leisure time here.”
His glare was so full of enmity, Cecelia couldn’t bring herself to look at him any longer. How strange, that a man possessed of such a savage countenance could accuse her of being uncouth.
To cover her cowardice, she reached for the warrant, swallowed a lump of trepidation, and began to read.
“Hortense Thistledown,” he said, echoing her pseudonym, thus calling her attention before she’d gotten through the first line. “Ye are related to Henrietta, then? I was unaware she had family. Hid you away in France, did she?”
Smythe had been their family name. Thistledown must have been another of Henrietta’s facades, much like the wigs and masks and makeup.
Cecelia wasn’t ready to answer the question, and so she didn’t. She searched through the legal documents until reaching the appropriate charge.
According to the warrant, the police were searching her property for evidence in connection with the disappearance of a young girl named Katerina Milovic. A Russian immigrant who’d been taken from the streets of Lambeth just yesterday. She was the sixth in a string of missing maidens. All aged about thirteen.
“How did ye come to be in charge after Henrietta’s death?” Ramsay demanded. “I’ve not seen ye on the premises before. I always assumed Miss Leveaux would take up the mantle of the Scarlet Lady once Henrietta—”
Cecelia held up one finger as she scanned the rest of the warrant, her eyes snagging on the distressing pertinent information. The Writ of Warrant suggested the proprietress of Miss Henrietta’s School for Cultured Young Ladies was suspected of nabbing the children and selling their innocence to clients for incredible sums of money, which put her under the suspicion as an accessory to rape, kidnapping, and possibly murder.