Page 66 of All Scot and Bothered

A decidedly female study if one had ever heard of such a thing. In his experience, women had parlors and solariums with which to… do whatever it was women did.

Cecelia Teague had books.

He’d folded into a high-backed leather chair acrossfrom the brick fireplace and let the scotch burn down his throat, lighting a small fire in his belly.

Cecelia’s lullaby drifted through the night from somewhere else in the house, and his breaths instantly deepened and slowed, becoming languid as his muscles unraveled.

What a different life she led than he’d expected. Her study was crowded by bric-a-brac, random travel souvenirs and mementos. She’d done it in dark, exotic carpets and blond wood. The desk beneath the window looked out onto a street that was little more than a tucked-away square of Chelsea one might not even realize as part of a bustling capital.

Not the lair one would attribute to the Scarlet Lady, or even her heir. The woman that until tonight he’d suspected of the foulest deeds.

Cecelia’s innocence in the disappearances of the girls had been validated, and he had to stay until he could inform her of how. Until he could plan their next move, because now their fates were entwined…

Ramsay’s last memory had been of her bookshelves.

She’d begun another lullaby at Phoebe’s request, and so he’d settled in to wait even longer. Examining the titles of her literary collection in the light of the lone lantern, he’d feared its contents to be as inflammatory as the pornographic scripts in Henrietta’s residence. Instead, he found titles such asThe Matrices of Spherical Astronomy. And further texts on Boolean algebra, standard deviation, classic cryptography, ciphers of the ancient world, and—

Wait a fucking minute.

The lone lantern?

Jesus bloody Christ.

Ramsay’s eyes shot open, and found what he feared the most.

The Matrices of Spherical Astronomy.

Nine kinds of curses splashed against the back of Ramsay’s lips as panic flushed the last vestiges of slumber from him.

He’d fallen asleep in the Scarlet Lady’s study, as soothed by her lullaby as a child of seven.

God’s blood, he’d never done such a ridiculous thing in his life. He could only hope he hadn’t been out long. That she hadn’t noticed his blunder.

Ramsay’s hand moved. The blanket snagged again on his roughened knuckles. He squeezed his eyes shut, awash with… shame? Mortification? Something very like it.

Cecelia Teague had happened upon him slumbering in her chair like a gigantic useless git, and—sweetheart that she was purported to be—she’d left him to his repose.

But not before covering him with a bloody blanket.

The image of it trapped his breath in his throat. Cecelia bending over him, draping the soft knit over his slack body. Had she touched him? How close had her body been—close enough to draw her into his lap?

Oh, that she’d woken him. That she’d made some sort of din, slammed a book or two and spared them both this very awkward situation.

At that troubling thought, he sat up and drew the blanket down his chest, running a hand over his hair to slick any strays back.

It took the cessation of the rhythmic scratching for him to truly identify it.

A pencil.

“You’re awake.”

Ramsay’s heart kicked against his ribs. His head turned stiffly on his shoulders, unwilling to face what he was certain to find at the desk behind him.

Or rather,whom.

That husky voice. The lower harmonics of which werelaced with such sensual tones, they could barely be reconciled with the dulcet sweetness of her corresponding melody.

Mother of all that was good and holy, but her voice did things to him. Hardened his sex and softened his heart. Weakened his will and his walls and filtered through the cracks in his fortifications.