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.”