Chapter 12 #2
“Why don’t you give me their names, My Lady? I’d like to visit each one personally and explain what happens when they talk about the Duchess of Stormglen.” Ramsay’s voice came from just behind her shoulder, deep and entirely lacking in amusement.
The Viscountess blinked and stuttered. Eleanor almost sighed in relief.
Ramsay stepped forward, placing a hand lightly at Eleanor’s waist. “You’ll forgive me if I prefer my wife be the subject of respect, not prose.”
Lady Berle laughed, a touch too nervously. “Of course. Of course. Only admiration, Your Grace. We all love a happy ending.”
“I doubt that,” he said.
The silence that followed was exquisite. The women scattered soon after, their powdered faces twitching as they went.
Eleanor turned slightly to look at him. “That was quite… roguish of you.”
“Was it?” he asked, looking away from the retreating feather and back to her, a wicked smile forming on his lips. “I didn’t notice.”
Her heart did that strange thing again—tight and soft at once. But lower down, something else stirred, warm and insistent. She didn’t know what to do with that ache that settled low in her belly every time he looked at her like that.
Before she could find words, another figure stepped into their path.
Will this never end?
“Your Graces,” came Lord Branson’s voice, smoother than usual though the smile he wore was sharp. “May I just say… splendid affair. Everything one expects from a society wedding. Everything considered, it was… remarkably tidy.”
Eleanor opened her mouth. Closed it again.
Ramsay did not.
“Branson,” he said flatly. “Mind yourself. Tidy can turn to messy really quick.”
The Lord’s smile flickered. “Charming as ever.”
“You’re still here,” Ramsay observed.
“Not for long,” Lord Branson said, backing a step away with a bow so shallow it nearly insulted the earth.
Ramsay didn’t even bother to nod.
Eleanor exhaled slowly. “You’ve got a talent for scaring them off.”
“It’s not talent. It’s a skill, and I love practicing it,” he said as he tucked a loose curl behind her ear, letting his knuckles drag lightly down the curve of her neck, lingering just long enough to make her breath hitch. “Are you scared of me?”
He is an unbelievable brute.
Eleanor had been taught never to voice wicked thoughts like these, but with Ramsay, she found herself forgetting everything she’d ever learned, again and again. “You are an unbelievable brute.”
Ramsay chuckled, and if Eleanor was honest with herself… she did not find this ‘rogueness’ unattractive. An unfamiliar pulse between her legs confirmed this.
The final waves of guests were thinning out now, saying goodbye near the garden gate.
Then—of course—came Lady Mulberry.
One did not miss her entrances nor her exits. She moved like a royal decree with ankles.
“Eleanor,” she said by way of greeting, her eyes raking over Ramsay as if inspecting a military recruit. “You look less pale than expected.”
“Thank you, Grandmother,” Eleanor said, smoothing her skirt instinctively.
“And you,” Lady Mulberry continued, turning her full glare on Ramsay, “we will be seeing regularly.”
Ramsay arched a brow. “Will we?”
“Oh yes.” Lady Mulberry’s voice did not rise. It did not need to. “You’ve taken my granddaughter, and with her comes my scrutiny. I intend to visit. Often. And without notice.”
Eleanor flushed. “Of course, that’s not necessary. She—she wouldn’t just—”
“Unannounced,” Lady Mulberry confirmed. “Precisely my plan.”
Eleanor gave Ramsay an apologetic look, but he was still staring at her grandmother with mild interest, as if she were a foreign relic worth cataloging.
“I look forward to it,” he said, deadpan.
Lady Mulberry’s eyes narrowed.
Ramsay added, “I’d like to see you and my grandmother in the same room, actually.”
“Would you now,” Lady Mulberry said, not at all like it was a request she planned to entertain.
“I think the two of you could conquer the monarchy in an afternoon and rule the empire by suppertime.”
That, at least, made Lady Mulberry pause. A brief blink. A quiet tilt of the chin.
“Hmph,” she said then turned on her heel and stalked toward her waiting carriage.
Eleanor stared after her, half-mortified, half-mystified.
“She’ll never forgive you for that.”
“She’s welcome to try.”
Eleanor glanced up at him. He was watching the retreating shape of Lady Mulberry with the faint amusement of a man who’d survived worse—and possibly enjoyed it.
“You didn’t flinch.”
“No,” he said. “But she nearly made me blink.”
Eleanor laughed, genuine and helpless. And somewhere beneath it—rising slowly in her chest—was a weight she hadn’t realized was lifting.
For the first time in what felt like years, she was not on trial.
Not defending herself. Not apologizing. Just…
standing next to a man who faced the world with squared shoulders and made it look smaller.
She slid her hand through the crook of his arm again. “I think you scared most of them.”
“Good.”
“But you didn’t scare me.”
He looked at her then—really looked—and something in his gaze softened.
His eyes darkened,
“You want me to try, lass?”