Page 133 of All Scot and Bothered

The door slammed open and she called for the girl.

Phoebe appeared at the top of the grand staircase, clutching at the rather splendid white marble rails.

“Cecelia!” she called, nearly tripping down the steps in her exuberance. She flew off the third from the last step straight into her arms. “I was so frightened for you. So frightened, but I knew that you wouldn’t leave. That you’d come back.”

Her throat stopped by waves of emotion, Cecelia merely clung to the girl, petting her bouncing curls and doing her best not to cry.

“Why are you so dirty?” the girl asked.

“There was a fire,” Cecelia explained. “Miss Henrietta’s burned to the ground.”

Phoebe sobered. “Is everyone all right?”

“Yes, they’d all moved out after the explosion, remember?”

“Oh.” Her little forehead wrinkled. “They could move in here, probably, could they not? There’s ever so many empty rooms.”

Cecelia glanced back at Ramsay, who’d donned a coat over his bare chest. He ran a hand across his soiled face and spoke a few words in Gaelic that needed no interpretation.

“We’ll figure something out,” Cecelia placated the girl.

After a while, Phoebe squirmed to be let down, and Cecelia was forced allow the girl her freedom. “Cecelia, Lord Ramsay told me on the train that he’s my papa!That’s what you were trying to figure out all along? The riddle in Henrietta’s book?”

“Yes,” Cecelia said. “Yes, darling, it was. Wasn’t it a fantastic riddle? A wonderful find?”

“I always wanted a papa,” Phoebe whispered. “But I never thought he’d be so big and handsome andrich.” She extended her hands to encompass the vast grand hall. It was bigger than Henrietta’s by far. Grander, even, than Castle Redmayne, the duke’s estate.

“It’s like a fairy tale, isn’t it?” Phoebe asked.

Cecelia had to admit, it was, indeed.

Ramsay called for a bath and then allowed Phoebe to take Cecelia on an unofficial tour of the place. They weaved through room after room, some gilded in French paper and others in expensive paint.

Almost all of them empty.

He’d turned the library into a comfortable study, she noted, and a few bedrooms were well appointed, but beyond that the space was utterly wasted.

“It’s a house,” Ramsay said a little bashfully. “A status symbol, really, but I never had much need to make it a home.”

“You do now,” Phoebe said, clutching at his hand and pulling him toward the kitchen.

“I do now.” Ramsay looked back at Cecelia, reaching out to tug her along. His eyes glimmered with a powerful emotion, but beyond that, Cecelia could make out no traces of the arctic coldness she’d found before. All she could see was a blue as deep and clear as the summer sky.

After they’d eaten and settled Phoebe, Ramsay pulled Cecelia into his bedroom and locked the door. It was a simple room, she noted, masculine and spare. Like the man.

The man who was becoming someone else. Someone who smiled. Someone who prowled toward her with every intention of perpetrating both vice and villainy upon her person.

Cecelia allowed herself to be caught. Hoping he’d carry her to the tub in the corner.

“I’m glad you’ve overcome your mistrust of women,” she teased. “Seeing as how you’re now outnumbered by them.”

“Only by one,” he noted before dipping down to root in the hollow of her neck. “Perhaps I can persuade ye to allow me to plant a son inside ye.”

Her womb shivered in a very hasty response.

“What if you sired another daughter?” she asked. “I can’t really pick, now can I?”

“I’ll happily raise a bevy of daughters, if ye consent to mother them on my behalf.” His lips caught at her earlobe, nibbling gently.