“I’m telling you, there is nothing to be found here!” She’d reached her limit of baseless accusations, and could take no more. “I’m sorry for these missing girls, more than you know. I will do what I can to help you find them. But on an unrelated note, I have a bevy of women and girls who are also in danger, do you understand? People died today, and so many more were injured. Not only the women who work in my gambling hell, but seamstresses and orphans and cable workers and widows. Every woman in this house is entitled to protection and justice. Every. Woman. Despite your hypocritical personal prejudices on the matter.”
He made a derisive gesture. “Better a hypocrite than a liar.”
“Are they not one and the same?”
He glared down at her, pulling his contemptible superiority about him like a mantle. “Principles are not prejudices, madam, and though I’m not perfect, I endeavor to be. I stand for something.” He thumped his chest with one beat of his fist. “I fight on the side of justice. I am a man of integrity and purpose with an empire to look after. What are ye but the warden in a gilded prison of slags and reprobates? I hope to see the rest of this place reduced to rubble; the very existence of it offends me!”
That’s it. The dam of Cecelia’s long temper broke. “What am I?” This time she advanced upon him. “What am I? I’m a woman of both intellect and compassion. Of morals and mercy, despite what you may think. You want to see something truly offensive? Go back to your lofty manse, Lord Chief Justice, put on your robes and your wig, and then take a good, long look in a mirror. If you’re even capable of doing so from where you’ve taken permanent residence up your own arse.”
His golden skin had previously flushed red with emotion and was now tinged with a bit of purple. Cecelia was grateful that she no longer stood near him, as she might have been immolated in the blast of fury and malice that emanated from him in waves.
To his credit, he said nothing. He did nothing but seethe.
Cecelia opened the door wider, too incensed to be afraid. “In case you were confused, that was an invitation to leave.”
He strode with the contained movements of a man carrying a device that might detonate at any moment. Smooth and slow until he reached her and paused beneath the arched threshold of the garden door.
He leaned into her, and his scent pervaded her senses with an intoxicating effect.
“Listen well, woman.” His voice was both jagged and smooth, like hot wax dripping over shards of glass. “Ye and yer ilk are a cancer on this country, and I’m the surgeon preparing to cut it out. Ye’re such a clever lass? Then ye’re smart enough to fear me. To watch for me. Because I’ve had it with the vice and violence. If ye’re even considering a misstep, know that from now on I’ll be the hot breath down yer neck and the chill from the shadows. The moment I find the whisper of guilt about ye, I’ll lock ye up and throw away the key.”
Cecelia stood still beneath his onslaught, her fists clenched upon the latch of the doorway flushing alternately with fury and fear and … fascination.
He leaned even closer, his breath indeed hot on her ear. “Ye’ll find, Miss Teague, that I’m a man without mercy.”
At that, he strode away, taking his atmosphere of frost with him.
“I knew that already,” Cecelia whispered, trembling as she listened to his measured footsteps fading as the rest of the chaos of the place engulfed her.
“It’s nothing to be proud of.”
CHAPTER NINE
Ramsay dripped with sweat. With blood. And still the insatiable animal rippling through his veins wouldn’t be appeased.
He’d fought anyone in his exclusive fraternal club who would dare stand against him, making the most ridiculous concessions just to entice a man to try. He allowed contenders almost twenty years his junior to take their bare fists to his face while he still wore his gloves. He gave them canes and sticks while he fought barehanded. What did he care? Court was out of session for several weeks more, and he had no reason to heed vanity.
He ached to hit something. Someone. Yearned to feel flesh give way beneath his fists. He needed someone to knock some sense into him. To summon the extreme focus that accompanied pain.
All too soon, there was no one left to fight. He’d defeated them all.
Until someone had called upon his brother.
He should thank whoever’d had that idea. Or take him out in the alley to be shot.
The jury was still out.
Redmayne was as close to his physical equal as he could possibly get in this city. Ramsay outweighed his brother by almost a stone, but the duke had built his impressive stature by climbing the tallest mountains in the world, fording the longest rivers, and hacking his way through environs not fit for human inhabitation.
Pound for pound Redmayne was the strongest man he knew, besides himself, and that strength was compounded by the agility of a jaguar.
So, Ramsay decided, he wouldn’t feel guilty for hammering him into the dirt.
He threw a right hook that might have broken a tooth—or a jaw—but Redmayne ducked, following through with an uppercut to the solar plexus that stole his breath.
Ramsay punched the light of victory right out of his brother’s eyes with a lightning-fast left jab.
Redmayne spit a bit of blood onto the ground beneath them and circled to his left, wiping at his lip with the back of his knuckle. His muscles bunched and rebounded as he hopped from foot to foot.
Come to think of it. They should do this more often.
“Marriage is making ye soft, brother,” Ramsay taunted, shaking his arms in front of him to keep them loose, feeling strong and raw and male.
“And age is making you slow,” Redmayne charged. His first blow glanced off Ramsay’s chin and the second one missed altogether as he weaved out of his way and danced to the duke’s side, landing a punishing shot to his ribs.
“Ye were saying?”
Redmayne coughed a bit but recovered admirably. “Who are you fighting, Case? A certain redheaded Rogue? Or are you simply at war with yourself?”
“Donna call me Case in public.” Ramsay lunged, landing a devastating blow to the body and paying for it by taking a hit to his jaw that left a ringing in his ears.
“What public?” Redmayne gestured as he spun away, opening his arms for a brief moment to encircle the empty room.
The hour was late, and the club would likely be closed had he and Redmayne not lingered. The elderly had gone home to bed, and young dandies would have supped and moved on to chase vices and late-night delights.
They’d have to find somewhere other than Henrietta’s now.
“I have no desire to discuss the Scarlet Lady,” Ramsay snarled.
“I never mentioned her name,” Redmayne said, smugness tugging at the corners of his mouth. The expression emphasized the scar on his upper lip, barely concealed by his close-cropped beard.
“Doona condescend to me.” Ramsay lashed out. Missed. Regrouped.
“I’m not condescending, I’m condemning.” Redmayne’s eyes glinted the same wintry blue Ramsay saw in the mirror every day.
The one reminder of the heartless mother they shared.
“What possible reason could a hedonistic git like ye have to condemn me?” Ramsay was so astonished by the ludicrous notion, he dropped his hands and took a well-placed jab to the mouth.