Page 3 of All Scot and Bothered

Cecelia pushed herself to sit on trembling arms.

“You drink and wash, just in case,” her father barked. “But if you make a sound whilst they’re here, you’ll never again see the outside of this room, do you mark me, girl?”

He didn’t wait for her reply. The window banged shut and he walked away without bothering to lock it.

Cecelia sat in frozen astonishment for a few breaths before scrambling toward the bucket. She didn’t heed the filth of her hands as she cupped them into the vessel and greedily slurped the contents. Unable to slake her thirst thus, she lifted the entire bucket to her lips and all but drowned herself in the process of tipping it back to wet her greedy throat.

Footsteps marched overhead, a short, staccato sound very different than that of her father’s heavy-soled boots.

Theywere upstairs. Who were they, that could alarm her father so?

Setting the bucket down quietly, she climbed the stairs and crept to the door, crouching to listen beneath the crack.

“Where y’all keeping her, Preacher?” a foreign feminine voice demanded in an accent Cecelia couldn’t have conceived of even if her mind hadn’t been muddled by hunger.

She pressed her hand to the cool wood of the door. Weretheylooking for her? Had her prayers been answered after all these tearful years?

“The whereabouts of my daughter is of no concern to a whore.”

This was no great clue to the identity of the woman. To Josiah Teague, every daughter of Eve was likely also a secret prostitute.

“Not a whore, just a businesswoman,” the lady had the audacity to correct her father as she moved closer. “I was warned you were a sanctimonious charlatan. You look down on us, pray for and pity us. You condemn and humiliate us, all the while unaware that we do nothing but sit around and laugh about that limp, useless little appendage swinging between your legs.”

“Youdareto—” The rest of the words cut off in a whoosh, as though they’d been stolen from him by a blow to the gut.

“Oh, Hortense told us all about your impotence,” continued the woman. “We are all aware you’renotthat child’s daddy.”

Hortense. Her mother.

At this revelation, Cecelia must have fainted because the next thing she knew she was being scooped off the floor and clutched against the plump, pillowy bosoms of a stranger. “Why, you poor darlin’,” a syrupy voice cooed.“Bless your sweet, little heart. How long has that mean old preacher kept you cooped up down here?”

“I…” Frightened, uncertain, Cecelia glanced up the stairs to see her forbidding father being held at bay by a man significantly shorter than he, but wide enough to fill the entire door.

Her questions were answered the moment the reverend’s eyes met hers. Black eyes, the same color as his hair.

As his soul.

No… not her father. He was lean, tall, and sharp, his nose long and his chin severe.

When Cecelia had studied her soft round features in the mirror, she’d never noted the slightest hint of him, and now she knew why.

She didn’t belong to him.

Thank God.

A tear slid out the side of her eye as she looked up at her savior, the most beautiful human being Cecelia had ever glimpsed.

Her dress, a deep shade of gold, shone impossibly vibrant in the dismal underground gloom. Her skin and hair glowed as golden as brilliant bullion, though her eyes were curiously dark. She’d painted her full lips the same shade as hothouse calla lilies.

The woman was round and soft, like herself, and an astounding luminescence shone from her as though her entire being was suffused with light.

“Cecelia, darlin’, my name’s Genevieve Leveaux, but my friends call me Genny. You have any particular objection to being my friend?”

Another tear fell. She’d never had a friend before.

Entranced, Cecelia lifted her fingers to brush at the woman’s face. She caught herself in time, distressed atthe dirt on her hands. She would no sooner mar her savior with her filth than she would finger paint over theMona Lisa.

“Don’t leave me here.” The first words she’d spoken in days felt like rusting metal in her throat, but the plea had to be made.