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

by Evie Dunmore

If you don’t, four hundred years of Ballentine rule over the Rochester title come to an end and the Winterbournes move into our house.

Rochester’s face was all shadows and hard angles. “As I said: she is unwell. She might be better cared for elsewhere.” Tristan’s fist was white around the cane. “Be plain.” “There are places more suited for people with her moods—” “Are we speaking of Bedlam?” The earl tilted his head, his smile thin as if slashed with a knife. “Bedlam? No. There are private asylums that are quainter, more suited for her care.”

At least Oscar Wilde was in worse shape; by the end of his last brandy, he had made slurred promises to write Tristan into his first novel, one about the perils of eternal beauty; and the story would be gothic and dark.

“Lady Lucie has a cat.” “Oh?” Lady Hampshire said. And nothing more. Her beady eyes, however, were sweeping over Lucie from head to toe, as though she had only just noticed her. Her mother leaned toward her, ever so slightly. “What breed?” she asked. “I wouldn’t know,” Lucie said slowly, a little alarmed at having her mother leaning in on her. “She’s black. She’s a foundling.” “Faith,” Professor Marlow said. “A barn cat—in the house?” “A misplaced cat, rather,” Lucie said. “Her attitude is far too entitled for a cat of humble beginnings.” The professor frowned, but her mother nodded, as though she found it a perfectly valid argument, and so Cecily began nodding along, too.