The Devil in Her Bed (Devil You Know #3) - Kerrigan Byrne Page 0,102
ghost in the window.
“Pardon?”
Finally, Chandler spun to face the Viking-sized Scot who leaned on the high back of one of his chairs, testing its mettle. “My first instinct was to mistrust her. To not believe her. And she convinced even me, possibly the most credulous man alive. After such a cracking wallop of a lie, would you go to her?”
Ramsay shrugged. “I did. I have.”
That stopped him. “What?”
“Cecelia kept her identity as the Scarlet Lady from me well into our acquaintance,” the man recalled. “And aye, I was angry upon first discovering her deceit, but in the end I realized the faults of her secrets were not only hers, but my own. I didna make the truth a safe thing to tell, and in doing so I perpetuated her dishonesty.”
“This is different,” Chandler insisted, feeling itchy and restless, as one often did in the presence of the truth.
“How so?”
“Because … you can be certain of Cecelia’s intentions now that the truth is out. Whereas I have no measure of this woman. I do not know if her intentions are selfish or simply for survival.”
Ramsay scratched at his jaw, looking as if a slew of words tumbled into his mouth and he could neither swallow them nor spit them out. “Forgive my asking, but what exactly about her actions causes ye to question her?”
“You must be joking. I knew her as a child, yes, but look at what she’s done.” He threw his arms out, opening them to encompass all of his doubt. “She claims she took upon herself Francesca’s identity for the purpose of justice. But would she have done so if Francesca was born a peasant rather than a countess? Sure, she investigated the deaths of her family, but she’s also enjoyed a fortune and a place in society that never belonged to her. She knew how I felt about Francesca. She knew because I bared my fucking soul to her. I never would have had I thought she was anyone else.” He raked trembling hands through his hair, wondering why his reasoning suddenly felt thin. Why his anger seemed to be pointing in the wrong direction.
“Furthermore, she claimed to love me as Francesca. And I can’t stop wondering, would she ever have revealed her true identity to me if my father hadn’t exposed her? Or would I have walked around a blind fool for the rest of our lives?”
Ramsay chewed on that question for a moment before he answered. “Tell me this, would ye have been a happy fool?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He swatted the question away.
“I’m lethally serious. If ye’d never known the woman’s secret, would ye have claimed her as your own? Would ye have happily loved her for the rest of yer days?”
A yearning rose within him with such ferocious potency, he had to lean against the desk lest his knees give out. “I never would have even looked at another woman.”
Ramsay visibly tried, and failed, to keep a smirk from twisting his lips. “Then … did ye ever consider that ye’re being a bigger fool right now than she could ever make of ye? Ye love her, not the memory of a poor girl some twenty years dead.”
A well of ire seized him, and Chandler had to turn away to keep from striking the Scot. “You speak of what you do not know.”
“Perhaps,” Ramsay replied with a newfound sobriety. “But I’ll tell ye what I do know. Ye’ll never find a more honest and honorable soul than Francesca. She’s like a sister to my wife, and I’ve heard every conceivable story, and a few I cannot fathom. She’s stubborn, argumentative, crass, bossy, and a pain in my arse most days, but damned if she wouldna rip her own heart out and hand it to those she cares about if they asked it of her. She buried the bodies of Alexandra’s enemies, and she’s protected both Cecelia and my daughter with her very life. She went to war for the mere memory of ye, Chandler, and I doona ken if I’ve seen any man so courageous, selfless, or resolved as she. So ye intimating she might have intended to take the identity of a murdered countess to enjoy her luxury makes me want to laugh, or maybe weep at yer sheer stupidity.”
Chandler whirled, his fists clenched and his rage sparking beneath his skin.
But when he saw the equal parts fervency and understanding in Ramsay’s hard features, he realized who truly deserved his anger.