A Rogue of One's Own (A League of Extraordinary Women #2)(7)

She had first felt the flutter years ago when petitioning parliamentarians in a corridor in Westminster. Tristan had been about to embark on his first tour—by orders of his father, she’d assumed, for there wasn’t a sliver of a soldier’s discipline in him. But when he had unexpectedly appeared in front of her, a bolt of heat had shot through her body and rooted her to the spot. She had not yet put the lens in place that showed a bothersome carrot-head. Instead, she had been ambushed with a version of him everyone else was seeing: a face of chiseled symmetry. Wide shoulders. Slim hips. The famous Ballentine build, in a tightly tailored uniform. All the sudden, unbridled attractiveness had afflicted her with the unfamiliar urge to fuss with her hair. Humiliating. It was hardly beyond her to admire the aesthetics of a well-made man. But him? For six long summers, Tristan the boy had plagued her in her own home with leering stares and pranks—when she loathed pranks. Worse, he had endeared himself to her brother, her cousins, and her mother, until she had felt ever more out of place at the dining table. Judging by the outrageous headlines whenever he set foot on British soil between deployments, he had failed to improve.

He halted before her, too close, and she raised her chin. By some irony of fate, she had gained a bare inch in height since their first encounter in Wycliffe Park.

“You shouldn’t idle on our doorstep,” she told him.

“And you shouldn’t traipse about alone at night.”

On his right ear, his diamond earring glimmered coldly like a star.

Her lip curled. “Don’t trouble yourself on my behalf.”

She resumed walking.

“I rather wouldn’t.” He was next to her, needing only one stride where she took two. “However, I’m afraid I’m obliged to escort you.”

“Truly, there is no need for gentlemanly overtures.”

“A gentleman would insist on carrying your bag. You are lopsided.”

He was, notably, not insisting to carry it.

And she was walking into the wrong direction, she realized, appalled. Blast. She could hardly turn back now; it would look as though she had been running from him, quite mindlessly, too.

“A lady’s reputation is in greater jeopardy when she is in your company than when she’s on her own after dark,” she tried.

“Your faith in my notoriety overwhelms me.”

“It certainly worked a charm on Lady Henley.”

“Who?”

She sniffed. “Never mind.” And, because it did irk her that he would endanger their household’s reputation for nothing at all: “I suppose where the chase is the aim, names are but tedious details.”

“I wouldn’t know.” He sounded bemused. “I never chase.”

“What a worrying degree of self-delusion.”

He tutted. “Have you not read your Darwin? The male flaunts himself, the female chooses, it has ever been thus. Beware the determinedly chasing male—he is hoping you won’t notice his plumage is subpar.”

“Whereas yours is of course superiorly large and iridescent.”

“I assure you it is not iridescent,” he said in a bland voice.

Annoyance crept hotly up her neck. “The ladies do not seem to mind.”

“My dear,” he murmured. “Do I detect jealousy?”

Her fingers tightened around the strap of her satchel. Could she make her wrong turn look deliberate? Unless she changed direction, she would end up in Oxford’s town center.

“I think that is exactly what it is,” Tristan said. “It would certainly explain your frequent sabotage of my liaisons.”

“I know you find your own banter highly entertaining, but it is wasted on me tonight.”

“I remember the one time with Lady Warwick.”

Despite herself, a memory flashed, of two figures in a shadowed garden. He could have been no older than seventeen. “It was ghastly,” she said. “She had just returned from her honeymoon.”

“And was already bored witless.”

“She must have been desperate indeed. It does not mean she deserved to be despoiled on a garden table.”

“Despoiled? Good Lord.”

He sounded vaguely affronted. Good. They were halfway down Parks Road, and she wished him gone.

“Who would have thought,” she said, “the infamous rake remembers his liaisons.”

“Oh, I don’t,” came his soft reply. “Only the ones who got away.”

Who probably were very few.

She stopped in her tracks and faced him. “Was there anything in particular you wanted?”

His eyes glittered yellow in the streetlight, not unlike Boudicca’s.

“It would not be too particular, I think,” he then said, his voice low. Almost a purr.

She stared at him unblinking, down her nose, while her heart beat faster. He did this sometimes, say things in a manner that suggested he was picturing her alone with him, in a state of undress. She supposed it was how he spoke to all women: with the intent to seduce. To her, he did it to aggravate.

He made to speak, more inane commentary no doubt, but then appeared to have a change of mind. What he did say next could not have surprised her more: “I was in the process of leaving my card to meet with you when I met your neighbor.”

Meet. With her. But why?