Bringing Down the Duke (A League of Extraordinary Women, #1)(4)

Annabelle cast a poignant glance around the square. They were in the very heart of London, in the shadow of Big Ben, surrounded by people who probably all had dealings with Miss Greenfield’s father in some shape or form. Keeping a low profile would have entailed staying back in Oxford. It would have been much nicer to stay in Oxford. A gent nearing the hackneys slowed, stared, then gave her a wide berth, his lips twisting as if he had stepped into something unpleasant. Another suffragist nearby did not seem to fare much better—the men brushed her off with sneers and flicks of their gentlemanly hands. Something about these contemptuous hands made a long-suppressed emotion stir in the pit of her stomach, and it burned up her throat like acid. Anger.

“It’s not as though my father is opposed to women’s rights as such—oh,” Miss Greenfield breathed. She had gone still, her attention fixing on something beyond Annabelle’s shoulder.

She turned.

Near the entrance of Parliament, a group of three men materialized from the mist. They were approaching the hackneys, rapidly and purposeful like a steam train.

Uneasy awareness prickled down her spine.

The man on the left looked like a brute, with his hulking figure straining his fine clothes. The man in the middle was a gentleman, his grim face framed by large sideburns. The third man . . . The third man was what they were looking for: a man of influence. His hat was tilted low, half obscuring his face, and his well-tailored topcoat gave him the straight shoulders of an athlete rather than a genteel slouch. But he moved with that quiet, commanding certainty that said he knew he could own the ground he walked on.

As if he’d sensed her scrutiny, he looked up.

She froze.

His eyes were striking, icy clear and bright with intelligence, a cool, penetrating intelligence that would cut right to the core of things, to assess, dismiss, eviscerate.

All at once, she was as transparent and fragile as glass.

Her gaze jerked away, her heart racing. She knew his type. She had spent years resenting this kind of man, the kind who had his confidence bred into his bones, who oozed entitlement from the self-assured way he held himself to his perfectly straight aristo nose. He’d make people cower with a well-aimed glare.

It suddenly seemed important not to cower away from this man.

They wanted men of influence to hear them out? Well, she had just completed step one: identify the gentleman.

Two: approach him firmly . . . Her fingers tightened around the leaflets as her feet propelled her forward, right into his path.

His pale eyes narrowed.

Smile.

A push against her shoulder knocked her sideways. “Make way, madam!”

The brute. She had forgotten he existed; now he sent her stumbling over her own feet, and for a horrible beat the world careened around her.

A firm hand clamped around her upper arm, steadying her.

Her gaze flew up and collided with a cool glare.

Drat. It was the aristocrat himself.

And holy hell, this man went quite beyond what they had set out to catch. There wasn’t an ounce of softness in him, not a trace of a chink in his armor. He was clean shaven, his Nordic-blond hair cropped short at the sides; in fact, everything about him was clean, straight, and efficient: the prominent nose, the slashes of his brows, the firm line of his jaw. He had the polished, impenetrable surface of a glacier.

Her stomach gave a sickening lurch.

She was face to face with the rarest of breeds: a perfectly unmanageable man.

She should run.

Her feet were rooted to the spot. She couldn’t stop staring. Those eyes. A world of tightly leashed intensity shimmered in their cold depths that held her, pulled her in, until awareness sizzled between them bright and disturbing like an electric current.

The man’s lips parted. His gaze dropped to her mouth. A flash of heat brightened his eyes, there and gone like lightning.

Well. No matter their position in the world, they all liked her mouth.

She forced up her hand with the pamphlets and held it right under his nose. “Amend the Married Women’s Property Act, sir?”

His eyes were, impossibly, icier than before. “You play a risky game, miss.”

A voice as cool and imperious as his presence.

It heated rather than calmed her blood.

“With all due respect, the risk of being pushed by a gentleman in bright daylight is usually quite low,” she said. “Would you release me now, please?”

His gaze snapped to his right hand. Which was still wrapped around her arm.

His face shuttered.

The next moment, she was free.

The bustle and noise of Parliament Square reached her ears again, unnaturally loud.

The press of strong fingers round her arm lingered like the afterglow of a burn.

He was already moving past her, staring ahead, his two companions rushing after him.

She swallowed and found her mouth was dry. Her lips still tingled as if he’d brushed over them with a fingertip.

A small, gloved hand touched her sleeve, and she jumped. Miss Greenfield’s brown eyes were wide with concern and . . . awe. “Miss. Are you all right?”

“Yes.” No. Her cheeks were burning as if she had fallen nose first onto the damp cobblestones. She smoothed a trembling hand over her skirts. “Well then,” she said with false cheer, “I gather the gentlemen were not interested.”

From the corner of her eye, she watched the ice lord and his minions file into a large carriage. Meanwhile, Miss Greenfield was contemplating her with covert wariness, probably trying to determine politely whether she was a little unhinged. She wasn’t, but there was no denying that she had acted on impulse. Lord help her. She hadn’t been impulsive in so long.