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.

“It could be worse. We could be using swords and pitchforks to win our liberty rather than pen and paper.” Though increasingly, the idea of charging ahead while brandishing a primitive weapon struck her as a more satisfying way of doing it.

“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. But the unwearyingly self-sacrificing good mother and wife must not have needs,

me. I understand it’s easily forgotten within our small, and, dare I say, enlightened, circle, but the truth remains: before the law, once we are married, we have the same rights as children and prisoners, namely none. And yet,” she said, ignoring Hattie’s reprimanding stare at the demolished scone, “and yet there are people who believe being fashionable and pleasant shall make a difference. I understand how being pleasant can keep the peace, but how will it win a war?”

Ceci had had one face and voice for men, and another for the women, and it wasn’t quite clear which was the real one, something Lucie had found disconcerting.

Forcing examinations for venereal diseases on any woman struck me as abominable.” Annabelle visibly shuddered. “And all to protect men who use prostitutes from catching the pox.”

Fight, she had wanted to tell her mother after the fateful morning in the library. Fight! when Wycliffe’s indiscretions and belittling comments, relentlessly sprinkled over their daily lives, continued. But her mother never fought. She had pressed her lips together, and become thinner, and paler, and haughtier, until she had haunted Wycliffe Hall like a wronged wraith, and the more martyred and quieter she had become, the louder Lucie had wanted to yell. Years later, as her work with the Cause progressed, she had understood that she should have directed all her youthful anger against her father. 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.

“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.”

“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 would be unwise to keep talking. So naturally, she did keep talking.

It was hardly degrading to fawn over a man who was fawning right back.

She would never have to struggle to maintain a sweet disposition or prove herself to be someone she was not around him—he’d

But one moment, a lady’s virtue is her sole worth, the one attribute that determines who, if anyone, will marry her; the next moment, it’s something to pity and snicker about because the lady failed to give it away fast enough. In my position, it is, frankly, quite useless.”

had to be reasons when the most outspoken woman he knew was silent.

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

He had not made the rules, but he had never set out to change them, either. He had wasted a lot of time fighting the wrong wars.

“You surprise me,” she said. “All things aside, I had not taken you for a woman who runs.” Lucie blinked. “Well. And I had not taken you for a woman who fights.”

“Mothers,” he said. “Terribly secretive creatures.” “Women become so, given the circumstances.” He inclined his head. “Without doubt.

She had done more than scratch him. She had made a serious attempt at slicing his heart to ribbons, in the misplaced effort of protecting her own.

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 if I stop fighting because I stop caring, whether I want to or not?” His features gentled with dawning understanding. “I see,” he said. “It is not only the constraints and loss of credibility you fear.” She gave a helpless little shrug. “Being at the front line is exhausting.” “Oh, I know.” “I do not need an excuse not to do battle, day after day. 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.” “They are not?” She sounded weepy. His smile was infinitely tender. “No. I was vulnerable at the front line. Never weak.” “I suppose. I suppose there is indeed a difference.” “Then consider, perhaps, that you needn’t have to choose,” he said carefully. “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.”

When you look at me, I know you look right into me, because it is what you do—you look deeply. You prefer truth over comfort. And believe me, I’m in need of a woman who laughs in the face of ugly, for there is some darkness in my soul. But my heart, blackened as it is, is yours, and only yours, until you stop desiring it. And it shall be yours even then.” When she didn’t speak, he cocked his head. “Too purple?” “No,” she said thickly. “No. You feel seen by me.” “I do.” “Despite all the shrewish things I said.” “My love, I trust you because of all the shrewish things you say.” “I feel the same when I am with you,” she said, her eyes swimming. “Seen.”

other powerful men who accused the paper of waging war on the sanctity of the family. The main point of contention was not the widespread maltreatment of wives in their own homes, but the revelation that middle- and upper-class wives were being maltreated, too. Well. It was to be expected that a tyrant who saw power slipping from his grip would double his efforts to hold on. The rage they now witnessed was proof that they had done more than pull the beast’s tail. They had fired a shot at its very heart: every man’s prerogative to be the unaccountable rule in his home.