Page 129 of All Scot and Bothered

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 altercationwith 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 goingon?” 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.