Page 22 of Lord Ramsey's Red-Headed Ruin
“Let’s.”
They strolled down the long central hall toward the large double-glass doors at the rear of the house. There, the stables, the carriage house, and the gardeners’ house swept around a cultivated area in a half-circle. To the right, by the kitchen door, a red-brick fence enclosed the flourishing vegetable garden.
Corinne—Sophie’s mother, Amber had learned from the girl—had been devoted to her roses. A small, neat parterre bound by chalky-white stones held the dark, green-leafed bushes. They sat in long rows and bloomed in all colors, shapes, and sizes. What filled Amber with awe and a heady inspiration was the mix of the rosy fragrance with the gentle night air.
“One day I would like to have a rose garden,” she confided quite spontaneously, taking the stony path among the bushes. “I’m sorry. I said I would not chatter.”
“My mother grows them.” He bent to cup a fat white bud and inhale.
The look on his face endeared him to Amber even more. To his mother as well, she was sure. “Does she enjoy other activities?”
“Cards. Few ever play with her. She is a wizard.”
Amber snorted. “Counts them in her head, does she?”
“Indeed. Mind like a mousetrap.”
Amber burst out laughing. “I would like to play her.”
“Oh, no,” he said with a grimace, his hands clasped behind him as he walked beside her. “You count them, too?”
She nodded, satisfied with herself. “I do. Aunt Cecily taught me.”
“Dear me. The woman is a legend.”
Amber grinned and bent to inhale the delight of what wafted up from two red buds tightly bound together. “She is. So many call her ruthless, not just in cards, but in so much more. Her dealings with Josephine. Her defense of all her friends. And then, of course, she has been so very good to Augustine and to me. She took me in at nine, and she took Gus from her parents when she was just a baby. They were ill suited to raising a child, and Aunt Cecily was intolerant of their excuses. They were, she told us both, wild things and libertines. Aunt would not allow them to have Gus, neglect her, nor corrupt her.”
“Your aunt is not really related to you, is she?”
“No. But to Gus, yes. Distantly, somehow. We do not ask. She does not say. Aunt saved us both when she learned of our plights. And I am forever grateful. She gave us a good life. She would have given the same to another young girl, another daughter of a youthful friend of hers.”
“What happened to her? Why did your aunt not save her?”
“She was to come to us. An heiress to an English barony. She disappeared when she was sixteen. Ran away from home. Aunt Cecily never found her, though she sent out scouts to search for her.”
“Every time I hear about your aunt, I do admire her more.”
“She is worthy of it.”
In the moonlight, his blue eyes glistened with sympathy. “Before you left Paris, did you say goodbye to her?”
Amber sucked in a breath. “No.”
He waited, searching her face, and she understood he wished an explanation.
“I knew it was best to say nothing to her or to anyone, Ram. I could not risk a messenger getting captured. I dared not write a note to fall into anyone’s hands. My aunt knows me well. Once I did not appear at my normal social calls, I knew she would understand my desire not to involve her.”
“And what of your agents who depend on you? What of them? Did you send them word?”
“Never. It is the nature of my chain that if one of us does not appear, the others may choose to return to check on us once at the appointed day and time, but if we miss our scheduled round twice, agents know the chain is broken. To them, so long missing in March, I was gone. I trust them to keep to that agreement.”
“It is a good one,” he said with resignation.
“It ensures we are safe, one from the other, if someone gives up information under”—she would not saytorture—“duress.”
Then she turned away, upset anew by knowledge she had ruined a fine network that had operated for years. “I left. I was afraid.” She clutched her arms. “I am ashamed.”
He was behind her in a moment, his arms, warm and strong, binding her back to him. His lips near her ear, he breathed hot, reassuring words: “Sometimes there is nothing to do but the most obvious. If you had stayed, you tempted fate.”
