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

by Evie Dunmore

“Saints, grant me patience—why am I shackled to such an overemotional female?” “I love you so, Thomas. Why, why can’t you love me?” A groan, fraught with impatience. “I love you well enough, wife, though your hysterics do make it a challenge.” “Why must it be so?” Mama keened. “Why am I not enough for you?” “Because, my dear, I am a man. May I have some peace in my library now, please.”

Hell’s bells—she was a leader of the suffrage movement, not a criminal on the loose. Though granted, for many people, this amounted to one and the same.

Mr. Barnes winced at the mention of the radical women’s rights pamphlet. He recovered swiftly enough. “With all due respect, publishing requires a certain passion for the subject matter, an intimate knowledge of the readership. Both the Discerning Ladies’ Magazine and Home Counties Weekly focus on issues relevant to the gently-bred woman.”

“Which should pose no problem,” Lucie said, “considering I am a gently-bred woman myself.” Unlike you, Mr. Barnes.

Whereas she, Lucie, had no such prospects. A home. A happy family life. Her train of thought briefly derailed. Odd, because it shouldn’t—what Barnes said was only true. She was not in possession of the attributes that enticed a man, such as the softly curving figure and gentle eyes of Miss Barnes, which promised all the domestic comforts a husband could wish for. No, she was a political activist and rapidly approaching the age of thirty. She was not just left on the shelf, she was the shelf, and there was not a single gentleman in England interested in her offerings.

She wandered through her dimly lit corridor, wondering whether she should stop using her title. She had been a lady in name only for a while.

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.

Lady Henley was pining for the man—before his very eyes. Of course, he would be used to it. From debutante to matron, women had made a sport of being at least a little bit in love with Lord Ballentine. One half adored him for his rare masculine beauty, his silky auburn hair and perfect jawline and indecently soft mouth. The other half was drawn to the promise of depravity lurking beneath his even features: the dissolute edge to these soft lips and the knowing glint in his eyes that whispered Tell me your desires, your darkest ones, and none of it shall shock me.

There was a black magic about a beautiful man who was easily intrigued and impossible to shake.

And Ballentine’s reputation as a seducer preceded him; in fact, he was the last person to try and hide what he wanted. Calculation on his part, she suspected, as it encouraged scores of women to try and reform him with healing feminine love, and a good number of them made a noose for themselves out of their own ambition.

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.

“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.

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.”

“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.

“Tristan, I can only accommodate so much irregularity in my household. You may decide whose it is going to be: yours, or hers.”

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.

Lady Salisbury regarded her pensively while she stirred her tea. “Have you perchance considered becoming a little more likable?” she asked. “Less brash, less radical, less unfashionable? It could make everything less controversial.”

“Ah, but then the weapons of men and women are not quite the same.” Lady Salisbury’s tone was well-meaning. “See, a woman overtly grasping for power is a most vulgar creature—it helps when she looks lovely while she does it. And it so confuses the demagogues.”

“Ma’am, I’m afraid the idea that a woman is a person, whether married or not, is so inherently radical no matter which way I present it I shall be considered a nuisance.” More than a nuisance. An outright challenge, a threat. For if a woman was a person in her own right, one could conclude she was also in possession of a mind and a heart of her own, and thus had needs of her own.

In her current position, she was a rare creature—an independent woman. She had a modest but secure income, and yet she belonged neither to a father nor a husband. Usually, only widowhood gave a woman such freedom. Why would Lady Salisbury suggest she give this up?

“Definitely a rogue,” Annabelle said darkly. “A hero and a pest, a man can be both.”

A hero and a pest, a man can be both.

Some women never stopped believing. Up and down the land, in brothels and manor houses alike, women sat waiting for a man to rescue them. Were they aware that the cure they were hoping for could easily become their curse?

But ten years of glimpsing behind quiet, decorous façades had taught her that some never saw other options, and others never dared to seize them; and then there were women like Amy, who had never been presented with much in the way of options at all. And some days, she could not help but feel that no campaign in the world had the power to change this.

The poetry? The poetry was published by Anonymous. She had suspected a woman to be the author, as was so often the case with Anonymous. Apparently, the truth was more outrageous. Apparently, there was a reality where her business partner was a notorious rake and where Lord Ballentine, most shallow of men, was an acclaimed poet. She had quite possibly fallen through a rabbit hole.

He had just sabotaged their every hope for this enterprise while casually swilling whiskey. Her blood roared in her ears. Anything she’d say now would be petty. She must not give him such satisfaction. “This is not over,” she said. “Not in a long time, my sweet,” she heard him say before she firmly closed the door.

“You have to understand something about Ballentine,” she said. “He used to be a second son, and his hair was orange. There were rumors he wasn’t even Rochester’s. What does such an unfortunate boy do to survive? He becomes charming. And witty.

“Lord Ballentine and I have a business matter to discuss. Unless you think his lordship wants the entire street to partake in it, step aside. My voice carries, I have been told.” The brows swooped. “It does,” Avi said. “Carry. You are not armed with anything sharp, milady?” “Other than my tongue?”

both be in the same room, or the same town, for a minute without quarreling,” she said. “Working together is impossible, you must know this. Sell me your shares. I shall put it in writing that your books will be well cared for.” He cocked his head. “Perhaps I enjoy our quarreling,” he said. “It adds a certain piquancy to my day.”

Naturally, a woman’s appearance was an easy target; even the most dull-witted could hit with great effect. She knew this.

it were not for his charming looks, his offer would not merit a second’s worth of consideration, which told her exactly how bad of an affront it was. Besides, he had not propositioned her because he desired her—he had done it to provoke her. And he probably liked the idea to have her surrender to him in the most primitive way possible.

“I felt a great sense of relief,” she told Annabelle. “Half my life I had felt strangely asphyxiated in the presence of my mother and her friends. But there, I was at ease. As though I were finally wearing clothes that fit rather than chafed.”

She had not yet truly comprehended power then, and how treacherously easy it was to side with it, and to ask that the downtrodden ones change before one demanded the tyrant change.

Annabelle looked amused. “Let me say this: I was the most stubborn, reticent creature the duke had ever encountered—I just said no to everything he offered.” She gave an apologetic shrug. “I suppose when a man truly wants something, he will do what is required. It is quite simple.”

“But of course not. It’s a matter of sex, isn’t it.” Tristan clinked his glass to his. “It’s always about sex.” “Everything in the world is about sex,” Wilde agreed. “Except sex.” “Then what is the sex about?” The playwright smiled. “Power. But you know that already, don’t you, my lord.”

She had a feeling that he quite liked the devil’s advocate position. “A man’s lack of voice is connected to his lack of property,” she murmured. “A woman’s lack of voice is forever connected to the fact that she is a woman.”

“It’s quite the same,” Tristan said. “Idealism, cynicism. Two sides of the same coin.” “And the coin, what would it be?” He waved his hand with the cigarette. “A yearning to control our fickle destinies.”

She could not trust him; worse, she could not trust herself around him. Tristan would never reliably act the gentleman and save her from her own audacity. He would go along as far as her curiosity, no, her weakness, would take them, and provoke her to go further still.

Why don’t you try it yourself, sometime.” She looked down her nose at him. “Hiding in plain sight?” “No. Seduction.” She scoffed. “From what I observe, being female and breathing is enough to provoke interest in most men.”

He gave her a placating smile, as if sensing the turn her mind had taken. “Society is dumber but stronger than you,” he murmured. “Be devious. Be subtle. If you can.”

She had long assumed Tristan was careless and grew bored easily because his mind was lazy. She had been wrong. He grew bored easily because his mind was working entirely too fast.

I therefore suggest we make it convenient and feasible for women to have both: household and fashion advice, and gentle reminders that we are, in effect, chattel. In one periodical.”

Keep your enemies close, but this close? A bad, bad idea.

Arthur’s lips twisted with impatience. “This man cares nought for contracts. Or honor. He has nothing but contempt for people who admire him, and I wager he even laughs at the Victoria Cross. Marriage is the last thing on his mind, mark my words. There are only two things Lord Ballentine cares about and those are himself and his pleasure.”

Lady Wycliffe drew herself up to her full height. “There is dignity in quietly bearing a woman’s cross,” she said icily. “There is no dignity in your stubborn refusal to do so—only humiliation. Your shrieking, your marches, your pamphlets: humiliation.”

Even when contrite, with her regal posture and proud cheekbones, Annabelle looked as though she had always been destined to be someone. Poise and pride were in her marrow. It was just a bitter pill to swallow that it had taken the money and the protection of a man to help her achieve her destiny. But that was how it was. And perhaps, she, Lucie, was turning into a bitter old crone before her time.

“Sometimes, I think you do not know whether you would rather seduce or sabotage me.” He shrugged. “It would amount to the same thing, would it not?” Her chin jutted out. “I admit, I briefly thought there was more to you.”

The thought of an intimate affair with an upright, mild-mannered gentleman bewildered her—as Annabelle said, such a man would offer marriage, which was not an option for her, and entanglement of any sort with such a man would be destined to end in disappointment. But a rakehell like Tristan? She would never owe him her courtesy. She would never have to struggle to maintain a sweet disposition or prove herself to be someone she was not around him—he’d care nothing for her manners anyway.

ever-after with a man, you could have it.” She gave a little huff of surprise. “I confess I find a fairy-tale ending involving a man difficult to envision, given the circumstances.”

“Honesty,” he repeated, testing the word. “Yes. Without honesty, there can be no trust.” “Ah, darling.” His smile was lopsided. “My second rule is: do not trust me. Not in the deep, blind sort of way.” “Why?” “Because even I do not trust myself such.”