Ramsay couldn’t say the idea didn’t appeal to him, but he didn’t want to dull his senses, not when he had two precious women to protect. To be respectful, he brought the bottle to his lips and took a judicious sip, wincing as the liquid hit the back of his throat like fire and acid.
The Frenchman was right. It was shit.
Still, he took a second drink.
He and Jean-Yves watched the nearly full moon crawl across the night sky for a long, silent moment before the elder man spoke in soft tones. “I remember when my daughter was your Phoebe’s age. It is a time of questions and patience and many, many different colors of ribbons.”
“My Phoebe,” Ramsay murmured, his heart doing an extra thump. He loved her already. He’d fallen for her brilliant crooked smile and dimpled charm before he’d even known of their relation. He wanted to teach her more than how to swim; he wanted to teach her how to fight, how to learn, how to be Scottish.
He would protect her. Raise her. Spoil and scold her. He would love her more than a child had ever been loved. She would belong, and live every day knowing she was wanted. She would not only be a doctor, but the best doctor. He would fight any school that wouldn’t take her. He would buck any system that wouldn’t allow her to achieve the dreams of keeping mothers alive. He’d help her break down the walls erected by men around institutions and businesses and women, themselves.
He’d make it so she’d never have to yield.
Christ, he’d been such an ass. So incredibly blind.
After all of the grief he’d heaped upon Cecelia’s head since they’d met, he was the one with a hidden scandal.
He’d been so blinded by anger, by his own inflexible biases, he may have forever lost the one woman he truly wanted. Because he lacked courage.
While he grappled with his thoughts, his shame, Jean-Yves continued, “I lost my beloved daughter to influenza when she was but a couple of years older than Phoebe. My wife seemed to be fighting off the disease at first, but the grief stole her, too, and I was left alone so young. Younger than you.”
“I—I’m sorry.” It was what one said, and yet it felt insufficient. Ramsay’s chest hollowed out at the thought, and he’d only known of his progeny for a matter of hours. He couldn’t imagine the loss after raising a beloved daughter from infancy.
Jean-Yves leaned forward, staring at him intently. “I need to ask you if you plan to take her from us.”
“What?” Ramsay stared into the stark expression of the wizened man. Not for the first time, he wondered just what exactly was the relationship between Cecelia and the Frenchman. What had forged such a strong bond?
Jean-Yves glanced out into the night, adjusted his shoulder sling, and suddenly looked very, very tired as he answered the question Ramsay never asked.
“Just as petite Phoebe is your responsibility now, so is Cecelia mine. She gave me this gift of her little broken heart when she was a girl at Lake Geneva, and I have done my best to guard it as her father should have for many years.” He blinked back to Ramsay, his eyes hard and serious. “You have hurt her, but she will recover from your loss,” the man said bluntly. “But if you plan to rip that child from her arms, I must prepare myself for her grief.”
“I’m not a monster, of course I wouldna deny them their attachment to each other.” Ramsay took a sip, retreating from the man behind the bottle before he confessed, “The ludicrous irony of this situation is—if Cecelia would have consented to be my wife—I would have ended up raising Phoebe, regardless of what the codex revealed. My own daughter.” He looked into his terrible whiskey and saw only bleak darkness. “I’ve buggered everything.”
“Yes, Cecelia told me she refused you.” Jean-Yves gave a rather caustic harrumph and took a long drag from his pipe. “She soaked my good shoulder with her tears.”
She’d wept over him? Ramsay hated that he’d caused her tears.
“Ye are a good father to her, Monsieur Renault.”
The man’s teeth clicked on his pipe as his jaw tightened. “Someone needed to be.”
“Aye,” Ramsay said carefully. “I’ve heard the Vicar Teague was an uncompromising man.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
Ramsay waited for the man to elucidate, but he didn’t. Unwilling to pry, he put his hand over his chest, rubbing at the ache that landed there at the very thought of her loss.
It was where she belonged. In his heart … She was lodged there among the mire of things that caused him pain.
And joy.
“Ye approve of her refusal, no doubt.” He leaned over to accept a little more whiskey.
“Au contraire,” Jean-Yves said vehemently. “I was hoping you’d tame her a little bit. Or at least take over the responsibility of her protection from me. I worry for her when I am gone. Alexandra has her duke, and Francesca her revenge. Cecelia has always been a bit lost, I think. A bit lonely and aimless. Now she has this venture and with it comes danger. I wondered if you might be the answer…” He sighed, letting his sentence trail away. “Anyway, I am getting too old to keep up with these Red Rogues anymore. And they refuse to slow down.” He put his hands to an aching back, though his complaint was softened by a fondness so tender it might have been called love.
“I tried,” Ramsay murmured. “She will not be tamed.”
“You failed.” A meaningful nod of Jean-Yves’s head precipitated a puff of smoke in his direction. “You failed because you do not like women.”
When Ramsay would have spoken, Jean-Yves put up a hand and made a very Frankian noise of disgust and condescension. “I’m certain you think you have many good reasons, but none of them apply to Cecelia. She has more honor than any soldier. More compassion than any saint. And she is the perfect balance of softness and strength. You are not worthy of her, and I mean that as no slight because none of us are. I know she is not without flaws, but you made her feel unworthy of you, and that is where you lost my support, mon ami.”
It’d been years, perhaps decades, since anyone dared to give Ramsay such a dressing-down. He felt a defensive ire well within him, but he fed it no heat.
Because the old man was absolutely correct. It was he who was unworthy of Cecelia’s fathomless well of love. Granted, he couldn’t think of a man alive who would deserve it.
“I like women just fine. I just … doona trust them,” Ramsay admitted. “I doona trust anyone.”
“With good reason, I imagine,” Jean-Yves relented.
“I wanted to trust Cecelia. I like and respect everything about her. I always have, even when I didna want to.”
“Then why don’t you go in there and tell her so?” Jean-Yves pressed, gesturing expansively toward the door. “Tell her you care not for her plans, but you will bear the brunt of the world for her so she can do what she wants. God knows your shoulders are wide enough to carry some of her burdens, no?”
“Aye, but I’m not strong enough,” Ramsay said in a voice so low it was nearly carried off by the breeze.
“To allow her to be herself? To put aside your lofty prejudices to—”
“I am not strong enough to watch the world despise her.” He cut the old man off as the passionate truth tore out of him.