A Rogue of One's Own (A League of Extraordinary Women #2)(5)
She nodded at Aunt Honoria there in her portrait on the wall when she crossed the reception room, then paused in the doorway to the drawing room. Her lips curved in a wry smile. No, this was not the residence of a noblewoman. The battered table at the center of the room was surrounded by mismatched chairs and covered in strategic maps, empty teacups, and a half-prepared suffragist newsletter. The sewing machine against the wall on the left was mainly employed for making banners and sashes. There was a dead plant the size of a man in the right-hand corner. Not a single invitation by a respectable family graced the mantelpiece above the fireplace; instead, the wall around it was plastered in yellowing newspaper clippings and the banner she had embroidered with her favorite quote by Mary Wollstonecraft: I do not wish women to have power over men, but over themselves.
Worst of all, this room had, on occasion, harbored prostitutes from the Oxford brothel, who had heard of her through word-of-mouth and sought assistance, and sometimes it received mortified, unmarried women with questions about contraceptive methods. She kept a box with contraceptives hidden in the innocent-looking cherrywood cabinet. Not even her friends knew about this box or those visits, for while saving fallen women was currently very fashionable under Gladstone’s government, she was not saving anyone; she assisted her visitors in the ways they saw fit, which was nothing short of scandalous. Yes, most ladies worth their salt would beat a hasty retreat from her home.
Small paws drummed on the floorboards as a streak of black shot toward her. Boudicca scrabbled up the outside of her skirt and settled heavily on her left shoulder.
“Good evening, puss.” The sleek fur was comfortingly soft and warm against Lucie’s cheek.
Boudicca bumped her nose against her forehead.
“Did you have a fine day?” Lucie cooed.
Another bump. She reached up and ran her hand over the cat from ears to rump. Satisfied, Boudicca plunged back to the floor and strutted to her corner by the fireplace, her tail with the distinct white tip straight up like an exclamation mark.
Lucie slid her satchel off her shoulder with a groan. She still had work to do, and she had to eat, for her stomach was distracting her with angry growls after a day without lunch or tea.
Mrs. Heath, long accustomed to her poor eating habits, had left a pot with cold stew on the kitchen stove. Today’s newspaper sat waiting on the table next to a clean bowl.
She read while she ate, tutting at the politics headlines. In the matrimonial advertisement section, a farmer with two hundred pounds a year was looking for a woman in her forties who would care for his pigs and five children, in this order. She tutted at this especially. By the time she returned to her desk in the drawing room, fed and informed, night had fallen beyond the closed curtains of the bay windows.
Tonight, her highest stack of unfinished correspondence loomed in the women’s education corner of her desk. She had just put pen to paper when the sound of laughter reached her. She glanced up with a frown. The high-pitched giggle belonged to Mabel, Lady Henley, a widow, fellow suffragist, and tenant of the adjacent half of her rented terrace house. This arrangement suited them well, as it gave a nod to the rule that no unmarried younger woman should live on her own. But it sounded quite as though Lady Henley was in front of her window, and knowing her there was only one reason why she would be tittering like a maiden. Sure enough, there followed the low, seductive hum of a male baritone.
Her pen scratched onward. More laughter. Her neighbor’s shenanigans should not concern her. If brazen enough, a widow could discreetly take liberties no unwed woman would dare, and from what she had had to overhear through the shared walls of their house, Lady Henley dared it once in a while. Risky. Foolish, even. It could reflect badly on Lucie, too. But then, most men installed mistresses in plush apartments and took their pleasure whenever the mood struck, and everyone blithely pretended the practice did not exist. . . .
An excited feminine squeak rang through the closed curtains.
Lucie put down her pen. Widow or not, no woman was beyond scandal. And while Lady Henley was not enrolled at the university, she mingled with female Oxford students through the suffrage chapter, and thus, anything besmirching her reputation would also besmirch the women at Oxford, when they must comport themselves beyond reproach.
She rounded her desk and yanked back the curtains. Heads jerked toward her, and she leveled a cool stare.
Oh. By Hades, no.
The light from her room revealed, unsurprisingly, an excited Lady Henley. But the man . . . there was only one man in England with such masterfully high-cut cheekbones.
Without thinking, she pushed up the window.
“You,” she ground out.
Chapter 3
Tristan, Lord Ballentine. Scoundrel, seducer, bane of her youth.
His cravat loosened, his hair ruffled as if attacked by amorous fingers, he looked every bit the man he was. Her heart gave an agitated thud. What was he doing at her doorstep?
His own emotions, if he felt any, did not show. He contemplated her with his usual bored indifference before the corner of his mouth turned up and he dipped his head. “The Lady Lucie. What a pleasant surprise.”
“What. Are you doing here,” she said flatly.
His teeth flashed. “Making merry conversation until a sourpuss opened a window.”
She had not seen him in a year. He had returned from the war in Afghanistan six months ago; the newspapers had broadcast far and wide that he had been awarded the Victoria Cross for outstanding bravery on the battlefield. More interestingly, he had been given a seat in the House of Lords by appointment.