Page 122 of All Scot and Bothered

“One more move and I’ll slice your artery and let you fertilize the forest with your corpse,” threatened a voice as smooth as the blade now lodged against his upper thigh.

“Not before I snap yer neck,” Ramsay vowed, leaning his elbow in, demonstrating the leverage he had against the other man’s spine.

An impasse, it seemed.

“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 thatnowhied 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 Iwondered 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.