A Rogue of One's Own

* * *

She had not slowed down. The thought kept circling with the grim persistence of a vulture as Tristan strode through the rain. Round and round the image went, of Lucie’s narrow shoulders pulling back as she marched toward five men.

His feet took the turn onto Broad Street on their own volition, driven by a cold emotion which had to be rage. Was she unaware how easily she could be harmed? Was she suffering illusions about her size and strength? She does know. She carried a pistol in her skirts. He was the fool, having for inexplicable reasons deemed her unbreakable.

His pulse was still high by the time he strolled into the ivy-covered porter’s lodge of Trinity College and infused his gait with an inebriated sway.

A porter manned the desk, looking as uncircumventable as his position demanded: stout, and with a decidedly resolute face beneath the hat of his uniform.

Tristan placed his signet ring onto the counter.

“This must be delivered to Mr. Wyndham posthaste,” he announced. “Room number twelve, in the west wing.”

The porter squinted at him, then the ring, and back at him, his watery eyes assessing.

It was past the curfew, and thus the gates to the Oxford colleges were locked and blocked by porters who had become quite inured to lordly behavior after years of managing student antics, and as such were a rather formidable match for a would-be intruder. Any students returning at this hour required a special permission to enter; any visitors would find themselves out in the cold unless they, too, had a written permission. Or, unless they remembered from their own student days where to climb the wall surrounding Trinity gardens from the Parks Road side.

“I would place it in his pigeonhole,” Tristan said, leaning in close and speaking too loudly. “But as you may have guessed, since you have the look of a clever chap about you, this”—he gestured a vague circle around the ring—“has some sentimental value attached to it.”

The porter’s expression became very stolid. “Indeed, my lord.”

“Excellent,” said Tristan, his eyebrow arching expectantly.

“If his lordship returned tomorrow, during the daytime, Mr. Wyndham would be available, here in the lodge, for a safe delivery of the valuable.”

He shook his head. “This is a matter between gentlemen which must be brought to conclusion tonight.” His voice had lowered to a dramatic murmur. “So if you were so kind as to deliver it to room number twelve, in the west wing, right now, I should be much obliged.”

“The hour is late, my lord.”

“Much obliged,” Tristan repeated.

The porter clearly wished to boot him out of the lodge posthaste, but much as Tristan had expected, he decided to bow to rank on a matter as inconsequential as a room delivery rather than rile an already troublesome and intoxicated nobleman.

“Very well,” the man said. “Is the ring destined for room number twelve in the west wing, then, or for Mr. Wyndham?”

“Good man, you speak in riddles. I’m not in the mood for riddles.”

“No riddles—Mr. Wyndham is not in room number twelve in the west wing.”

Tristan tilted his head. “You are jesting, then.”

“I don’t jest, my lord.”

“Oh good, for I’m not in the mood for jests, either.”

He really was not, in fact. He wanted to get his hands on Mr. Wyndham.

The porter’s lips set in a line. “You have either the room correct, or the recipient—which one shall it be?”

“Who delivers things to rooms?” Tristan wondered. “What would a room do with my ring? Of course it must go to Mr. Wyndham.”

“Very well,” said the porter, at this point, quite possibly, thinking the French had had the right idea to cull the titled classes. “I shall deliver the ring to Mr. Wyndham.”

“To room number twelve,” Tristan said brightly.

“No, because he does not reside there.”

“And yet I have it on good account that he does,” Tristan said. “It saddens me to say so, but I am losing faith in a safe delivery at your hands.” His eyes narrowed. “Is it a trick, perhaps? Assuring me the ring will be brought to Mr. Wyndham, but because of an unfortunate confusion over the room number, it never arrives at all? Ends up in the wrong hands altogether, perhaps?”

The insinuation that the man was presently planning to steal his signet ring had the porter draw himself up to his full height and straighten his hat. “Tricks!” he snarled. He turned to pick up the sacred leather-bound ledger from the porter’s desk, to which it was attached with a chain, placed it onto the counter, rapidly flicked through the pages, then spun the ledger round and thrust it toward Tristan, his blunt fingertip tapping on a line.

Mr. Thomas Wyndham resided in room number nine in the east wing.

“I see,” he said softly. “A misunderstanding, then. No, no.” He placed his hand over the ring before the porter could pick it up. “Perhaps the matter is not quite as pressing. I shall take my leave.”

* * *

The climb over the slippery garden wall to reenter the Trinity grounds was satisfyingly compensated by the look of horror on Wyndham’s long face when he found himself facing Tristan on the doorstep to room number nine. He was in his shirtsleeves, probably in the process of readying himself for bed.

“What is this?” he said sharply, when Tristan used the moment of surprise to push past him into the room. Without the company of his fellow fencers, he did not quite display the measure of bravado as earlier in the park, when Tristan and he had stood toe-to-toe the first time.

“Wyndham,” Tristan said, and closed the door. “I have a proposition for you.”

“The hell,” said the man whose name was Wyndham. “We have never been introduced!”

“Indeed, we have not,” Tristan said. “But your scarf is rather chatty.” He nodded at it, the scarf, dangling from the clothing rack next to the wardrobe, having fulfilled its function for today’s sporting event. And when the young man looked from him to the scarf with a painful lack of comprehension, he added, almost gently: “Your college colors. And it happens to have the Wyndham coat of arms stitched onto it rather prominently, too.”

Wyndham’s dark eyes narrowed, but his throat moved nervously. “What—what do you want? We parted ways in the park; no offenses were taken.”

Lucie’s tired face flashed before his eyes. He had never seen the little shrew in such a sorry state as when she had leaned against her entrance door, damp and somewhat crumpled. Something about the idea of her being laid low by a band of cowardly dimwits grated on the aesthete in him, and it made him irrationally bloodthirsty.

“I was wondering, old boy,” he said to Wyndham, “how highly you prize your sword hand.”

Chapter 14

Monday morning, three days after escorting Lucie home, Tristan was summoned to Ashdown at short notice, and he was fairly certain why Rochester demanded his presence.

His suspicion was confirmed the moment he strolled into the crypt. Rochester was hovering next to his desk, dark with fury like an angel of wrath.

A newspaper was spread wide open on the tabletop.

The gossip rag the Pall Mall Gazette.

“Explain. This.” Rochester’s index finger repeatedly came down hard on the page.

No need to take a closer look. The paper was yesterday’s news. He knew the page showed a caricature of an overly tall, well-dressed gentleman with a lusty grin (himself) leading a keen-looking puppy down a cobblestoned street. With some imagination, the tag on the dog collar bore resemblance to the crest of Doncaster. A gentleman’s evening stroll, read the caption. Fairly tame. The audacity had left the cartoonist on the last yard.

“What do you have to say for yourself?” barked Rochester.

He clasped his hands behind his back. “It was Oscar Wilde’s fault.”

“My pardon?”

“It’s a silly cartoon.”

Rochester looked about to breathe fire. “It nearly cost me your engagement.”

His muscles hardened to stone. His engagement. It could have been amusing, had it not been for Mother languishing upstairs in the west wing, a chokehold around his neck.

“Lord Arthur was drunk,” he said. “Other drunk students saw him acting like a fool. Someone thought it would be amusing to draw a cartoon.”

And this was really all he could say.

Rochester took a step and stood rather close. A black emotion broiled in the depths of his eyes. “You were hard to stomach as my second son,” he said softly. “As my heir, you make me sick.”

Well. That managed to twist his gut. Rochester’s disregard for him was hardly a secret, but right now, the depths of his contempt felt bottomless.

Rochester moved back to the desk. “This needs to be fixed,” he said. “Here is how.” He picked up a piece of paper. A list. The man had written him a list. Because Mother was still languishing in the west wing, he took it and gave it a perfunctory glance.

A bemused frown crinkled his brow. “I’m to attend the house party of a scandalous duke and court an old acquaintance? That is your plan to clear my name?”

“Montgomery is a fool to have married his strumpet,” Rochester said, “but at the end of the day, the man cannot be ignored when he sends an invitation and the prince is his guest. One of us must attend. Under the circumstances, it shall be you.” He said it with an expression of disdain. It had to grate on Rochester’s soul like a rusty knife that someone had rebelled against the holy trinity of Queen, Tradition, and Society and was still standing when the dust had settled. It was quite impossible to truly bring down a duke; once a man like Montgomery broke the chains hampering his mind, he was free to pursue his carnal desires instead of strategy. A loathsome thing, an unchained mind, so very uncontrollable.