by Evie Dunmore
She rounded her desk and yanked back the curtains. Heads jerked toward her, and she leveled a cool stare.
Oh. By Hades, no.
The light from her room revealed, unsurprisingly, an excited Lady Henley. But the man . . . there was only one man in England with such masterfully high-cut cheekbones.
Without thinking, she pushed up the window.
“You,” she ground out.
Chapter 3
Tristan, Lord Ballentine. Scoundrel, seducer, bane of her youth.
His cravat loosened, his hair ruffled as if attacked by amorous fingers, he looked every bit the man he was. Her heart gave an agitated thud. What was he doing at her doorstep?
His own emotions, if he felt any, did not show. He contemplated her with his usual bored indifference before the corner of his mouth turned up and he dipped his head. “The Lady Lucie. What a pleasant surprise.”
“What. Are you doing here,” she said flatly.
His teeth flashed. “Making merry conversation until a sourpuss opened a window.”
She had not seen him in a year. He had returned from the war in Afghanistan six months ago; the newspapers had broadcast far and wide that he had been awarded the Victoria Cross for outstanding bravery on the battlefield. More interestingly, he had been given a seat in the House of Lords by appointment.
He was still a rogue. She knew he had bothered Annabelle at Montgomery’s New Year’s Eve ball. Now he was flaunting his seductive prowess in front of her window.
“I gather you two are acquainted?” Lady Henley slunk into the path of their locked gazes.
Lucie blinked at her. She had forgotten her ladyship was present.
“Lord Ballentine is an old friend of my brother’s,” she said.
“Oh. Lovely.”
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. Lady Henley now appeared drunk on this sinister brand of charm and was tumbling toward Tristan’s maw like a fly into a carnivorous plant.
Lucie gave her a pointed look. “Forgive my being forward, but it would be ill-advised to become more closely acquainted.”
“Acquainted,” Lady Henley said slowly.
“With his lordship.” She gestured a circle around the now deceptively idly lounging nobleman.
Lady Henley’s expression cooled. “How kind of you to advise me.”
“I’m afraid you risk attracting attention.”
“No one can see us. There’s a shrub.” The lady gestured at the sprawling rhododendron shielding them, her body already arching toward the viscount again.
Lucie’s neck prickled with an unpleasant emotion. “It’s still a rather unbecoming look for a suffragist.”
Lady Henley, stubborn creature, wrinkled her nose. “It is? Say, was it not you who told us women should strive to own their aspirations and desires? Yes, you did say it.”
“Did she now,” drawled Ballentine, intrigued.
Lucie unlocked her jaw with some effort. “The context was slightly, but significantly, different. Have we not had enough scandal threatening the women’s colleges this year?”
Lady Henley made a pout. “Very well. I suppose the hour is quite late.” She eyed Ballentine from beneath her lashes.
“I did advise you,” Lucie said, and made to close the window. Or tried to. The window did not budge. She pulled harder. Still it stuck. Lady Henley tilted her head. His lordship was watching her efforts with growing interest.
Her head was hot. How could it be stuck? She gritted her teeth. Fires of Hades, the window would not move.
“Allow me,” Tristan said, and stepped closer.
“I don’t need—”
He spread his long fingers and settled his fingertips on the wooden frame. With a slow, steady glide, the window lowered and settled gently on the sill between them.
Her own face was reflected back at her, distorted, narrow-eyed, with her blade-straight hair gracelessly escaping her chignon.
On the other side of the glass, Ballentine’s smugness gleamed like a beacon in the night.
She all but yanked the curtains shut.
“Do not mind her,” came Lady Henley’s muffled voice, “she’s a spinster.”
She spun around, her heart pounding as though she’d run a mile. What a silly, exaggerated physical reaction. No need to be emotional. But she would have to leave, unless she wished to witness Ballentine’s exploits with Lady Henley through shared walls. She truly did not wish to witness it.
Attuned to her moods, Boudicca came strolling from her corner again, her eyes yellow in the gaslight. She butted Lucie’s skirts until Lucie bent and stroked her. At the feel of the soft fur beneath her fingers, her pulse slowed.
She needn’t worry about Lady Henley flinging herself into the river Isis over Ballentine as others had threatened before—she was no green girl. 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.
She gathered the inkwell, the blotter, the fountain pen, her notes. On her way to the door, she picked up a shawl, because there was always a draft in Lady Margaret Hall’s library.
She all but bolted out the front door and skipped down the stairs, then paused to drag a breath deep into her lungs. The cool night air was a balm on her heated cheeks.
“Taking a walk, my lady?”
The silky voice wrapped around her from behind.
She turned slowly, her hands drawn into fists.
Tristan was leaning back against the windowsill, a lit cigarette between his fingers. Next to him, his walking cane was propped against the wall, the oversized amber pommel aglow like an evil eye in the shaft of lantern light.
“Why, that was quick.” There was no trace of Lady Henley.
“Something happened to spoil the mood,” he said, exhaling smoke through his nose.
“A pity.”
“Not at all. It was quite entertaining.”
He detached himself from the sill and approached, his tall frame throwing a long shadow toward her. A sensation fluttered low in her belly, like a hundred soft and frantic wings. Well, bother. During his absences, she forgot how imposing he was; whenever they crossed paths again, she became acutely aware of it.
She had first felt the flutter years ago when petitioning parliamentarians in a corridor in Westminster. Tristan had been about to embark on his first tour—by orders of his father, she’d assumed, for there wasn’t a sliver of a soldier’s discipline in him. But when he had unexpectedly appeared in front of her, a bolt of heat had shot through her body and rooted her to the spot. She had not yet put the lens in place that showed a bothersome carrot-head. Instead, she had been ambushed with a version of him everyone else was seeing: a face of chiseled symmetry. Wide shoulders. Slim hips. The famous Ballentine build, in a tightly tailored uniform. All the sudden, unbridled attractiveness had afflicted her with the unfamiliar urge to fuss with her hair. Humiliating. 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 t
o her brother, her cousins, and her mother, until she had felt ever more out of place at the dining table. Judging by the outrageous headlines whenever he set foot on British soil between deployments, he had failed to improve.
He halted before her, too close, and she raised her chin. By some irony of fate, she had gained a bare inch in height since their first encounter in Wycliffe Park.
“You shouldn’t idle on our doorstep,” she told him.
“And you shouldn’t traipse about alone at night.”
On his right ear, his diamond earring glimmered coldly like a star.
Her lip curled. “Don’t trouble yourself on my behalf.”
She resumed walking.
“I rather wouldn’t.” He was next to her, needing only one stride where she took two. “However, I’m afraid I’m obliged to escort you.”
“Truly, there is no need for gentlemanly overtures.”
“A gentleman would insist on carrying your bag. You are lopsided.”
He was, notably, not insisting to carry it.
And she was walking into the wrong direction, she realized, appalled. Blast. She could hardly turn back now; it would look as though she had been running from him, quite mindlessly, too.
“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.
“Your faith in my notoriety overwhelms me.”
“It certainly worked a charm on Lady Henley.”
“Who?”
She sniffed. “Never mind.” 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.”
He tutted. “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.
Annoyance crept hotly up her neck. “The ladies do not seem to mind.”
“My dear,” he murmured. “Do I detect jealousy?”
Her fingers tightened around the strap of her satchel. Could she make her wrong turn look deliberate? Unless she changed direction, she would end up in Oxford’s town center.
“I think that is exactly what it is,” Tristan said. “It would certainly explain your frequent sabotage of my liaisons.”
“I know you find your own banter highly entertaining, but it is wasted on me tonight.”
“I remember the one time with Lady Warwick.”
Despite herself, a memory flashed, of two figures in a shadowed garden. He could have been no older than seventeen. “It was ghastly,” she said. “She had just returned from her honeymoon.”
“And was already bored witless.”
“She must have been desperate indeed. It does not mean she deserved to be despoiled on a garden table.”
“Despoiled? Good Lord.”
He sounded vaguely affronted. Good. They were halfway down Parks Road, and she wished him gone.
“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.
She stopped in her tracks and faced him. “Was there anything in particular you wanted?”
His eyes glittered yellow in the streetlight, not unlike Boudicca’s.
“It would not be too particular, I think,” he then said, his voice low. Almost a purr.
She stared at him unblinking, down her nose, while her heart beat faster. He did this sometimes, say things in a manner that suggested he was picturing her alone with him, in a state of undress. She supposed it was how he spoke to all women: with the intent to seduce. To her, he did it to aggravate.
He made to speak, more inane commentary no doubt, but then appeared to have a change of mind. What he did say next could not have surprised her more: “I was in the process of leaving my card to meet with you when I met your neighbor.”
Meet. With her. But why?
“The day after tomorrow in Blackwell’s new café,” he said when she didn’t reply. “Unless you prefer another venue.”
“What is the matter, Ballentine?”
“Rumor has it you are an expert on the British publishing industry, and I need your advice.”
All of this alarmed her. “Who told you?”
He smiled. “Meet me and I shall tell you.”
He was terribly tedious and it was difficult to read him in the dark of night.
“Even if I were inclined to meet you—and I am not—there must be dozens of gentlemen who could advise you.”
“I have an interest in middle- and upper-class women readers. It seemed logical to approach a woman who knows the readership.”
Her gaze narrowed at him. The man before her looked like Tristan, with his garish, crimson velvet coat and ostentatious amber cane. The words coming out of his mouth, however, were not like him, for she had never known him to be interested in anything in particular nor had she suspected him to be capable of much logic. Then again, he was interested in female readers, which was true to his character and worrying.
“Come now, Lucie.” His voice had deepened to a warmer, richer tone. The kind that sank beneath a woman’s skin and lulled her into committing stupidities.
“Let us meet,” he said. “For old times’ sake.”
* * *
Tristan stood back and watched the turbulence roil behind Lucie’s eyes, dark and billowing like storm clouds. Her elfin face was all pointy with chagrin as two mighty emotions pulled her this way and that: her curiosity, and her profound dislike of his person.
There had been a time, those summers of pleasure-pain at Wycliffe Hall, when he had lived for provoking a reaction, any reaction, in the unassailable Lady Lucinda Tedbury. His crimes had been petty, hardly worse than dipping her pale braids into ink—the one time he had touched her hair—or replacing her collection of first edition Wollstonecraft essays with filthy magazines.
Or letting himself be caught when kissing Lady Warwick on a garden table.
Anything to provoke a reaction.
And while he wasn’t a scrawny boy anymore, greedy for scraps of her attention, it appeared she held some sway over him still. Nostalgia, no doubt. She was radiating annoyance and holding grudges, dating back to those summers. But she was here, living and breathing, the familiar, crisp notes of her lemon verbena soap reaching him through the smoke of his cigarette, and it made him feel warm beneath his coat.
“There is nothing in the old times to recommend you,” she said cooly.
“Then I’m afraid I have to appeal to your charitable mind,” he replied.
The moon stood high in the night sky, and in the diffuse light her hair shone like a polished silver coin. He remembered how it had felt between his fingers in those stolen seconds years ago, cool and sleek like finest silk . . . And all that’s best of dark and bright / Meet in her aspect and her eyes . . .
He stilled. Felt frozen in the summer breeze. The line had all but ambushed him. Granted, it was just a staple line from Byron. But he hadn’t heard poetry . . . in years. Interesting.
He gave a shake.
Matters were about to become interesting for another reason entirely. Lucie’s real reasons for dabbling in publishing had not much to do with publishing at all—his instincts were rarely wrong on such matters. And if his suspicions proved correct, he’d be compelled to stop her.
“I shall be at Blackwe
ll’s at half past ten,” he said. “The day after tomorrow. I hear the coffee is sufferable, and I would be delighted if you were to join me.” He flicked the cigarette butt into the dark. “And my dear. I do believe the library lies the other way.”
Chapter 4
The next day, Ashdown Castle
Dark, cool, void of sound—his father’s office was a crypt. This impression was caused in part by heavy ebony furniture and finger-thick curtains, but mostly by the crypt keeper himself: surroundings dimmed and silence fell where the Earl of Rochester trod.
He was ensconced behind his desk when Tristan entered, against the backdrop of his most prized possessions: a vast tapestry displaying the Ballentine family tree since 1066, personally gifted to the House of Rochester by Henry VIII. Tradition. The family name. Royal favors. Everything Rochester valued most highly was embodied in this moldy piece of embroidered silk. If given the choice between saving a helpless babe or the tapestry from a fire, he wouldn’t hesitate to let the infant burn. And whenever Rochester took a seat at his desk, the family tree’s branches were sprawling out just so from behind his head, giving an impression of him growing leafy antlers. The first time Tristan had noticed this from his side of the desk, he had been eight years old, so naturally, he had burst out laughing. The next moment, he had been bleeding from a split lip, while Rochester had already been seated in his chair again. The back of his hand struck quick and sudden like a snake.
“Your mother is unwell,” Rochester said. It was a complaint, not a concern.
“I’m sorry to hear it,” Tristan said evenly.
“If you were, you would have called on her. You have not set foot in this house since your return.”
He nodded. It had, of course, been Rochester’s idea to enlist Tristan in Her Majesty’s army and to send him to such far-flung places as the Hindu Kush. And he would have gladly left him there, had it not been for Marcus, infallible Marcus, breaking his neck.
“I shall go and see Mother after this.” Whatever this was. His father hadn’t yet disclosed the purpose of their meeting.