A Rogue of One's Own

“Did I scatter a few pamphlets around a ducal palace?” he said. “To discredit you? When no one with an ounce of brain matter would contemplate such a thing?”

Her gaze was sharp like the point of a dagger, trying to make forays into his very soul. “It is no secret that you are trying to outmaneuver me.”

She did not think he had much of a brain, he remembered. Lazy or a fool, she had called him, or maybe both, and it seemed she had returned to regarding him such.

“I suppose you think our dance last night was also part of a ploy,” he said.

“I don’t know what to think about you anymore.” She stepped closer, bringing with her the clean scent of lemons. Her upturned face was tense with rancor. “Sometimes, I think you do not know whether you would rather seduce or sabotage me.”

He shrugged. “It would amount to the same thing, would it not?”

Her chin jutted out. “I admit, I briefly thought there was more to you.”

He could have handled it like the adult man he was. Instead, he allowed the carrot-haired boy to take the reins. “Why not take my offer and be certain, how much there is to me?” he murmured. “It stands for the summer, remember?”

He didn’t bother to watch her walk away. Her back would be rigid, her skirts snapping, and all things considered, it was better that way. He needed a brief respite from her. He might have set out to seduce her, but dancing with her, flirting with her, revealing pieces of himself to lure her in had evidently begun to affect him, too, laying parts of him he had not realized he still possessed bare to her attacks, and he needed to regroup.

Chapter 21

I favor this one.” Lucie slid the magazine toward Hattie across the office desk, her index finger on the open page.

Hattie briefly peered at the fabric sample beneath the black-and-white lithography, then shook her head with such vigor, the pearls on her earrings clicked together. “You need them to be heavier, and they most certainly should not be purple. Purple, Lucie?”

“Why not?”

“Because it is purple.”

“A color that has gravity, but is not gray, which is drab, as you informed me. And I prefer a lighter fabric over a thick one—airy rooms lift the human spirit. It says so in the piece on page twenty-seven in this magazine.”

Hattie’s lips remained firmly pressed into a line.

“All right,” Lucie said evenly. “No purple.”

She should have never become involved in selecting curtains—there were only twenty-four hours in the day and there was presently little progress on more pressing tasks on her list. But since last week at Claremont they had decided on a gentle reform rather than a coup, it stood to reason that London Print would continue to exist, if not expand, and therefore it required a look reflecting their new direction and a space accommodating of female employees. To her surprise, Tristan had simply nodded and signed off her budget proposal when she had presented the measures required for the refurbishment. Ever since, new furniture arrived, worn carpets were discarded, and a partition was being torn down. The process stirred up a lot of dust, and the heavy thud of workmen’s boots echoed up and down the hallways of the office floor. The staff grumbled as they continued to work amid the chaos. They could not just take a week’s leave, thanks to an explosion in orders for Tristan’s works—word that the Prince of Wales had endorsed the diaries had quickly spread far and wide. The production manager was already in an uproar. “We can manage one of the books on time, but not both of them, certainly not if you also wish to redesign the periodicals,” he had cried at their last meeting, red in the face with exasperation.

A faint ticking began in Lucie’s temples as she recalled the meeting. Her life, so carefully calibrated over the years to accommodate all her different duties, was perilously close to staggering around like a drunk. Consider delegating more . . . delegating is an art form. Easy for Melvin to say. She could of course put Hattie fully in charge of the décor, but just yesterday her friend had proposed wall tapestries depicting kittens for the women’s office, and much as she loved cats, this was not her vision for London Print. If she tasked someone other than Hattie, her friend’s sensibilities would be hurt, which would result in a drawn-out sulk. Lord help whoever got between Hattie and her quest for her next project.

“What do you think of midnight blue?” Hattie said. “Blue is calming—”

The largest of the bells on the wall behind them rang; whoever was currently staffing the desk in the antechamber was asking for permission to enter.

“Excuse me.” She gave her own bellpull a tug, and a moment later, Lady Athena, niece of the Countess of Salisbury, stuck her strawberry-blond head into the room. “Apologies for disturbing you, but the overseer of the workmen is asking where to place the crates with the new stationery.”

Lucie gestured at Hattie. “Lady Athena, allow me to introduce Miss Greenfield. Hattie, Lady Athena is currently standing in as staff for, well, every vacant position, and she shall be in charge of curating the content for the Discerning Ladies’ Magazine.” She glanced back at the young woman at the door. “Please tell the man to place the crates in the storage room, as we discussed this morning.”

“I did,” Lady Athena said tightly. “He insisted I confirm it with the gentleman in charge.”

“Naturally. Do you feel comfortable telling him that you are tasked with giving the instructions and if he wishes to get paid, he refrain from disturbing the gentleman in charge?”

“Exceedingly comfortable,” Athena said, determination hardening her intelligent face as she closed the door.

Hattie gave her a questioning look. “She seems very competent.”

“So far, she is.”

“Is she a suffragist?”

“At heart, I think she is; officially, not yet.”

“You shall recruit her eventually,” Hattie said with confidence. “Whatever happened to the old receptionist?”

“He handed in his notice on the day Mr. Barnes left.”

“Oh.”

Lucie shrugged. “It left an additional vacancy for a woman in need of employment. I scheduled a first round of interviews to staff the positions for tomorrow.”

“Now, that’s exciting.” Hattie’s eyes were sparkling, because as someone who would never have to apply for a position unless she insisted she wanted one, she found breadwinning, applications, and interviews exotic and intriguing to witness.

“The advert was in all major newspapers yesterday,” Lucie said. “We are also looking for a new typist, as well as an additional copy editor.”

Hattie’s brows rose. “I understand it’s not entirely uncommon for a woman to train as a typist these days, but I haven’t heard of any female copy editors.”

“There are—there must be. Emily Faithfull ran Victoria Press in the sixties, and her office was staffed entirely by women. I made some inquiries last week, and I understand the press is in a man’s hands now, but I am planning to pay him a visit, to take a closer look at the press and to speak to any remaining female employees.”

“That sounds clever,” Hattie confirmed.

“Still,” Lucie said, “what I really need is a woman capable of running the entire operation.”

“Which operation?”

“This.” Her sweeping gesture included the desk, the half-emptied, sagging shelves, and the chandelier with its dusty crystal drops. “I cannot run a publishing house in addition to the suffrage movement. I was in a position to bring enough women investors together to purchase it, and I must help ensure the right future direction, but running the day-to-day business—how?”

“No, of course you cannot,” Hattie said. “Do you have anyone in mind?”

If only. She rubbed her temples. The pulsing headache was a frequent companion lately. It would vanish if she took a few days in the country and rested her eyes, but she would not have time to do so for a while.

“I reckon Lady Athena shall rise to the occasion, but the transition period is a challenge,” she said, wondering not for the first time about the all-around haphazard planning. “And now there’s also the added difficulty of her needing to handle Lord Ballentine.”

Hattie made to say something, which she swallowed back down, her white throat moving, and she settled for a polite “Hmm.”

“Hmm?”

Hattie closed the magazine, then opened it again. “Perhaps it will be less challenging than you think,” she said, “finding a woman who will be able to handle Lord Ballentine. Just make sure she’s older and acting very stalwartly, like a headmistress, perhaps.”

“But I am older and acting stalwartly.”

“Of course,” Hattie said quickly. “But wouldn’t you agree that there is a rather, erm, special antagonism between the two of you?”

Lucie’s brows came down. “No. I feel our antagonism is perfectly normal.”

Though she couldn’t deny that it had taken a turn for the worse. After mildly intoxicated discussions on garden benches and a dreamy waltz, the return to reality had been jarring. It was still unclear who was responsible for the pamphlet incident, but she had not apologized for suspecting Tristan, for he hadn’t denied it, and now he was more villainous than before. Since their return, he had scheduled several meetings pertaining to his books with staff and suppliers and she had not received an invitation. Every time they were both in the office, she saw him strutting around and sticking his nose into the different departments, asking questions, requesting ledgers, and yesterday, he had drawn up a plan outlining changes he deemed necessary for the distribution process of the book division—again without consulting her. But while he was certainly trying to provoke her, it was more worrying that he appeared to take a genuine interest in the workings and improvement of the enterprise. And unlike her, he had a lot of time on his hands to be in the office from morning till night and to delve into the details. Worse, though their truce appeared to be over, her erotic dreams of him were not. Ludicrous scenarios slipped into her sleep at will at night, and no matter how heated the chase, he always dissolved with his lips still an inch away from touching hers. It left her with a perpetual irritability throughout the day.