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

by Evie Dunmore

Young ladies did not lie prone on the rug behind the library’s chesterfield and play chess against themselves. They did not stuff their cheeks with boiled sweets before breakfast.

A mile from the library, deep in the cool green woods of Wycliffe Park, Tristan Ballentine, the second son of the Earl of Rochester, had just decided to spend all his future summers at Wycliffe Hall. He might have to befriend Tommy, Greatest Prig at Eton, to put this plan into practice, but the morning walks alone would be worth it.

Of course, at twelve years of age, he was too old to believe in fairies and the like. His father had made this abundantly clear. Poetry, too, was forbidden in Ashdown Castle. Romantic lines ran counter to the Ballentine motto, “With Valor and Vigor.” But here, who could find him? Who would see? His copy of Wordsworth and Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads was at the ready.

He snatched his coat and dove behind the standing stone just as a black horse thundered into view in the hollow-way. A magnificent animal, gleaming with sweat, foam flying from its bit. The kind of stallion kings and heroes rode.

He gasped with shocked surprise. The rider was no king. No hero. The rider was not a man at all. It was a girl. She wore boots and breeches like a boy and rode astride, but there was no doubt she was a girl. A coolly shimmering fall of ice-blond hair streamed down her back and whirled round her like a silken veil when the horse pivoted.