“My lord Ramsay?” the man asked in disbelief.
He froze.
Dark eyes glinted at him from an all-too-familiar, far-too-handsome face.
“Count Armediano?” Ramsay tried to reconcile the insufferable Italian with his flawless accent with the voice that now hied from somewhere south of the Scottish border, but north of Hadrian’s Wall. Newcastle or Northumberland, perhaps.
Finally, their enemy had a face. Homegrown British.
“How did ye find us?” Ramsay leaned his superior weight against the man.
“I followed the past,” he answered cryptically.
“If ye’re an Italian count then I’m an English debutante,” Ramsay growled. “So who the fuck are ye?”
“If you were an English debutante, I’d be shoving something else between your thighs.” The insolent fool made a lewd motion with his hips.
“Now is not the time to be glib,” he warned.
“All right, all right, my name is Chandler, and I’m … well, let us say that I am employed by the Home Office.”
“Ye’re telling me ye’re a spy?” Ramsay dug his elbow deeper into the man’s neck. “Horseshit.”
“Your brother will vouch for me,” the man gasped, his knife inching higher on Ramsay’s thigh.
“That’s hardly a recommendation,” Ramsay retorted, though he quickly alleviated some of the pressure so Chandler could speak.
The agent laughed as if they might be at a garden party, his teeth flashing white in his swarthy face. “I could be Italian,” he claimed blithely. “My parentage has yet to be specified.”
“I care not where ye’re from, I only want to know what ye’re doing on my land and how my brother is caught up in all of this.”
“He’s not that I can tell,” Chandler answered. “However, I requested an invitation to the Redmayne dinner party because two of my open investigations happened to intersect, and the duke was all too happy to oblige.”
“Which investigations?” Ramsay demanded. “And how do they involve Cecelia Teague? Is that why ye wanted to get her alone? To interrogate her? To implicate her? Do ye work for the Crimson Council?”
His opponent stilled, his lithe muscle still strung tight enough to strike. “What do you know of the Crimson Council?”
“Ye first.”
The man grimaced as Ramsay ground his back against the tree. “All right! I’ve been digging into the background of Lady Francesca Cavendish, the Countess of Mont Claire, who as you know was a school chum of your lovely Miss Teague’s and Lady Redmayne’s. I’m told they are part of a society they call the Red Rogues, and I wondered if the Red Rogues had aught to do with the Crimson Council, as all of the women are shrouded in mystery and have led very odd and fascinatingly singular lives.”
“To say the least,” Ramsay muttered.
“Furthermore, Her Majesty has heard increasingly alarming accounts regarding this Crimson Council, and she requested that I, personally, investigate the matter. My findings have led me to none other than the Lord Chancellor, which was why you and I had the misfortune of meeting each other at Redmayne’s soiree.” He shrugged, as though giving himself over to the vagaries of fate.
“What accounts?” Ramsay asked.
Chandler’s eyes darkened further. “We at the Home Office think someone is stealing young immigrant girls and using them for sport. I’d received intelligence that Henrietta Thistledown was their procuress, but upon further investigation, I was unable to verify.”
Ramsay wavered, taken aback. He’d received the exact same intelligence.
“Who gave ye this information?” he asked, afraid he already knew the answer.
“A nameless source of someone employed by Miss Thistledown, herself. I was sent a letter.”
Ramsay had received just such a letter. He’d like to further compare notes with the man, but time was of the essence, especially tonight.
He needed to return to Cecelia.
“What about Henrietta’s?” Ramsay shook him once, hard enough to rattle his teeth. “Ye were there the day the explosive went off.”
“Pure coincidence, I assure you,” Chandler claimed with a quick, disarming smile. “I had been assigned to follow a certain member of the royal family and was sidetracked by a pretty pair of…” He paused, making a big gesture in front of his chest. “… eyes.” Despite his being seconds from certain death, he winked and flashed a cocksure grin.
Ramsay made a face but released the man, all the while remaining on his guard.
He knew better than to take anyone at his word.
“Now.” Chandler slicked a hand through his ebony hair and sheathed his dagger in his boot. “I’ve told you what I can. Care to share what you know of the Crimson Council?”
“I ken next to nothing about it,” Ramsay said, which was not altogether a lie.
“I have it on good authority that Cecelia Teague might, but she disappeared right about the same time you did,” Chandler said with a sly look toward him. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
Ramsay didn’t answer. “If Cecelia is in possession of any information regarding the Crimson Council, that makes her important to ye and to the Crown. Important enough to warrant protection.”
“Categorically,” Chandler agreed. “She’s in no danger from us, but I have it upon good authority that Henrietta was Miss Teague’s maternal aunt, and that she was also in possession of a number of secrets that may not have died with her … some of which could be dangerous to the Home Office and even Buckingham Palace. Did she ever mention anything about such things?”
“Do ye think I’d tell ye if she did?” Ramsay challenged.
“Yes.” Chandler stood straight and met his glare with frank assessment. “Because I know you are a good man, Lord Chief Justice, an honest one.”
“How do ye ken that?”
The emissary adopted a sly look. “I have my ways.”
“I doona ken what sort of man ye are,” Ramsay challenged.
To his surprise, Chandler laughed. “Fair point. Fair point.” He scratched his head and slapped at the earth and leaves on his pants. “Though one didn’t have to be a spy to notice your protective instincts toward the voluptuous Miss Teague.”
“Use more respectful descriptors, or I’ll take that knife from ye and slice yer bollocks off,” Ramsay warned.
“My case in point.” Chandler only grinned again, rubbing at a dark evening stubble and wiping blood from a split in his lip. “May I ask you what brought you both all the way to the edge of Blighty?”
“Two attempts were made upon Cecelia’s life,” he decided to admit to the man.
Interest arrested Chandler’s expression. “The explosion and…”
“And a contingent of the Lord Chancellor’s personal staff who accosted her near her house in Chelsea.”
Chandler’s dark winged brows rose. “You mean, the ones they found dead in the street? Did you have anything to do with that, Lord Chief Justice?”
“I can neither confirm nor deny…” Ramsay picked up his ruined bow and rose, eyeing the man skeptically. “If ye’re after the Crimson Council, why are ye all the way out here?”