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

by Evie Dunmore

Mary Wollstonecraft: I do not wish women to have power over men, but over themselves.

“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.

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.”

I understand how being pleasant can keep the peace, but how will it win a war?”

However, the trouble with words was that putting them onto paper was a bloody slog even at the height of inspiration.

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.

“Hark! Who hears the kitten’s cry, So sweet, so soft, so yearning? She’s lonely in the black of night, And those shadows, so concerning! Her siblings gone, the bed so cold Where is master, to whom she’s sold? Oh, it’s such a cruel fate, To mew and shiver, fear and wait. But! Here comes young master, after her demand, His caress doth fear destroy, Cupped gently in her master’s hand, The kitty purrs again with joy.” His gaze was riveted on her upturned face. Her expression was perfectly guileless. Mildly expectant. His eyes narrowed slightly. “Is this a figurative or a literal poem?” Cecily gave a slow blink. “I’m afraid I don’t follow?”

😂😂😂

“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.” His tone was faintly dramatic. “The cynic is but an idealist who preempts the shock of disappointment by deriding everything himself.

“Society is dumber but stronger than you,” he murmured. “Be devious. Be subtle. If you can.”

the Great Hall fell away. For a beat, there was only the dainty woman in red. Not red; crimson. Like his favorite coat. Like the ruby on his ring. Like the color of blood on its way to the heart. His mouth went dry despite the brandy. With her light hair, she was fire and ice. An evil genius had attached a gauzy, crimson cape to the back of her sleeves, the fabric so fine it gently lifted up around Lucie at every step, giving the impression that she was floating down the stairs on a breeze like a creature with wings. She was a phantom of delight, When first she gleam’d upon my sight A dancing shape, an image gay, To haunt, to startle, and waylay .

“considering you were preoccupied with Lady Cecily. What was my mother thinking, partnering the poor lamb with you?” She had hit a mark, inadvertently, for his expression shuttered. “You have not heard her cat poem,” he finally said, sounding ominous. “You would reconsider who the poor lamb was in our partnering.” “A cat poem? Very well—I do like cats. Was it a good poem?” “Atrocious. But very naughty. Although that was an accident, I believe.”

😂😂😂

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.” “Charming,” she said wryly. “And your first rule?” His tone was kind, but his eyes held a rare seriousness. “Don’t fall in love with me.”

“For what it’s worth,” she murmured, “I believe your father beat you out of shape, not into one.”

💔

“Ah, princess,” he said, a rare tenderness in his voice. “How you humble me.” “As though anything could humble you.” She turned her head to the side when he made to kiss her. “And why do you call me that? Princess?” He sighed. “You still have not read any Tennyson, have you?” “I have not.” “He wrote a poem called The Princess. It is about women like you.” Her smile was bemused, and a little flattered. “How so?” “I’ll cite a passage, and you shall see.” “If you insist.” He chuckled. “How could I deny such an ardent request?” The smile stayed in his voice as he continued: “But while they talked, above their heads I saw The feudal warrior lady-clad; . . . That drove her foes with slaughter from her walls, And much I praised her nobleness, and ‘Where,’ Asked Walter . . . ‘lives there such a woman now?’ Quick answered Lilia ‘There are thousands now Such women, but convention beats them down: It is but bringing up; no more than that: You men have done it: how I hate you all! Ah, were I something great! I wish I were Some might poetess, I would shame you then, That love to keep us children! O I wish That I were some great princess, I would build Far off from men a college like a man’s, And I would teach them all that men are taught; We are twice as quick!’”

“And yet you have called me princess for years, when we have only recently begun to like each other.” His eyes turned opaque, like a well muddied by a sudden disturbance in its depths. He was holding her face, and she felt his thumbs, very gently, touch her cheekbones. “Perhaps I have always liked and admired you, Lucie.”

❤️

He felt her heart beating beneath his hand, his careless hand. Did she know she was in love with him? He was painfully aware that he was. He had nearly lost himself in her when she had come undone. For a mad moment, he had wanted to do it.

He beat you out of shape, not into it.

“Funny, is it not,” she said. “You told me not to trust you, but I did. I told you to be honest, and you were not. We have both broken the rules.” His eyes had a hard look to them. “No,” he said. “It is not funny.”

She must have held a hope deep down that despite what the world told her every day, she was just as deserving to be handled with care as the next woman.

Raging in his own chest. His disgust with himself was a physical thing, it strained his nerves and every fibre of his muscles. Tender feelings and his deviant ways evidently made terrible bedfellows. But he had had a long life of deviance and only a month of loving a woman and thus he had made a mistake. Old habits. He would rectify it, and woo Lucie back, because damned if it didn’t feel as though he had lost her today.

The curious thing about causes is that they usually continue well without you. The question is whether you can continue well without them.

Lucie. His prickly fairy, his love. His body ached with the urge to go to her, even if it meant he had to walk a thousand miles. Now, on the brink of losing her, he faced the truth: he would marry her today. Not to save him from an existence with Cecily, or from the ruthless maneuvers required to avert such a thing; not for London Print; nor because their match was a good alliance between two earldoms. He would marry her because she was the constant, she was the light.

“Name one married woman, just one, who advanced important causes outside the home.” He made a sound of great annoyance. “That is your worry?” Easy for him to dismiss her, just like that. “Name a single one—you cannot, because it is nigh impossible for a woman to achieve anything when burdened with a husband, and the constant demands of wifely protocol, not to mention children. Why do you think it is that progressive women feel compelled to choose spinsterhood?”

She glared up at him. “You don’t even trust yourself—you told me not to trust you. I listen when people tell me what they are.” “God, I told you this because I believed it to be true at the time—and it was caused entirely by how I felt about myself as a man, not by how I feel about you. And if we talked calmly I would tell you that things have changed—”

you are impulsive. Take our first night: the moment you saw I was naked, you fell on me, when you had much to lose.” He paled before her eyes. “Well yes,” he said softly. “I fell on you that night because I had wanted you half my bloody life.” She raised her chin. “Step aside, please.” Instead, he stepped closer and leaned over her, an intensity in his gaze that stunned the screaming in her head into silence. “Then for your sake, I hope there won’t be a child,” he murmured. “Because if there is, I give you my word now: I shall drag you to the altar, bodily, if I must, and you shall say I do, and politics can go hang.” He might as well have gripped her by the throat. For a moment, she feared she might be sick. “And so the mask slips,” she whispered. “Consider this, Ballentine—any child might be better cared for without you, lest you turn into a brute like your own father.”

Ouch!

child, are you all right?” She was not. Her throat was tight. Her nose burned, her eyes pricked hotly. She had never been more wrong. She turned and staggered along the corridor, into the kitchen. She stood where she had slapped him, a hand clutched over her middle. “Goodness.” Her mother had followed, and her expression was concerned. “I confused you.” “No.” She shook her head. “No. Everything is perfectly clear.” Tristan had left Boudicca on her doorstep. She was the young lady in need of company.

He has always loved her ❤️

All those years, she had despised him. All those years had been kinder, warmer, more purpose-filled because of her four-legged friend. At some points, her only friend. What if I always liked and admired you, Lucie. . . . I had wanted you for half my bloody life. . . . She had brushed his words aside instantly, because her temper had been high, and besides, who could ever really know with Tristan? And had she taken him seriously, what would it have done to her? She had known she could resist a handsome, wicked, clever, unexpectedly tender rogue. She had known she could not resist a handsome, wicked, clever, unexpectedly tender rogue who had quietly held her in his affections half his life.

❤️

He cradled her face in his hands, his palms warm against her clammy skin. He had held her like this the first time he had kissed her. She understood now that the first time his lips had touched hers had marked the beginning of the end of her old world. And she would never be able to go back to it.

“I would have shown you a list.” She drew back. “A list.” “I know you like a good list.” His fingers slid into the chest pocket of his waistcoat and extracted a slip of paper. “Voilà.” The list contained names: Mary Wollstonecraft Mary Shelley Ada Lovelace Mary Somerville Harriet Taylor Mill Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Millicent Fawcett Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Millicent’s sister and the first woman to obtain a medical degree in London. Ada Lovelace, known for her excellent mathematical work on a difference engine. All women who were pioneers or outstanding contributors to a particular field. But if that was the criterion, the list was hardly exhaustive, and so her mind scrambled, trying to find the common denominator linking the names. . . . “Women who advanced worthy causes outside the home,” said Tristan, “despite being burdened with a husband, protocol, and oftentimes, children.

He had listened. During their argument at Wycliffe Hall, at the height of his own emotions, he had listened. And he was addressing her worries, rather than judging her bitterly, as was the common, if not only, reaction when a woman questioned her ordained role as mother and wife. She was rather certain she loved him then.

“What is it?” She held his gaze with some difficulty. “What if I love you too much,” she said. “What then?” “Love me . . . too much?” “Yes. And what if our connection resulted in a child, and what if I loved the child too much. And it made me stop fighting for the Cause with all that I have.”

What if having people to love makes me weak.” “My sweet.” He raised her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss against her fluttering pulse. “Is it possible you were simply caught in the whirlwind of something unfamiliar and exhilarating when you took up with me?” “Well,” she murmured. “Perhaps, yes.” “Also, do not confuse weakness and vulnerability. The two are hardly the same.”

“What if love makes you want to fight harder? What if you look at your daughters and see the best reason to keep campaigning for women’s liberty? Or, think of the sons who might raise hell in Parliament as long as women cannot.”

Yes!

“Why?” she whispered. “Why?” He sounded nonplussed. She closed her eyes. “Why do you love me?” He had said it so easily: the woman I love. “Why does one love?” There was a frown in his voice. “Why, one just loves, Lucie.” Perhaps I have always liked you, Lucie, . . . I had wanted you half my bloody life.

❤️

Love, she was learning, was needing someone even when he offered nothing but himself. “It takes a brave man to want a woman who wants rather than needs him,” she said instead. “Fortunately, I can be brave. Shall I show you my Victoria Cross?” “Now, be serious.” “I am. From the moment you galloped at me on an oversized horse when you were thirteen years old, you have been the bravest woman I have ever met.

Your stubborn courage humbles me. Your rage inspires me. You are like a storm moving through, rearranging whomever you touch in your wake—imagine the trouble we could cause if we joined forces.

“You are looking at a man who prefers shieldmaidens over angels.” Shieldmaidens. Surely not. “The poems,” she murmured. “Were they . . . ?” He looked resigned. “I suppose, in some shape or form, it has always been you.” “I must say,” she said after a breathless pause, “you are a terrible rake—a pretend rake. Next, you tell me you have been saving yourself for me all along.” He laughed, and she leaned in. His face blurred and their lips met in a kiss, finally, at last. Yes.

His poems had all been about her ❤️

He looked her in the eye. “Contra mundum?” She smiled. “Contra mundum.” Against the world.

when a woman happened to acquire a rogue of her own, she might as well make good use of him.