Or … attempting to.
Her muscles clamped down so tightly he couldn’t gain more than an inch. Readjusting her in the chair, he bore forward once more.
This time her cry of distress stopped him before her unyielding muscles had the chance to.
Ramsay’s heart surged. Then stopped. His veins turned to ice.
Holy. Fucking. Hell.
He pulled back to look down at her features, which were distorted with plaintive discomfort.
He disentangled himself from her, rocked back on his heels, and looked down.
Blood.
He made his own sound of distress, meeting her glistening eyes with his astonished ones. “Ye’re … ye’re a…” He couldn’t say it. He stood and turned away from her, stuffing himself back into his trousers and tucking his shirt in as well.
A virgin. His mind screamed the word he couldn’t bring himself to say.
When he whirled to face her, she’d closed her legs and righted her skirts, her hands folded primly in her lap though his face had feasted there only seconds ago.
“But…” He gestured toward the high walls of the loft. “But Phoebe…”
“Is my ward,” she explained, still unperturbed. “Though I have every intention of raising her as my daughter. She deserves that much.”
“But ye just…” Panic seemed to have stolen his ability to finish sentences, so he just jammed his finger toward the door in front of which he’d thrust his cock into her welcoming lips. “I just made ye…” Oh holy Christ, he was headed straight to hell.
“No, no you didn’t.” She stood, holding placating hands out to him. “I wanted to—to do what we did. To bring you pleasure. I needed to show you—”
“If ye say gratitude, I’ll fucking shoot myself.” He jammed his fingers through his hair, tugging in frustration.
“Why?”
He felt like he was drowning. Drowning in guilt as the alignment of reality shifted beneath his feet, causing the earth to become unstable on its very axis. “Ye canna tell me ye never did that before.”
She glanced at the door, the peach in her cheeks already flushed with pleasure deepening in a most fetching, sensual manner. “All right, I won’t tell you that,” she said agreeably. “I mean, I hadn’t done anything we just did before, but we needn’t discuss it just now.”
“Bloody Christ,” he bit out, pacing a room that was becoming tinier by the moment as his mouth filled with every curse in every language he knew. “How did you know what to do?”
“I read it in that book your constable found in Henrietta’s study.” She moved to block his path. “Why are you angry?”
“I just stole yer virginity.” Since he couldn’t roar that to the child who slept in the attic loft above them or the dear old broken butler in his bed, he kept his voice to a minimum, and made up for it with large, exaggerated gestures.
She held up her hands, pressing them against his pounding chest. “No you didn’t. I gave it to you … I mean, I think I did, anyway. I’m not altogether certain I’m rid of it, all told.” She patted his chest in a manner that might have been condescending if it had come from anyone else in the world. “If it makes you feel better, no other man has ever really showed my virginity much interest, and I can’t say it’s ever done me any good. So please, don’t feel guilty on my account. I’m old enough to be rid of it, aren’t I?” She flashed him a winsome, rather tentative smile.
Had the world gone fucking mad?
Had he?
Had every man who hadn’t tried to get up her skirts in the past decade? Surely there had been someone at university who’d been drawn to her pillowy curves and delightful dimples.
Not that he should think about that now.
Or ever, ever again.
He was such a fucking hypocrite.
“You don’t look so well,” she fretted. “Should we … would you like to sit down?”
“I have to go.” Ramsay retreated to the door, swiping his coat from the hook.
“But—”
He whirled on her, his lips pulled back in a snarl. “Ye’ll be safe tonight. Ye have my word. But so help me, ye’ll stay in this house and doona ye dare follow me, is that understood?”
Her expression darkened, her jaw flexing forward in a stubborn motion for a moment, before she deflated with a heavy shaken breath.
He wished he could at least take the pleasure of slamming out of the cottage, but he simply couldn’t bring himself to wake Phoebe or Jean-Yves. And so he closed the door behind him on a very audibly ominous click.
She didn’t follow him.
But her flavor lingered in his mouth, and the pleasure she’d given sang through his veins.
Her virginity stained his body. His soul.
And her silent pain was inescapable, becoming his shadow in the dark.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Cecelia’s head throbbed in sync to the sound of Ramsay’s ax splitting wood outside her window.
She’d woken early, having tossed and turned into the wee hours of the morning. Everything ached. Her hips, her back, her head …
Her sex.
Restless and emotional, she’d decided to work on the codex, intent upon distracting herself from last night’s disastrous ending. And from the scorching memories of what had preceded it.
In the hours between dawn and now, she’d gotten exactly nowhere.
Jean-Yves and Phoebe had both woken and needed tending to, and Cecelia found herself eager for a distraction.
To his credit, Ramsay had seen to Jean-Yves’s needs and even hauled and heated water in which the invalid could take a proper hip bath. After, the Lord Chief Justice had prepared a breakfast of hearty bread, fruit, and cheeses in which he didn’t partake with the trio of guests.
Ramsay had barely glanced at Cecelia the entire morning, and in order to contain her smarting emotions, she forced a false brightness into her interactions with the others.
Phoebe was content and chatty, eager to romp about the yard and pick wildflowers with her dolls.
Jean-Yves, who’d known and cared about Cecelia for so long, was not so easily fooled.
Exhausted after bathing, eating, and dressing, he allowed her to help him back to bed and tuck him beneath the covers.
“Did something happen?” he asked alertly. “Your heart, it is bleeding, I think. Is it over this giant, grumpy Scot?” His nose wrinkled with distaste as he eyed the Scot through the open window.
Damn his observant nature.
“Don’t worry yourself.” Cecelia smoothed the blankets over him and lifted the opium tincture from the desk. “My heart is more bruised than bleeding.”
His eyes narrowed beneath a web of fine wrinkles. “Do I need to make room for his corpse in the garden?”
She smiled down at him fondly. Had there ever been a man so dear? “No. I do not think he’s done anything wrong.”
“Tell me what he has done, and I’ll tell you if it’s wrong,” Jean-Yves offered as passionately as one in his condition was able.
Cecelia fought the pink creeping up from beneath her collar and shook her head.
Jean-Yves made a face. “On second thought, I find I do not want to know.”