A Rogue of One's Own

by Evie Dunmore

  She dropped her gaze, her cheeks unnaturally hot.

  “And what about the woman who seems to have inspired him to write a whole book of romantic poetry?” Arthur said, for it was clearly a woman at the center of Ballentine’s poems.

  “It is perfectly natural for artistic men to depend upon a muse,” Cecily said. “Or perhaps she is a figment of his imagination entirely.” And she, Cecily, was much preferable over an imaginary woman. Over many existing ones, too, if she was being honest.

  Just then, Tristan tipped back his head and laughed, his white teeth flashing. When he looked back down at Lucie, he pulled her indecently close in the next turn of the waltz. And there was something in his gaze . . .

  A stabbing sensation pierced Cecily’s chest. Her gloved hands reflexively balled into fists.

  Of course, this meant nothing. It was only Lucie, after all. No one liked her.

  But to witness him look like this at another woman? What if he danced with an eligible woman next? She swallowed. Could it be true? Her engagement was not as certain as they said it was?

  Black dots began dancing before her eyes. Her hand scrabbled for the support of the column.

  Arthur’s gaze filled with pity. “Ceci—”

  She raised her other hand. “I do not enjoy this conversation. And I do not enjoy that he is dancing with Lucinda.”

  He paused. Studied her flushed cheeks and glittering eyes. “All right,” he soothed. “All right. If someone must have him, I would want it to be you.”

  The tears still threatened to spill. “But if he refuses? You seem so certain that he will.”

  “You know.” His fingers wrapped around her small hand. “I could tell you something that might help you if he refuses to do right by you. You would have to be courageous, however.”

  She blinked, a flicker of hope in the watery depths of her blue eyes. “I can be courageous.”

  He felt a little ill. He was much more sozzled than he had thought. “He does not deserve you, this you must know.”

  Cecily gave a shaky sigh. “You have always been a favorite cousin of mine, Arthur.”

  He returned the feeble press of her fingers. He wished he could say that playing the knight in shining armor for his pretty cousin was what had just compelled him to make his offer. Alas, it was much less noble than that. It was, admittedly, a petty desire to see Ballentine needing to bend or down on his knees, his arrogance and appetites at least in part curtailed by wedlock. Perhaps that would give the man a taste of how it felt to never quite get what one wanted.

  Chapter 20

  The disaster happened the next morning, on an empty stomach.

  Lucie was running late for breakfast, because she had indulged in a lie-in, lingering on last night’s waltz in the twilight hour between dreams and conscious thought. Then she had asked the lady’s maid for another complicated coiffure and had taken frivolously long to select the best silk flower as a crowning glory.

  The moment she entered the breakfast room, three hundred or more heads turned toward her, each movement subtle, but together, it created a veritable disturbance in the air.

  She slowed.

  The hall was quiet as a tomb. And just as frosty.

  Reflexively, her hand rose to her hair. The flowers were still firmly in place. It couldn’t possibly be her gown. . . .

  Annabelle was watching her from her seat at the head of the table, wearing a pleasant little smile. Formally pleasant.

  Her stomach sank. Something had happened, between the early-morning hours and now, and whatever it was, it wasn’t pleasant at all.

  The crowd found its bearing, people moved, and chatter swelled again.

  Her thoughts racing, Lucie turned to the breakfast buffet, reached blindly for a plate, and began selecting fruits from the tiered platters. Whatever it was, she wasn’t guilty of it.

  The scent of lavender wrapped around her. Lady Salisbury had appeared by her side and pretended an interest in the oranges in the large silver bowl.

  “Some of us found something strewn along the corridors this morning,” she murmured without preamble.

  “Found what?” Lucie said quietly.

  Now Lady Salisbury looked at her. Her usually watery blue eyes were piercing. “Pamphlets.”

  A shiver of alarm ran down her back.

  Pamphlets of any kind had no place in a ducal corridor. Certainly not when the Prince of Wales was in attendance. Not when Montgomery was trying to restore his reputation. . . .

  “It was The Female Citizen,” Lady Salisbury said tightly. “The prince found one, too.”

  Her palms turned damp. Apples and oranges began to blur.

  She could see the pamphlets on the cherrywood surface of the vanity table before her mind’s eye, placed there carelessly when she had spread out the Discerning Ladies’ Magazines, because who would come to her room and see them, and take offense?

  Lady Salisbury had probably seen them there yesterday morning. Did she believe Lucie had done it? Of course. Everyone here believed she had done it.

  She turned to the crowd, her plate forgotten.

  No one was facing her directly now; they were looking past her, through her. She might as well not exist at all. Wrong—one man was staring right into her. The Duke of Montgomery. His pale eyes were assessing her from his place at the head of the long table, his face as still and cold as if carved in ice. The prince sat next to him, champagne flute in hand, looking deceptively bored.

  Her gaze began darting around the room. Every face in her field of vision closed up like a fist.

  She did catch Lord Melvin’s eyes.

  He glanced away.

  “Excuse me,” she said to Lady Salisbury, and made for the exit.

  She kept her pace measured in the Great Hall; still, the clicks of her heels were echoing like gunshots off the walls. She overtook a group of chattering guests and they fell silent. Their stares bore into her back until she reached the bottom of the grand staircase. The narrow new skirts forced her to take the stairs one dainty step at a time, step step step. She turned right on the landing, toward the corridor to the east wing.

  Two women were ahead of her.

  Hazel ringlets, and her mother’s unmistakable slim frame. Lady Wycliffe crept down the hallway like an old woman, slightly lopsided and leaning on Cecily’s arm. Oddly, the sight stung, right into the depths of her chest.

  When they vanished into an antechamber, she quickened her stride to follow them and entered without knocking.

  “Mother?”

  They stood with their backs to her, facing the tall windows. Her cousin glanced over her shoulder and gasped, her eyes widening with—fear?

  Lady Wycliffe kept her back turned, her thin frame stiff like a frozen reed. “Leave now, Lucinda.”

  The cold contempt in her mother’s voice stopped her hesitant advance like a wall.

  Cecily’s gaze had dropped to the tips of her shoes.

  “Now.”

  Lucie nodded. “As you wish.”

  She was at the door when the cold voice came again. “You just had to do this, didn’t you? You simply could not help yourself.”

  She stood facing the winter blue of the doorjamb, uncertain what to say.

  “You always had a desire to spurn me. So disobedient, so difficult, since you were a girl. I really should not find myself surprised today. But that you would go to such extremes as to humiliate the duke and his wife in front of the Prince of Wales to indulge your politics . . .”

  A roar starting up in her ears, she turned back. “It wasn’t me.”

  The countess wheeled round to face her, the glitter in her eyes as sharp as broken glass.

  “You are selfish,” she said. “You always were.”

  Cecily was hiding behind her hands like a child.

  She sho
uld leave. It appeared her mother could still work herself into a passionate outburst after all, and they had had enough scandal for a day.

  “Good day, Mother.”

  “Of course. You have no scruples to just walk away from the chaos you create.” The blend of imperiousness and disappointment, so unique to her mother, erased years between them and made Lucie feel like an awkward girl in a woman’s body. Her hand had all but frozen on the door handle.

  Her mother’s expression turned oddly triumphant. “There are other ladies who dabble in political activism,” she said. “Have you never wondered why they have not lost their family? Why they are still well-received?”

  Beyond her shoulder, Cecily was still covering her face with her palms. Well, when one was not used to them, confrontations could be frightening. And presently, the Countess of Wycliffe very much wanted to confront. Her wrath was an old wrath, pulled from the very depths of her. She would not be appeased.

  “If you must know,” she continued, “Wycliffe might have forgiven you, had you not embarrassed him in front of his peers. But you do not care whether you cross a line, do you, as long as it serves your immediate gratification. Indeed, I used to think how similar you and your father were in your selfishness. The difference is, of course, that Wycliffe is a man—he can’t help himself.”

  Her gaze traveled over Lucie from the tips of her new slippers to the silk flower in her coiffure. “It was all a ploy, wasn’t it, the lovely gowns and polite conversation?”

  Lucie’s skin crawled under her inspection. “Whatever do you mean?”

  Her mother sneered. “Please. Do you truly believe that adorning your hair with flowers will disguise what you are?”

  The snide words made her feel numb. She opened the door and escaped into the corridor.

  “That is what you fail to understand.” Her mother was following her. “Your peculiarities are not skin-deep. They are at the very core of you—how could I possibly have corrected them? I tried. Oh, I tried.” She was right behind Lucie, close, breathing down her neck. “Know that any normal man and woman can sense your masculine nature from afar. Know that nothing will hide what you are, Lucinda—you cannot outrun the truth.”

  She stopped abruptly and turned back.

  “The truth?” Her tone was metallic, impersonal, the kind she used on heckling strangers. “The truth is that while you speak with great authority, your authority is a mirage, Mother. Wycliffe can take it away with a snap of his fingers, like this. You hold no rights, not even over your own body, because you are a married woman. Your pedestal stands on quicksand, and if you are satisfied with this fate, for yourself, for half the human race, we shall never agree. So forgive me if I would rather run than stay and let you berate me.”

  Lady Wycliffe drew herself up to her full height. “There is dignity in quietly bearing a woman’s cross,” she said icily. “There is no dignity in your stubborn refusal to do so—only humiliation. Your shrieking, your marches, your pamphlets: humiliation.”

  Lucie’s lip curled. Remember the morning in the library at Wycliffe Hall, Mother? There had been a world of humiliation in your shrieking and pleading for a scrap of your husband’s love while he flaunted his mistresses for all to see. Could there be a humiliation greater than begging for love?

  “Do you think these activists you have chosen over your family have a care for you beyond what you can do for them?” Again her mother was rushing after her with quick, angry steps, hissing words under her breath. “They have not. Mark my words, you will be a bitter old spinster with not one child, not one friend to give you comfort in your twilight years.”

  “I promise I shall not bother you if that comes to pass.”

  “What if your trust fund runs out? You won’t be proud in the workhouse.”

  Her foot nearly caught in her hem as the words slithered into her heart, beneath the doors she kept firmly shut between her and a secret world of dread. She could not afford fear. The only way for her was forward, always forward.

  As the corridor split to a left and a right, she turned right the moment her mother tried to turn left, and they stood facing each other.

  They were both breathing hard.

  When she tried to step around her mother, her hand shot out and clasped her arm. “Lucinda.” Her voice was low. “No one can abide a selfish woman. You must know that.”

  “Oh, I do. I do know.”

  A damp sheen blurred the countess’s blue eyes. “You . . . you could have had everything. Everything.” Her little shrug was almost helpless. “And yet here you stand, wasting your life—and for what? For what?”

  For something you will never understand.

  For something she, Lucie, could never go without again.

  She looked her mother in the eye. “For freedom.”

  This time, no one followed her.

  * * *

  The copies of The Female Citizen were gone from her vanity table. Someone had positioned a few of the Discerning Ladies’ Magazines in their place. Well. Whoever had tried to sabotage her, they had succeeded.

  Her carpetbag and the travel trunk were stowed in the dressing chamber. Mechanically, she began pulling gowns and petticoats into her arms, carried them to the bed, and dumped them on the counterpane. Her senses were still overheightened, her blood still racing.

  Years ago, when she had been new to activism, she had wondered how the other ladies who were taking up the Cause retained their positions and people’s good graces. Their families usually displayed unusual degrees of tolerance. But most ladies also stayed clear of the truly ugly matters and left them to the activists from the middle classes. And usually, they were more patient than her, and contented themselves with gradually carving out space for a project here or there. Another foundling home, another school for girls, an academy for fallen women. A position as policy advisor on health matters thanks to personal connections, as Florence Nightingale had done. All valuable work, none of it enough. And she, Lucie, was greedy. She found the endless waiting difficult. She wanted to see women advisors in the Ministry of Economics. She wanted fewer academies for fallen women, and more changes to the circumstances that made women fall. Her mother was right—she was selfish. She was indulging her impatience and wanted too much, too fast.

  She pulled the flowers from her hair and tossed them onto the disorderly heap of clothing. Masculine nature. How many of them had been laughing behind her back at her attempts to look nice?

  She began stuffing the dresses into the trunk, crushing velvet and silk.

  A soft but determined knock sounded on her door.

  “Enter,” she said without interrupting the packing.

  Annabelle appeared on the doorstep. At a glance, she took in the pile of clothes on the bed and the open trunk.

  She closed the door behind her. “Surely you are not thinking about leaving?”

  “I think it would be best, considering the circumstances.”

  Annabelle drew closer. “What makes you think so?”

  “Please. Everyone thinks it was me. Including you.” Forgivable in her mother, who had never known her much at all. So hurtful in a friend, she couldn’t breathe, thinking about it.

  “I do not think you did it.”

  She glanced up. Annabelle was staring at her with hurt in her eyes.

  Lucie swiped a dislodged lock of hair behind her ear. “I saw how you looked at me when I came into the breakfast room.”

  Annabelle shook her head. “It would be stupid, and disloyal, and you are neither.”

  It didn’t soothe the jagged emotion stabbing away in her chest.

  “I’m glad. But I would have appreciated a warning before I walked into Antarctica.”

  Annabelle blew out a breath. “I could hardly leave Montgomery’s side—we were busy pretending that everything was fine.” She hesitated. “But it is true that I
had seen the pamphlets on your vanity table yesterday morning. And . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “And I know that you are not fond of Montgomery.”

  Lucie gave a nod. “It is true. I’m not fond of him.”

  “He is not hindering our cause now,” Annabelle said calmly. “In fact, he is fighting in our corner.”

  “Is it still our corner?”

  A look of surprise passed over Annabelle’s face. “Of course—why would you even say such a thing?”

  Because you have everything a woman supposedly should have, and it shall be a matter of time before it keeps you from pursuing masculine activities.

  Lucie shrugged. “I suppose I do not like how the duke is changing you.”

  “Changing me? Whatever do you mean?”

  It would be unwise to keep talking. So naturally, she did keep talking. “You are not really part of the student body anymore, and are only present at Oxford two, at best three days a week, when studying the classics used to be your dream.”

  Annabelle gave a baffled shake. “I’m a married woman now. I cannot live apart from my husband seven days a week—I do not wish to, either.”

  “Precisely. It just strikes me as a lost opportunity, considering how few women have access to anything resembling a higher education.”

  “Lucie, Oxford does not even allow women to fully matriculate.”

  “Oh, I’m aware of that—I am writing a letter a week and speak to more bigots than I care for to change that. It means we have to fight harder, not withdraw.”

  “But I’m not withdrawing—I’m compromising. Just because I am married does not mean I shall ever give up the fight.”

  “It usually means exactly that.”

  Annabelle regarded her warily, as though uncertain what had got into her friend. “Presently, Oxford does not allow us to take the same final exams as men, and they teach us in the upstairs room of a bakery. We are not deemed fit to enter the same lecture halls as the men. You can hardly expect me to strain my relationship with Montgomery for their disregard and a third-class diploma, especially not when I am perfectly capable of fulfilling much of my coursework from afar.”