A Rogue of One's Own (A League of Extraordinary Women #2)(11)
Boudicca jumped and landed on the floorboards with a thud.
“Your place is on my feet, as you well know.”
Boudicca turned and was on her way down to the kitchen, because frankly, she was a cat, not a foot warmer. A lady might keep a pug for such services.
With a sigh, Lucie threw back the blanket and padded to the corner with the ceramic bowl and pitcher, trying to blink the remnants of sleep away. Her lids scraped like metal sponges against her eyeballs. She had finished working at the darkest hour.
A glance at the small mirror confirmed it: she looked haggard. A little ashen around the gills, too. Not unlike the women depicted on the cards tucked left and right into the mirror’s frame. Valentine Vinegar cards, carefully curated from the avalanche of anonymous ill-wishes that poured through her letter box every February. Their little rhymes and verses all concluded the same: she was a blight on womanhood, would suffer a tragic life and then die alone. She caught a poor cat and a bird, but she can’t snare a man, so we’ve heard . . . to see you muzzled, fast and tight, would be for all a joyful sight . . . Her favorite card showed a shrill-looking suffragist skewered on a pitchfork. The spinster’s wiry hair was flying in every direction; her nose was red and crooked like a beak. She had a touch of witch to her. And everyone was secretly afraid of witches, were they not?
Her reflection gave a sardonic little smile. She felt not at all powerful this morning. She wished to creep back under the covers, clammy as they were.
Downstairs, Boudicca was yowling and causing a racket with her empty food bowl.
Resigned, Lucie slipped into her morning wrapper.
The white light of an early morning gleamed off the white kitchen wall tiles and polished wooden cabinets. It smelled of tea, and Mrs. Heath, marvel of a housekeeper, had already kindled the fire, toasted bread, and chiseled open a tin can of Alaskan salmon.
“You can thank Aunt Honoria for the money she left me, or else you would feed on whatever the cat meat man has on offer,” she said to Boudicca while alternately spooning salmon chunks onto her own plate and into the cat bowl under the cat’s watchful eye. “Or worse, you would be out hunting mice every day, like a regular cat. What have you to say to that, hm?”
Boudicca’s white-tipped tail gave an unimpressed flick.
“Ungrateful mog. I could have left you in that basket. I could have put you back onto the street, easily.”
You are bluffing, said Boudicca’s green stare. You were as lost as I was and in dire need of company.
Possibly. Ten years ago, she had hurried out the door one morning and had nearly tripped over the tall wicker basket on the steps. The basket had contained a handful of mewing black fluff. That fluff had proceeded to ferociously attack Lucie’s prodding finger, and she had decided to keep it. She had only just settled on Norham Gardens after her banishment from Wycliffe Hall, and well yes, she had been feeling terribly lonely. No one had ever come to make a claim on her new friend.
The clock in the reception room chimed seven thirty, and the tea still had not fully revived her. It was a bad day to be tired, considering the number of appointments in her diary: First, Lady Salisbury at the Randolph Hotel, where she would admit to a negligible delay in the purchasing of London Print. Then, a second breakfast with Annabelle, Hattie, and Catriona, also at the Randolph, where she would tell her friends that they might be in trouble.
And at half past ten, Lord Obnoxious occupied a slot.
Her stomach gave a little twist. Her fractured night was in part caused by their latest encounter. She had tossed and turned in her bed, unable to shake the sense of unease about their meeting. For old times’ sake, he had said. The audacity. Their only history was one of antagonism. Even those days were long gone; they belonged to a different life of which nothing was left but oddly, occasionally, Ballentine himself. There were chance encounters at functions in London, and then there were the headlines and rumors which somehow always found a way to her. She’d rather not see him at all. But if he had even remotely nefarious plans regarding women and the publishing industry, she had to know.
Below the table, Boudicca yodeled bitterly, as though she had not been fed in days.
“Tyrant,” said Lucie, and scraped the rest of the fish from her own plate into the bowl.
* * *
Lady Salisbury had taken a room at the Randolph under the name of “Mrs. Miller,” which was ludicrous because the countess was so obviously an aristocrat in both manners and looks, no one would mistake her for a Mrs. Anything. But Lady Salisbury preferred to keep her involvement in the Cause incognito, as she called it, especially where this particular mission was concerned. She had still brought several women beyond Lucie’s circle of acquaintances into the Investment Consortium and had donated a considerable sum herself. Having to disappoint her now grated.
The countess was seated in the drawing room on a French chaise longue, a black shawl around her shoulders and a dainty teacup in hand. She put the cup down and rose when Lucie entered, something she insisted on doing despite being well into her seventies and walking with a cane.
“Lady Lucinda, soon-to-be mistress of London Print,” she exclaimed, her rounded cheeks crinkling with joyful anticipation.
Lucie pasted on a smile. “Not quite yet, I’m afraid.”
Lady Salisbury’s face fell. “Not yet? But the contract was to be drawn up days ago—here, have a seat. Will you have tea, or sherry?”