A Rogue of One's Own

“I don’t force my attentions on women,” he said quietly. “I never have.”

She had never seen him so annoyed, all languor gone. She was transfixed despite herself.

“Then why insist she accompany you outside?” she managed.

He gave a shrug. “I don’t quite recall. I was likely bored. Perhaps I felt she was wasted as a wallflower, and that she required some assistance. Propriety is dreadfully pervasive among the middle classes—much to the detriment of their own enjoyment. It does not mean I would have taken liberties against her will.”

“You arrogant cad—you claim you were doing her a favor.”

“Well, we shall never know, shall we? Montgomery became a little territorial, seeing his future duchess on my arm, and I thought it wise to retreat before he ordered one of his minions to run me through on the ballroom parquet.”

If he was lying, it was indeed impossible to tell. His eyes were a murky mélange of amber and green, and the more deeply she looked the fuzzier she felt. She realized she had leaned in close enough to feel his breath softly brush her cheek. Unbidden, her gaze strayed to his left cheekbone. Long ago in Wycliffe Park, it had borne a perfect imprint of her hand after she had slapped him, gripped by a terrible, angry sense of helplessness of which he had not been the cause. . . .

The waiter hurried back into the room and slowed abruptly at seeing their heads stuck together so intimately. Lucie drew back, allowing two steaming cups to be placed on the table.

She reached for her spoon and gave her coffee a superfluous stir. “What brings you to England in the first place?”

Tristan gave her a last assessing look, and then the rigidness in his shoulders eased and he leaned back into his chair. “I sold out.”

“Already?”

He hadn’t yet made the rank of captain, when he should have, after six years in the army. But then, if rumors could be trusted, his disobedience, which saw him frolicking in a river while his comrades were under fire, had been a reoccurring problem, and it was astonishing he hadn’t been dishonorably discharged several times over.

He smiled in some mild amusement. “There is not much to be had after the Victoria Cross, Lucie.”

Well. There was that. He had been awarded the highest military honor of the country. The Ballentine men always distinguished themselves on the battlefield; With Valor and Vigor was their family motto. His older brother, Marcus, had advanced rapidly through his naval career, until a riding accident had put a tragic end to it all.

She eyed Tristan’s left hand, wrapped loosely around his coffee cup. The signet ring of the House of Rochester encircled his little finger, its ruby glistening like a fat dollop of blood. This was likely the real reason why he had sold out—as the last heir, he must not risk his life on front lines. His main responsibility now was to secure the family line and to quickly learn everything the previous Lord Ballentine had been taught from the cradle. It made her wonder: Had grief drawn the fine lines across his brow? Their mothers had been close friends once; perhaps they were friendly still. It would be within the bounds of etiquette to inquire after the well-being of Lady Rochester, or even his. However, inquiries of the kind might unexpectedly stir unwanted memories and sentiments. Besides, she was currently sharing a table with him because he was not up to any good. A hero and a pest, a man can be both. The reasons for their meeting, she suspected, were firmly inspired by the pest side of him.

“Now,” she said. “Who told you I was an expert in the publishing industry?”

His lips quirked. “My lawyer. He insists on giving me a lecture on the state of the British economy every month. Apparently, we currently own over twenty percent of world trade, and you are busy buying publishing houses.”

Tristan had a lawyer. Who would have thought.

She raised her chin. “And what sparked your sudden interest in women readers?”

He picked up his spoon. “Even more interesting is the question: what sparked yours?”

Her brows lowered. “What do you mean?”

He was toying with the spoon now, turning it back and forth as a child would, admiring his upside-down reflection. “It’s an interesting match, isn’t it,” he said. “A woman with your views and ambitions, acquiring a majority stake in one of Britain’s established women’s magazine publishers. Such wholesome magazines, too.”

She sat oddly frozen, like a rabbit unexpectedly stumbling upon a lethal predator.

What did he know?

Nothing. He knew nothing, and even if he did know something, it would be of no consequence to him.

He looked up from the spoon then, his eyes cold and intent.

She nearly recoiled. She had felt him inside her head for a beat, his gaze entering her as easily as light filtering through a cotton sheet. And she must have schooled her features a fraction too late, for there was a hint of a smile on Tristan’s lips and it was not a friendly one.

She forced a cool smile of her own. “It’s not unheard of to hold multiple interests. You see, I can both champion women’s political rights and still be keen on a good business opportunity. In fact, the two go very well together—the suffrage movement is an expensive undertaking. It costs time, too, and presently, you are wasting mine.”

He inclined his head. “Well then. If I were of a mind to publish a book,” he said slowly, “should it be by Anonymous, or by a John Miller, or by Lord Ballentine?”

His hesitation gave her pause. “This is not a rhetorical question, is it,” she then said. “You have already written the book.”

He nodded. “The question is whether my name, or, rather, the reputation attached to it, would entice or deter the good women of Britain to purchase it. My instinct tells me they would throw their pin money at my works.”

“You are asking whether women would purchase something not for its content or quality but because it was associated with your name?”

His brows rose at her incredulous tone. “Content and quality are excellent, but yes.”

“That’s preposterous. You are hardly enough of a rogue as to turn it into profit.”

“Now, there’s a challenge. But let us assume the book exists and is already profitably published, and what I have in mind is a new edition with the Ballentine name.”

“Already published,” she echoed, not liking the tickling sensation on her nape. “What sort of book is it, anyway? It’s a war diary, isn’t it?”

A look of surprise passed over his face. “No,” he said. “It would be poetry.”

“Poetry.”

“Yes.”

“War poetry?” she tried.

Again, a hesitation. “No,” he said. “Romantic poetry.”

* * *

Her gray gaze sharpened on him, pricking his skin like a blunted razor blade. Ironic, because he was truthful about the poetry and about his interest in her opinion—but she was right to suspect deviousness of sorts. Clever as a cat, Lucie. And quite incapable of deviousness herself, so despite all the battles she had fought, one could still call her naïve. He had just read her face like an open book—the hell did she want London Print solely for business reasons.

He picked up his coffee cup and drank without tasting the black brew. She had a habit of making things difficult for him. Undoubtedly, she made things difficult for herself, too. The two frown lines, rigidly upstanding between her slender brows, made his thumb twitch with the irrational desire to smooth them. She probably still thought she could take on the ills of humanity with her bare hands because she had justice on her side. To hold any such conviction was of course a source of endless frustration. Otherwise, he would have envied her the purity of her single-minded rage and determination. She would never wake in the morning and stare at the ceiling, wondering where to go this day.

“Romantic poetry,” she said. Her tone was belittling, as though poetry held as much gravity as nursery rhymes. It could have crushed a wordsmith; poets were saddled with sensitive souls, after all, but, having successfully rid himself of both sensibilities and much of his soul, he just felt his male instincts stir, keen to pick up the gauntlet. A bad direction for his mind to take, in a public coffee room, as the scenario of vanquishing Lucie Tedbury inevitably ended with her in the nude, her fair skin flushed with desire and her tongue busy with something other than trying to cut him down to size. . . . Her eyes widened, and he realized he might have growled.

“Coffee,” he said, clearing his throat. “Irritating stuff.”

He’d never know her reply, for she became distracted by a small commotion behind his back.

He glanced over his shoulder.

Three young women were forming an excited, tittering cluster in the doorway to the tearoom. He had registered them earlier, when they had made their way upstairs amid giggles and hushed whispers. They must have dawdled in silence somewhere out of sight and had now decided to advance. Shopgirls, by the looks of it. Rosy cheeks all around. A little young to be out without a chaperone, even as a group. They tried to halfheartedly hide behind each other as he surveyed them.

“Good morning, lovelies,” he said. “Can we be of assistance?”

Their enthusiasm rushed toward him like a breeze.

“Lord Ballentine.”