Page 120 of All Scot and Bothered

The man leaned forward, thrusting an accusing finger toward Ramsay. “You would ask her to forfeit her newfound legacy? To choose between her passion for life and her passion for the man she loves? This world is cruel to women,mon ami, and I thought if anyone had the fortitude to be different, it might be you.”

“The man she…”Loves?Unable to say the word, Ramsay looked down at his hands trying to process all he’d learned in the space of a few breaths. He’d known her to be extraordinary but… “I didna ken,” he breathed. “I didna know any of this about her. I thought her sunnydisposition and optimistic idealism came from a life of mostly privilege and contentment.”

“Her brightness has always come from within. She looks into the darkness, and smiles,” Jean-Yves said poetically, his features arranging into an expression of adoration. “She was—she is—like a flower forever starved for rain. If you show her one drop of kindness, of love, she will bloom for you. But what you cannot do, Lord Ramsay, is ask an exotic orchid to be an English rose. Because that woman in there would love you. Would accept you. She would raise your child beside you and lay her life down for you both. But what she will not do is allow you to mold her into something she is not just so you are comfortable. If that is the kind of woman you seek, then you must let her go and find that elsewhere.”

The truth of it slammed into Ramsay with all the weight of a steam engine.

Of course.How could he claim the woman only to change what made her captivating? Would he love the parody of herself she would become if she capitulated to his supercilious demands?

He stalled. That was the second time the wordlovehad snuck into his thoughts.

Did he… love Cecelia?

He loved her inability to only eat one truffle or have only one glass of champagne. He loved her voice, her laugh, her wicked wit. He adored every curve and handful of her plump and perfect body, and he even treasured the way she challenged him. Gently, with humor. With a sparkling eye and generous wells of patience and forgiveness.

Had he reached the bottom of those wells? Had he been too insufferable? Too intolerant? He’d hid loneliness behind rage and cowardice behind hypocrisy.

He’d have to do so much better. To be better.

She had principles of her own. Just because they didn’t mirror his, did it mean they were wrong?

What if she could teach him how to be like her? How to relax and enjoy moments. How to walk the earth as though the devil may care, and how to reclaim regard for others. A regard he’d thought forever lost.

The question might not be if he loved her but, rather, if there was anything hedidn’tlove about her.

And the answer to that was no.

Even her reasons for keeping the gambling hell were noble.

In fact, the only thing he resented about her was her ability to live without him. Because she would carve out a happy life whether he was a part of it or not.

And he… well, he couldn’t rightly fathom going back to a world without her in it.

He might not love what she’d picked as her profession, but he could live with it.

Because he had to live with her. He wanted her to be the mother of his child. Children. He wanted her to teach them to be as kind and generous and moral as she was. As independent and adventurous.

He wanted her to teach them how to love.

And perhaps he could learn alongside them.

“Ye’re right,” he whispered. “Ye’re right, about everything. Do ye think I’ve lost her?”

“I think you should go and—”

Ramsay held up his fist for silence as a shadow caught his eye.

Something—someone—lurked in the glade beyond the gate.

As he squinted into the night, he thought he caught the outline of a man’s head and torso ducking behind thefence lined with overgrown berry bushes plagued with thorns.

All thoughts of the past dissipated as his military training snapped into the fibers of his muscles, readying them for violence.

He scanned the moonlit night, looking for others. No one else out in the open, but anyone could have been waiting in the trees.

“Get inside, take the rifle, and give Cecelia the pistol,” he commanded in a voice too low to carry. “Someone is out there, so I need ye to hole up in the bedroom and cover the window and the door. Shoot anyone who isn’t me. Now pretend to retire for the night.”

“I’m going to bed,” the Frenchman said without missing a beat. He sounded glib enough to be convincing. “I’ll leave you to your thoughts.” Sotto voce, he asked, “What about a weapon for you, my lord?”