A Rogue of One's Own

by Evie Dunmore

  She was an inch from becoming his creature. So close to becoming someone who’d plead with their husband when he did not come home at night, who made excuses when they lied, who lied to themselves only so they could carry on orbiting around the fickle creature that was man. She was so close, when Tristan was neither the source of the food she ate, nor the roof that sheltered her, nor the name protecting her.

  She had a choice. And here she was, on the floor.

  Her nose burned. A hot tear leaked down her cheek. She swiped at it. How humiliating, to have secrets she hadn’t known she kept laid bare to her, by Cecily no less—we are engaged to be married. The agony had been unexpected, like the cut of a razor blade hidden in treacle.

  She had been so confident in her decision to never share her life with a man. So safe in her conviction that tender feelings and domesticity were for other people. The certainty had made it simple, had taken the sacrifice out of her work, which demanded that she remain alone, alone.

  Her sobs came uncontrollably like hiccups, sounding silly in the silence, but she could not stop them. She had been deluding herself. There had simply never been someone to tempt her enough. Until now. And right away, she must have given whole chunks of her heart into Tristan’s careless hands, because now the inside of her chest ached, felt torn up and bloody. She must have held a hope deep down that despite what the world told her every day, she was just as deserving to be handled with care as the next woman.

  A dark smudge advanced on her, and then Boudicca crept onto her lap, comfortingly heavy and soft, and making low yowls of distress.

  Lucie hugged the small furry body closer. “Don’t worry. I shall get up in a moment. I always do, you know that. I’m just feeling very sorry for myself right now.”

  A black paw landed on her chest, right where it was hurting.

  * * *

  Tristan saw and heard nothing on his way to his lodgings, consumed by the emotional carnage raging back in Norham Garden. Raging in his own chest. His disgust with himself was a physical thing, it strained his nerves and every fibre of his muscles. Tender feelings and his deviant ways evidently made terrible bedfellows. But he had had a long life of deviance and only a month of loving a woman and thus he had made a mistake. Old habits. He would rectify it, and woo Lucie back, because damned if it didn’t feel as though he had lost her today.

  He pounded his door in Logic Lane with his fist.

  A moment later, footfalls sounded. His eyes narrowed. Those were not the light steps of Avi.

  His body was humming with tension when a moment later, the door opened.

  His mind blanked.

  He was face-to-face with the Earl of Wycliffe.

  Chapter 33

  The earl, of average height and build, had to tip back his head to meet Tristan’s gaze, and his gray eyes briefly squinted with irritation.

  He was not nearly as irritated as Tristan. This was the man who had banished his own daughter, and he was standing in his corridor, unannounced and uninvited.

  “Good morning, Wycliffe,” he drawled. “What an unexpected honor.”

  Chiefly, it was unexpected. Whyever this man was here, his unannounced presence did not bode well.

  “Why don’t we take this inside, shall we,” Wycliffe suggested.

  There was a crowd in his reception room: Avi was skulking in front of the cold fireplace, looking tight-lipped and affronted, and, at a markedly safe distance away from him, stood a bespectacled man with the grave air of a solicitor and Wycliffe’s valet of twenty years. The valet was holding his crimson velvet topcoat. He must have left it at the fair last night.

  “I beg your pardon, milord,” Avi said, putting up his chin. “His lordship insisted.” His eyes flickered balefully toward the earl.

  “You did well.” He sounded calm. He felt calm, too, alarmingly so.

  He turned to the earl. “Pray, do tell how I may help you?”

  Wycliffe tipped his cane at his own valet. “Is this your coat?”

  “Given that my monogram and coat of arms are prominently displayed on the inner lining, I assume this is a rhetorical question. The question is, why do you ask?”

  Wycliffe’s face set in hard lines. “My ward, the Lady Cecily, returned to her hotel room wearing it,” he said. “At close to midnight last night, after a search party had come up empty-handed.”

  The world turned cold as the meaning of the words sank in.

  It was not yet nine o’clock. Whatever tale Cecily had told, it must have been cabled to Wycliffe Hall posthaste and spurred the earl to take the next train to Oxford.

  “What exactly are you implying?” he said, his voice very soft.

  Wycliffe raised a disbelieving brow at him. “That we have a situation.”

  “Actually, you and Lady Cecily have a situation.”

  “Of which you appear to be the cause.”

  “Is that what the lady claims?”

  Wycliffe’s expression was bemused. “She claims nothing, as one would expect in such a situation. What is clear is that you were seen together at a fair, just as you were seen leaving the fair together and so abruptly at that, it was impossible for Lady Wycliffe to follow her charge. What is also clear is that my niece was seen leaving the punt house at Lady Margaret Hall hours later, distraught, and wearing your coat, after a search party had been sent out for her.”

  The inside of his chest was ice. Circumstantial evidence would look crystal clear to the gossips. Who, at the end of the day, were the true judge and jury on such matters.

  “My coat may have been in the boathouse with her ladyship, but I certainly was not,” he said, to Avi rather than to Wycliffe, for his valet was regarding him with wide-eyed disappointment, and damned if that didn’t sting.

  “Then where were you between eight o’clock last night and midnight?” Wycliffe demanded.

  In the corner, the man in gray had begun scribbling in his notebook.

  And Tristan knew that he could not charm, or fight, or drink this away. It was coming at him with the unerring trajectory of a bullet, and he stood with his back against a wall.

  He nodded, as if to himself. “Where I spend my nights is none of your business,” he informed Wycliffe.

  The earl’s expression did not change; he had expected this. “Then I must ask you to accompany us to Wycliffe Hall.”

  “Of course,” Tristan said pleasantly. “As soon as my lawyer is here. Avi, be so kind and send a cable to Beedle’s St. James residence.”

  Wycliffe’s face fell. “To London?”

  “Yes.” Tristan sat down in the wing chair and stretched his long legs before him. “It should take him three hours at the most to make his way here. Do you care for any refreshments?”

  * * *

  The bright, airy luncheon room of the Randolph smelled of summer, courtesy of the flowers spilling from the generous centerpieces on every table. Tiered silver platters were laden with tea sandwiches and lemon curd tarts, and tiny violet jam pots to complement the scoops of clotted cream for the freshly baked scones. It should have been a perfect feast for a woman with a sweet tooth, but Lucie might as well have been spooning sawdust into her mouth. A numbness dulled her senses. Again and again, her mind drifted back to Tristan’s profile, looking so very pale, when he had walked past her kitchen window. It is over, she thought. She would never know his kisses again.

  “Dear, if you were of a mind to leave, no one would take offense.”

  The soft murmur went through her very bones.

  She slowly turned to Lady Salisbury, who occupied the chair to her right and had leaned in close. How did she know? Concern was writ plain on the countess’s face.

  She cleared her throat. “Apologies,” she said carefully. “I have been a trifle absentminded.”

  Lady Salisbury nodded. “Well, it is a shame,” she said. “Do keep in
mind it is not your fault, though some of them may sneer at you. Personally, I have never been fond of placing a whole house in Sippenhaft, collective punishment, for the foolishness of one of its members—it strikes me as a rather socialist thing to do.”

  This did not make much sense after all.

  She cast a furtive glance around the table, then the room. An undercurrent of tension hummed beneath the dazzling opulence, she now noticed; subtle, but oh, it was there. Gazes slid away when they met hers; heads that had been stuck together for some whispered gossip pulled apart.

  She put down the teacup she had been holding up mindlessly for the past minute.

  “Considering this is a celebratory luncheon, everyone seems vaguely nervous,” she murmured.

  Lady Salisbury shot her a poignant look. “Have you not heard?”

  “Heard what?”

  “Oh my, so you have not.”

  A prickle of alarm spread coldly down her back. “What happened?”

  Lady Salisbury looked left, then right, and leaned in closer still. “About your cousin—Lady Cecily,” she whispered. “Apparently, she did not come home after the fair last evening. There was a search party.”

  Lucie froze. “Has she been found?”

  The countess tutted. “She returned by herself. All in one piece. Well, almost.” Her left brow arched meaningfully. “Apparently, Lord Ballentine had disappeared with her. She was next seen late at dusk, wearing his coat.”

  Silence filled her head. The edges of her vision went white. Then the shapes and colors of the surroundings snapped sharply back into focus, and the murmur of voices swelled to a roar.

  “Lady Lucinda?”

  She stared back into Lady Salisbury’s quizzing blue eyes. “Impossible,” she whispered.

  The countess shook her head. “What a shame. Such a lovely girl. Now her engagement will be marred by scandal. Though the silly geese her age will no doubt find it all terribly romantic. . . .”

  She wanted to clap a hand over Lady Salisbury’s moving lips, to stem the flow of poison pouring into the room.

  All of this was a lie.

  And no one knew but him and her.

  Unless he had already told the truth, and she was now a social pariah.

  “Are you not well?” Lady Salisbury’s expression was genuinely concerned. “Deuce. I should not have broken the news so indelicately.”

  She shook her head. “Some fresh air is all I need.”

  Her stomach was churning with nausea.

  When a gentleman compromised an innocent lady, he married her. When the rumors were already out in force, he hardly had a choice—if he refused, he signed the lady’s social death warrant. And thus his own.

  She hurried from the room, murmuring apologies, staunchly avoiding prying stares and glances. She had to speak to Tristan.

  Oxford slipped by in a blur of noise and movements. Carriages rattling past. Passersby and students in black-and-white subfuscs dodging her with tuts and mutters. The Norman tower in Market Street loomed gray and crooked like a giant tombstone. At the clanging of the bells of St. Mary’s, she tried to collect herself, knowing she was near Logic Lane.

  She repeatedly jabbed her finger at the doorbell at number three.

  After a long minute, the door swung back to reveal Avi, his dark eyes narrow with distrust.

  Her heart sank. “Good morning, Avi.”

  “His lordship is not—”

  “Please.” She flattened her hand against the door. “I have important news for him.”

  Silence.

  “Avi, the sooner he knows, the better.”

  Avi’s face hardened as he deliberated. “Very well,” he finally muttered, and stepped back. “Perhaps milady would leave him a card or a note . . .”

  She pushed past him and made for the stairs.

  He was not here—the whole place felt forsaken. She circled around the landing, into his bedchamber, where the bed was neatly made and the divan was yawningly empty, save a book lying facedown. A fuzzy layer of dust covered his desk and the shelves. He had not been home much. He had spent the past few weeks in London, or with her.

  She raced down the stairs again, into the drawing room. Nothing, not even cold ash on the grate.

  “Milady—”

  She spun round and pinned the valet with a glare. “Is his disappearance related to an incident with Lady Cecily?”

  His brows rose. “I can’t possibly tell, milady.”

  “You can’t, or you won’t?”

  His lips pressed together.

  Lord, grant her patience. “Do you like his lordship?” she tried.

  Avi tilted his head. “Milord is, in his own way, a good master. But now I learn he may have compromised a young lady.”

  He looked genuinely distressed. He did not want Tristan to be guilty, she surmised.

  “I have reason to believe he did not compromise the lady,” she said.

  Avi stilled. “He did not? Well, I am pleased. I found myself surprised his lordship would do such a thing.”

  “I am here to help,” she said, which was a lie—she had come for help herself.

  “May I bring milady tea?” Avi regarded her warmly now. “A sherry, perhaps?”

  “Please just tell me what you know.”

  “Very well. They came here to wait for him—had I known, I would not have let them in. But I did, and so he went with them.”

  A terrible suspicion raised the hair on her nape. “Who were they?”

  “The Earl of Wycliffe, and his entourage.” He pursed his lips. “Unsavory fellows.”

  “Indeed,” she said darkly.

  “Very bad.”

  “What did they say? What did they want?”

  “They said his lordship and the lady had been seen leaving the fair together, and she came back alone at night, wearing his coat. Lord Ballentine could not provide an alibi. Milady?”

  She had sat down hard on a chair.

  “No alibi,” she repeated. “He did not tell them where he was last night?”

  Avi shook his head, and she could tell that his nimble mind was working out its own story about the situation. “They went to Wycliffe Hall,” he supplied. “Signing marriage contract papers, I believe.”

  “No.” She shot to her feet. “He can’t just marry someone based on an accusation. This is not the Middle Ages.”

  “But the lady’s reputation would be all but destroyed if word got out. As would his, if he didn’t confirm the betrothal.”

  “There is no betrothal,” she snapped.

  Avi bobbled his head. “There was an understanding, albeit an informal one.”

  He was right. She began to pace around the room. He had not provided an alibi. He was protecting her, and it unleashed a storm of hot emotions in her chest.

  “I understand society may secretly adore a rogue,” Avi said. “But they will cut one who turns against one of their innocents.”

  She gave a hollow laugh. “They will.”

  “And he cannot afford a soiled reputation, quite literally, can he now.”

  She paused the to-ing and fro-ing. “What do you mean?”

  “Perhaps milady is aware that Lord Ballentine took a loan from a bad man?”

  “Goodness, yes. Mr. Blackstone.”

  Avi gave her a grave look. “If he became known for ruining a debutante or breaching an engagement promise, who will buy his books? How could the ladies still find his romantic poetry appealing? And then how will he pay back the loan?”

  With every question, she felt dizzier.

  “The Prince of Wales will withdraw his endorsement for the other books.” She met Avi’s eyes. “One does not default on a Blackstone loan, I suppose.”

  “I suppose not,” Avi said politely.

  “I im
agine doing so would entail more than a crippling interest rate.”

  “I imagine so, milady.”

  She sank back onto the chair. “It’s worse,” she said. “We had to purchase capacity from another publishing house. The production has begun, but customers will return their orders. And we had considerable costs for the refurbishment . . .” She caught herself. Avi’s eyes had become huge, and she had no business distressing the man further.

  She took a deep breath. “When did they leave?”

  Avi’s gaze shifted to the clock on the mantelpiece. “Around half an hour ago, milady.”

  Her pace slowed when she was back on High Street, because her legs were shaking. She paused next to a carved blue pillar of the Oxford Marmalade Shop. Behind the window, jam jars were artfully arranged in a pyramid.

  Perhaps Tristan had named her as his alibi by now. Perhaps he would honorably take their secret to his grave. She couldn’t tell which terrified her more. Terrified. She was that.

  Because wedged between a marmalade pyramid and groups of students hasting past, she had a decision to make, and quick. On the other side of the street, the long arm of the clock on St. Mary’s tower stood at nearly a quarter to twelve. The next train bound toward Wycliffe Hall left shortly past noon. Two minutes. She had two minutes to decide whether to board that train.

  She couldn’t breathe.

  Tristan would know exactly what was at stake for him. He did not want Cecily but marrying her was now his most convenient option both socially and financially. Even if he opted to prove his innocence by throwing her, Lucie, to the wolves, they might well compel him to marry Cecily anyway, for her innocent reputation would require protection now while presumably no one cared about protecting Lucie’s blackened one.

  Tristan was not going to name her. It was in his blood to shield someone who could no longer defend himself and he bore the scars to prove it. He would never pull the trigger on a defenseless woman.

  So she could just go back home. She could carry on with the life she had built. The day Tristan would have made another woman his countess had long been looming.