“I don’t even think Redmayne can protect me from his elder brother,” she said glumly.
“He would if I asked him.” Alexandra’s lips twisted wryly. “But perhaps we should think of how else we might extract you from your predicament.”
“Let’s,” Francesca agreed, pushing the chocolates toward Cecelia. “First have a few of these. They go splendidly with scotch and will help you think.”
Cecelia plucked one from the dish and sank her teeth into the decadent truffle, allowing it to melt into her mouth and spill a blissful velvet sweetness over her tongue. “I love you,” she sighed, trying not to think of the night she’d consumed the same truffles in front of Ramsay.
“I love you, too, darling.”
“I was speaking to the chocolate.”
Francesca’s balled-up glove hit her in the shoulder, evoking a much-needed laugh.
Gratitude suffused her as she observed her friends. The fiercest and most fantastic relationships she’d cultivated over the years. They were her family, and she did, indeed, love them dearly.
Francesca had become Frank, the vibrant-hued, fearless outdoorswoman with a lithe, boyish figure set apart by pert, elven features and emerald-green eyes.
Alexandra was Alexander or Alex, the studious idealist with a rebellious streak and more excellent ideas than she had freckles, which were numerous. With a bounty of mahogany hair and a perfect formula of physical proportions, she was the beauty of their roguish threesome.
Cecelia, or Cecil, was their treasurer, their confidante, and their mediator, good with … good with numbers and hopeless at just about everything else.
This was the company in which she felt the most secure.
Alexandra refilled Cecelia’s drink before she’d even realized she’d emptied the first glass. “I’d very much like to meet your new ward—Phoebe, is it?”
“And I’d like to see this School for Cultured Young Ladies,” Francesca added. “I wonder, what do you plan to do with it?”
“Therein lies the question.” Cecelia stared into her glass as though the answers could be etched into the crystal beneath the whiskey. “I’ll look after the child, of course. She deserves a safe home, and stability, and all the affection and education I can provide. I need to find out who her father is, if only to protect her from him.” She took another sip. “The … business, though. I haven’t a clue what to do with it yet.”
“You could sell for a tidy sum, I imagine,” Alexandra suggested.
“I could, but there’s Henrietta’s murder to consider. I know I wasn’t acquainted with her, but she was family, and she did so much for me whilst asking nothing more than a letter in return. I feel a responsibility to at least make certain her memory is done some justice, and her killer found.”
“Her secrets could get you killed, as well, Cecil,” Francesca said ominously. “I’m not certain it’s all worth it, are you?”
Cecelia pondered that for long enough to realize there was no simple conclusion.
“Could the secret have something to do with Phoebe?” the Duchess of Redmayne finally inquired. “Or perhaps these missing young girls Lord Ramsay has accused Henrietta and you—er, the Scarlet Lady—of procuring?”
“Could be both,” Cecelia sighed. “Or one of the other. I know she was afraid of an organization called the Crimson Council. Have you heard of it?”
Francesca stiffened but said nothing.
Her interest piqued, Cecelia asked, “Do you know something about them, Frank?”
“The Crimson Council strikes a chord in my memory…” Francesca trailed off, a dark mask of unease settling across her features. “… from long ago.”
“Long ago as in … when your family was massacred?” Alexandra sank down next to Francesca and propped her chin into her palm, resting her elbow on her knee. It was the posture of a student, not a duchess. She’d certainly been one longer than the other. “Frank, is it possible that if the Crimson Council has something to do with organized crime in London, it could be connected to the deaths of the entire Cavendish household, your household, and also Cecelia’s infamous aunt?”
Francesca shook her head, but Cecelia had seen just that gesture enough times to realize it was not in denial, but in distress. “It’s entirely possible. Which means, Cecil, that you could be in greater danger from them than Lord Ramsay could ever pose.”
Cecelia downed the rest of her drink, trying to reason through her panic.
“Perhaps it is best Piers talk to his brother,” Alexandra suggested. “Convince Ramsay you’re both on the same side before the truth comes out.”
Cecelia shook her head, a frigid chill sliding down her spine at the memory of their interaction. “You didn’t see him today, Alex. He so much as said he’d like to see my neck stretched on the gallows. And that was before I … I antagonized him.”
“You?” Alexandra gaped. “Antagonize?”
“You?” Francesca echoed. “The same Cecelia Teague who drafted a peace treaty the one time Alex and I quarreled in school?”
“I don’t know what got into me today.” Cecelia marveled at her own actions. “He was so disdainful and condescending. Even cruel in his self-righteousness, and I couldn’t help but rise to the occasion. Though I suppose I don’t blame him of being ill mannered if he suspected me of hurting children.”
Alexandra’s lips twisted into a grimace of regret. “Those are traits of Ramsay’s that do not always ingratiate him to Redmayne. They’ve a complicated relationship as brothers, though it seems to have improved since our marriage. My husband has mentioned that Lord Ramsay’s upbringing was even more … difficult than his own. In fact, I gather that Piers rather pities his brother, though I’ve never inquired as to why.” She chewed on her lip as she thought.
“I don’t know that Ramsay should discover you just now, Cecelia, until I’m able to discuss the matter with my husband. I can’t say how the Lord Chief Justice would react if he recognized you. He is quite … stalwart in his principles.”
“Stubborn and inflexible, you mean,” Francesca supplied.
“Also that.”
“What we need is more time and more information,” Francesca declared. “I say we go to Miss Henrietta’s School for Cultured Young Ladies tomorrow and do a bit of snooping around. Perhaps interrogate your new employees.”
“You just want to see a gentleman’s gambling hell.” Alexandra nudged Francesca with a playful elbow.
“I’ll not deny it,” Francesca admitted with a sideways smirk. “But we can use the opportunity to figure out a little bit more about what might have happened to Henrietta and what sort of dangerous liaisons she’d made. It’s most important, I think that you do what you can to decipher that codex right away. If there’s anything about the Crimson Council, it’s likely in there.”
“I was thinking the self-same thing,” Cecelia agreed, picturing the disconcerting book she’d locked in her safe.
“I’ll make your excuses to the dinner party,” Alexandra offered. “We’ll say you’re beset by a headache and had to retire, and then we’ll all go out to the school tomorrow morning and see what we can learn.”