A Rogue of One's Own

Tristan’s expression was unreadable, and he was silent.

She put up her chin, inviting his rebuttal.

He just nodded and resumed watching the sun set again, exhaling smoke.

She shifted on the bench. “Well?”

“Well,” he drawled. “It poses an interesting problem.”

“Oh,” she said, and then: “Which problem?”

He glanced at her, then, a cynical edge to his lips. “By your logic, only a flawless paragon of a man is entitled to create things of beauty,” he said. He smiled widely enough to show teeth. “There goes poetry, then. How about music? The composers were by and large insufferable.”

And, when she was silent, he continued: “We would also have considerably fewer paintings. The adorable Pre-Raphaelites, with all the titian hair and knights and maidens? Millais stole Ruskin’s wife from right under his nose to make her his own—rude, I admit, but will you not look at his Ophelia again?”

“Your feathers are ruffled,” she said, astonished.

He stilled. “Ruffled feathers,” he repeated, his eyes narrowing. “God. You will tell me not to worry my silly little head next, won’t you.”

“Would it help?”

His head tipped back on a surprised bark of laughter. “Not at all.”

She gave a shrug. “Naturally. It never helps us to hear it, either.”

“Duly noted,” he said, grinning still.

Strange. She had never seen him laugh before. He’d mastered every variant of a seductive smile, but he never laughed. A good thing, perhaps, because his cheeks dimpled very charmingly when he did, and he had enviably attractive teeth.

Behind the folly, the last pink-hued clouds were usurped by midnight blue.

It wasn’t wise to sit with him alone in the dusk, warmed by wine, drawing the cigarette smoke leaving his lungs into her own. They were on their way to a civil, if not intimate, conversation, and she should truncate it now.

“I do not demand a paragon, nor perfection,” she said instead. “I just want the truth.”

She felt him sober then, and when she glanced at him, she saw that the mirth was fading from his eyes.

“Just,” he repeated. “Just the truth.”

“Honesty, truth. Authenticity. However you wish to call it.”

“That is, in fact, a lot to ask.”

She gave a shrug. “But is anything worth having without it?”

“Little puritan,” he muttered. “You truly are a fervent idealist.”

Her brows rose in surprise. “I don’t think I have ever been called such.”

“An idealist?”

“Yes. They usually call me a terrible cynic.”

Why she would tell him this, she did not know. She knew his words about the paragons had made her think, and she was intrigued that he would have this effect on her.

“It’s quite the same,” Tristan said. “Idealism, cynicism. Two sides of the same coin.”

“And the coin, what would it be?”

He waved his hand with the cigarette. “A yearning to control our fickle destinies.” His tone was faintly dramatic. “The cynic is but an idealist who preempts the shock of disappointment by deriding everything himself. Both have expectations that are rather too lofty. And you should consider reading Tennyson, if you haven’t already. I have a feeling both the subject matter of his poems and his moral character would pass your scrutiny.”

Her stomach fluttered with unease. Recommending books to her now, was he, as a friend would.

The air warmed around her, or perhaps it was the heat of his body, because the distance between them had melted. She could smell him, the note of his shaving soap more prominent tonight.

She slid back an inch or two. He refrained from following, he was too clever for that. But a knowing smile played over his lips, and it made her bristle.

“You made the fencing club donate a handsome sum to the suffrage cause,” she said.

He looked unsurprised but took his time to blow a smoke ring before saying: “I did?”

“Yes,” she said, impatience creeping into her tone. “How?”

His smile was vague. “I’d rather not disclose it. You would condemn me bitterly, little puritan.”

“At least tell me why?”

He raised his brows. “Who knows. Perhaps I am trying to get into your good graces, so you will give in to your attraction at last and come to me.”

His resonant voice had gone deeper and scratchy on the edges when he said come to me, and it sent a hot jolt of emotions from her middle down into her toes. For a beat, she was back in the stables, on top of him, possessed by the dark need to feel his mouth on hers.

She shifted uneasily. She had let things go too far tonight, here on this bench. She could not trust him; worse, she could not trust herself around him. Tristan would never reliably act the gentleman and save her from her own audacity. He would go along as far as her curiosity, no, her weakness, would take them, and provoke her to go further still.

She came to her feet. Her legs were stiff. The cold of the granite had seeped through her thin skirts into her skin unnoticed.

“For a reputed gambler, you show your hand rather carelessly,” she said coolly.

He laughed softly. “Hiding in plain sight can be quite effective in certain cases. Why don’t you try it yourself, sometime.”

She looked down her nose at him. “Hiding in plain sight?”

“No. Seduction.”

She scoffed. “From what I observe, being female and breathing is enough to provoke interest in most men.”

“Not men,” he said derisively. “A low standard by anyone’s imagination. No, try society. That ignorant, fickle, illiberal monolith.”

She found his eyes unfathomable and wondered how much he knew of her current attempts to become more likable. Wondered whether all this was part of his seduction of her, too.

He gave her a placating smile, as if sensing the turn her mind had taken. “Society is dumber but stronger than you,” he murmured. “Be devious. Be subtle. If you can.”

She left him as quickly as her narrow skirts allowed, feeling the weight of his gaze between her bare shoulder blades. Her pulse was running high. She had long assumed Tristan was careless and grew bored easily because his mind was lazy. She had been wrong. He grew bored easily because his mind was working entirely too fast.

She found she was not inclined to mingle with guests and chatter about inconsequential things when she reentered the green salon, and so she took to her room.

Give in to your attraction and come to me.

His words were pure provocation, but his baritone kept resonating, kept heating her from the inside out. Words mattered. She knew this. The manner with which they were said mattered, too. This, she might have underestimated.

She pulled a handful of copies of the Discerning Ladies’ Magazine from her carpet bag and spread them out on the small cherrywood desk, next to a stack of copies of The Female Citizen, which she had not yet had time to read.

She soon transferred the periodicals onto the rug in the middle of the room, each issue open at the beginning of a different section.

The structure of the content was the same in each issue: first the reports on major society events—balls, weddings, exhibitions—then the prints of fashion plates and advice on good manners, then the recipes. Miscellaneous household management advice filled the largest section. The final page featured a piece of sugary fiction. In between, elaborate advertisements for corsets, potions, dressmakers.

A story of sorts on each page, each in their own way trying to appeal. All of them trying to regulate, stating rules on how to do things right. Bewildering. If it was truly in woman’s nature to be an ever demure and pleasant sunbeam in the gloom, why then, it took an awful lot of ink and instructions to keep reminding woman of this nature of hers. . . .

Be devious. Be subtle.

She was in no mood to go and search for Hattie and Catriona in this cavernous house, and Annabelle would be occupied past midnight with hosting duties. With the help of obliging footmen, she had a note delivered to each of her friends’ rooms, requesting a meeting in her chambers before breakfast come morning. Upon second thoughts, she wrote a fourth note and sent it to Lady Salisbury.

Chapter 19

I may have an idea how to use the magazines,” she said when everyone had gathered round the rug on her chamber floor.

Her friends looked up from the chaos she had created last night, eyeing her with varying degrees of intrigue.

“I’m all ears,” Lady Salisbury said. She was comfortably settled in the wing chair in a pool of morning sun, her cane leaning against the armrest.

“It is not a coup anymore,” Lucie conceded. “But rather, a gradual undermining.” She picked up a copy of the Discerning Ladies’ Magazine. “These periodicals tell women everywhere, every week, how best to dress, cook, act, and what happens in society. These could be powerful vehicles, Trojan horses, if you will, as long as we ensure that every section relegates a suffragist message—but in a subtle manner.”

Blatant astonishment filled the room. Possibly because she had used the word subtle.

“See here,” she said impatiently. “It is hardly a new idea to use periodicals to inform women readers about politics. There was the English Woman’s Journal, and the Female’s Friend, for a start. However, these magazines all perished after just a couple of years in circulation. The readership was too small; even if all women miraculously agreed with the Cause, budgets are still tight, and much as it pains me, few can afford to choose critical essays over advice on how to run an efficient household. I therefore suggest we make it convenient and feasible for women to have both: household and fashion advice, and gentle reminders that we are, in effect, chattel. In one periodical.”