This was not a man of stricture. Nor was he shackled by the bonds of the law.
This Ramsay was capable of anything.
Relief flooded Cecelia with such violence, she surged to her feet and might have cheered. He was alive! Ramsay was alive and he would save Phoebe in time!
“Touch her and I’ll shatter the tender parts of yer skulls with my bare hands,” he said in that soft, terrifying way of his. “I’ll leave ye alive long enough for ye to be aware whilst I hollow out yer insides, do ye ken? Ye’ll feel pain like none ye’ve imagined, and in the end, ye’ll beg for the mercy of execution.”
Cecelia absurdly reminded herself to tell him later that, despite what he’d claimed, he was an excellent wordsmith.
Astonishingly, he allowed the men to recover from their awestruck amazement and fall into fighting stances, producing various weapons.
Winston and his unfortunate neckless companion twitched with sudden agitation, fanning out in a wider arc. The larger man held a cleaver-style knife, and Winston a dagger. The Indian drew a pistol from behind his jacket.
“Shoot him!” Genny screeched.
“Think about what ye do,” Ramsay warned. “Ye might not know me, but I’m relentless, patient, and thoroughly unbothered by blood. I will kill ye as slowly as the plague, and discard yer remains on yer doorstep as a message to all who would avenge ye. Do you ken? Are ye ready for the hell I’ll unleash upon ye?”
“It’s true.” None other than the Count Armediano sauntered in with a pistol cocked in front of him aimed right between the Indian’s eyes. “I had a recent altercation with Ramsay, and if I’m a surgeon, he’s a butcher, and I can’t say for certain which one is more dangerous.”
Had Cecelia’s hands not been bound, she’d have lifted them to rub at her eyes, if only to make sure she’d seen what was happening correctly.
Count Armediano? His ebony hair was slicked to his head, but his gray suit was just as crinkled as Ramsay’s. He wore no jacket to speak of, and he’d rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. The taut muscles of his forearms rippled as he toyed with the trigger of his pistol.
“I said kill these bastards.” Genny struggled to push herself off the floor, her eyes wild and her expression mutinous. “If you don’t, the Crimson Council will have your heads, so either way you’re in danger.”
Ramsay turned on Genny. “When I’m finished with this rubbish, ye’ll wish yerself invisible, madam,” he said with barely leashed control.
“You can do nothing to me,” Genny said with a laugh, unable to keep a note of hysteria from it. “The Lord Chancellor—”
“Is being arrested as we speak by Scotland Yard’s finest,” Ramsay said with apparent relish. “But mark me, if ye speak out of turn again, I’ll have yer tongue.”
A gunshot startled a scream from Cecelia’s chest. She ducked, and when the ringing in her ear subsided, it was replaced by an even more terrible sound.
The terrified shrieks of frightened young girls locked in their own cells with no idea of what was going on.
The Indian dropped to the ground in a heap, and Count Armediano dove for his gun, all the while keeping a bead on Winston.
“Chandler,” Ramsay seethed at the man now dual-wielding pistols. “Must ye shoot in such close quarters?”
Chandler? Cecelia gaped.
The so-called count’s lack of a Continental accent was impressed upon Cecelia as he shrugged well-built shoulders and replied, “I saw him twitch, my lord.”
“What … what is going on?” Cecelia asked rather dazedly, staring at the bloom of blood on the back of the Indian’s linen suitcoat.
“Count Armediano is as much a moniker as Hortense Thistledown,” Ramsay supplied shortly. “His real name is Chandler.”
Chandler. Why did that name sound familiar?
“I changed my mind about this place.” Genny inched to the desk upon which sat the fine crystal lanterns next to the inkwell and codex. “It can burn to the ground.” She seized the lamps and hurled them.
Cecelia dove, but she knew she wouldn’t get out of the radius of the flames in time. Not with such a powerful accelerant. She landed painfully on her shoulder, rolling out of the way as the lamp arced toward her.
Unable to get to her in time, Ramsay shoved Winston into the path of the lantern. It shattered against him, engulfing him in inescapable flames. They flared a spectacular light against the cracked walls of the classroom as he danced about in unimaginable pain.
Genny tossed the other at Chandler, though he was able to get a shot off before he was forced to dive out of the way or suffer Winston’s fate.
The lantern broke against the door, spilling fire over their only escape.
When Ramsay leapt toward Cecelia, scooping her out of Winston’s careening conflagration, Genny lifted her skirts and leapt across the threshold, but not before her the fabric caught.
She screeched and ran out of sight, trailing flames behind her train.
Chandler leapt after her, his own trousers barely avoiding the fire as he ran out of sight.
Ramsay ripped his shirt down his arms and began to beat at the flames in the doorway to very little effect.
“Behind you!” Cecelia jumped out of the way as the no-necked man advanced with his knife.
Ramsay whipped his shirt, now smoldering with flames, and caught the man around the wrist. He leapt closer, disarmed the fellow, caught the cleaver, and with a mighty swing of his arm sank the blade into the man’s neck from behind.
Cecelia would never again have to wonder why they called the blade a cleaver. Had she been in the vicinity, blood would have drenched her.
She knelt next to where Winston’s knife had been abandoned when he’d gone up in flames.
The man in question collapsed against the far wall, having given up the ghost.
She lowered herself, doing her best to grab the knife from the ground with bloodless fingers.
Right then, Cecelia was snatched up from behind, her hands freed, and her body clutched to a familiar wall of muscle that drove her relentlessly forward.
The now almost headless man had been tossed over the flames in the doorway, creating a temporary bridge.
“Jump!” Ramsay boomed from behind her.
She jumped, allowing herself to be swept up and over the corpse and the fire, only to be unceremoniously dumped into the dusty hallway.
Ramsay fell upon her legs the moment they were on the other side, smothering what few of her skirts had ignited. That done, he lunged up her body, his features now a mask of both fury and yearning, and he crushed his mouth to hers for a brief, life-altering kiss.
Tearing himself away he ordered, “Run, dammit. I’ll free the girls.”
He leapt off her and slammed the door to the classroom shut. It was too late to be much of a help; the flames had crawled into the hallway.
“Ramsay, here!” Cecelia turned to see that Chandler had grappled Genny to the ground. He tossed the ring of keys he’d ripped from the woman’s belt over Cecelia’s head.
Ramsay caught them and ran for the furthest door.
Cecelia struggled to her feet, lurching after him. She met him just as he was dragging the lock open.
The look he gave her was full of fury. “I told ye to run,” he snarled. “Get out of here.”