Page 58 of All Scot and Bothered

Nay. He was a man of focus and commitment, of sheer will and uncompromising discipline.

Or he was until he caught a whiff of her intoxicating aroma. Until her bright-azure eyes unstitched him and her body beckoned for him to fill his hands with control-melting allure.

He couldn’t afford that. Not now. Not when the bodies of young girls were being shredded and left like so much compost in a path that led straight to her door.

Not when bombs were going off in the middle of his city.

“Ye ken as well as I do that a villain may play the victim.” He circled his brother, looking for a weakness in hisguard. “One devious mind can be more dangerous than an advancing brigade. It’s why the Home Office employs spies.”

“She’s not our mother,” Redmayne reminded him drolly.

“She could be a thousand times worse.”

“I can’t believe that. Alexandra says Cecelia Teague is less dangerous than a kitten.”

“She certainly has claws,” Ramsay muttered, throwing a few halfhearted test punches that glanced off his brother’s blocking forearms. “Think about what could have befallen yer beloved lady wife today,” he reminded.

Redmayne’s swarthy visage darkened. “It’s all I’ve been thinking about.”

“The blame for that may be thrown at Miss Teague’s feet.”

“Not so,” Redmayne argued. “The fault lies with whomever detonated that explosive. Do you have any suspects, by the by?”

“Only half of the London elite,” Ramsay groused. “I’m not certain she didna have a hand in it, herself.”

Redmayne glanced around his fists and lowered them carefully, wordlessly suggesting a break by gesturing toward the water pitcher. “Are you really so blinded by your hatred of her that you would suspect her of sabotaging her own livelihood and putting those she cared about in such danger?”

“Ye insult me to assume it’s hatred that drives my suspicion, and not logic.”

“Logic has little to do with lust.”

“Fuck off.” Ramsay gave his brother his back, snatching a cloth from where it hung and mopping at his brow. Was he truly so transparent? Was his lust for the Scarlet Lady so readily predicted?

“I mean no insult, brother, but these remarkablewomen are not easily ignored.” Redmayne set two glasses on the sideboard and filled each one from the water pitcher with the same measured calm in which he answered. “They are fiercely loyal to one another, and share a bond built of a past not many can claim. Perhaps you, as a soldier, could possibly understand it someday.”

Ramsay turned to study his brother’s enigmatic features. The duke’s words concealed more than they revealed, and the thought made him murderous. Was everyone fucking hiding something from him?

“What are ye insinuating?” he demanded. “Speak plainly.”

“Only that I don’t believe a woman who would do for my wife what Cecelia Teague has done would risk Alexandra’s life by putting her in the vicinity of an explosive device.” Redmayne shrugged as Ramsay narrowed his eyes.

“What do ye mean? What did she do for yer wife?”

Redmayne cast him a mysterious glance over the rim of his glass. “That isn’t for me to say.”

Ramsay had to try extremely hard not to crush the delicate glass in his fist. “More secrets. More shadows. Christ, this woman is full of them. Is it any wonder I doona trust her?”

Redmayne carefully examined him before making a decision. “Did it ever occur to you that you don’t trust women because our mother—”

“Our motherdestroyed two weak husbands and a handful of lovers,” Ramsay snarled, feeling the well of black hatred that rose at the very mention of her. “Cecelia Teague—nay, the Scarlet Lady—might alone have the power to bring our entire empire to its knees through scandal and debt. That, dear brother, is why I doona trust her.”

Even at this uncharacteristic burst of temper, Redmayne kept his calm. “Perhaps that is the fault of those who perpetrate the scandals, and not the one who catalogs them.”

Ramsay grimaced in disgust. “Ye sound just like her.”

“Is that so bad? She’s a kind soul, Case. She didn’t ask for any of this.”

“Shelied, Piers,” Ramsay exploded, wishing these outbursts would cease. That he could control them as he controlled everything else. “She had every opportunity to tell me who she was. There’s a reason she didna, and that reason canna be a safe one.”