A Rogue of One's Own
Oh, her heart. “You have given your intelligence to the owner of the Manchester Guardian in exchange for him running our report?”
He nodded. “I believe headlines in a national newspaper will serve you even better than using the periodicals as Trojan horses. It has a wider reach; meanwhile, you can keep your periodicals.”
Her pulse was spiking now. “Why did you? Why did you do this?”
“Because I could,” he said. “My ledger contains a number of potential clues for troubling some high and mighty fellows, and they are worth their weight in gold for investigative journalists of liberal newspapers.”
She must have been in a shock; she felt quite frozen. “I should be jumping up and down with joy,” she said slowly, “and then again, I should feel put out, that it took you to masterfully solve our conundrum.”
“Me—a man, you mean.”
“Yes.”
He chuckled. “You would have such reservations. But be assured, the ledger was yours the moment you stormed into Wycliffe’s library like Joan of Arc on a quest to rescue me, as I would have used it up in some fashion when winding my way out of that trap.”
She had a good idea what this must have cost him to let go of his potential income source, after everything she now knew about his situation, of his life lived striving for freedom from a tyrant’s purse strings. Granted, their publisher was well on course to make them very comfortable in their own right, but old habits died hard. Old fears ran deep. And didn’t she know it.
“I cannot believe you have given away all your leverage to the Guardian—for the Cause.” She sounded amazed to her own ears.
“Most of it, I should have specified.” He sounded vaguely apologetic.
Of course, he would not give away all his aces. Tristan would probably always have a last card up his sleeve. Part of her found it very reassuring.
“The report will make headlines—will they name me?”
He shook his head. “They will not name any names.”
She had to lean against the desk for support. The truth would be out. And she needn’t choose between a coup and a reform by stealth. And yet. The storm of exaltation did not come. Her chest was still as tight, her pulse as erratic, as when she had entered his office. Today, work was not her priority.
She met Tristan’s gaze directly. “No more secrets.”
His features sharpened with alertness. “Between you and me? I agree. My secrecy was unforgivable.”
“Well,” she said. “Not unforgivable under the circumstances—not entirely.”
His eyes were reading her intently. “You have had a change of mind, then.”
“I know about Boudicca.”
He tensed as though he had been caught in the act entirely unexpected. Like a boy with his hand deep in the jar of sweets. Like a rakehell who had just been exposed as having a loyal heart beating away beneath his crimson waistcoat.
“Ah,” he said, very low.
How she longed to touch him.
“You could have chosen any kitten,” she said. “But you chose one from my mother’s cat’s litter—why?”
He considered it. “I suppose I felt your parents owed you some comfort after casting you out.”
A lump formed in her throat. “She has been a tremendous comfort to me.”
“I’m pleased to hear it.”
“Why did you never tell me that you thought fondly of me?”
He laughed softly. “Fondly was not how I felt about you, Lucie. Frankly, I was too inexperienced to understand much of my feelings, then. I did know that I was eighteen years old and wholly under my father’s thumb. I had nothing to offer a woman; certainly not a woman like you—my father would have never approved, as you can imagine.”
She could imagine it all too well.
“I said a few ghastly things to you at Ashdown,” she said. “And I apologize. I am awfully sorry. I was . . . afraid.”
He inclined his head. “I know.”
“You do?”
“Yes. You hiss and scratch when you are scared.” He shrugged. “Cat behavior.”
She had done more than scratch him. She had made a serious attempt at slicing his heart to ribbons, in the misplaced effort of protecting her own.
And yet. . . . Her gaze shifted back to the papers on his desk. “You are helping us publish our study. In the Manchester Guardian.”
Tristan gave her a suspiciously sympathetic look. “Yes.”
“Thank you,” she said, and, on a shaky breath, “I think I love you.”
He held himself very still then. As though he would shatter like cracked glass if touched.
“You think?” His voice was gravelly, and the light of a lifetime of riotous emotions shone in his eyes.
She could only nod. It had taken great courage to say the three words, and she hoped he knew this about her, too.
Gradually, a smile spread over his face. He pushed away from the desk and sauntered toward her. “I’m glad to hear it. Because I was going to come for you.”
She swallowed. “You were?”
His eyes shimmered in mesmerizing shades of gold. He cradled her face in his hands, his palms warm against her clammy skin. He had held her like this the first time he had kissed her. She understood now that the first time his lips had touched hers had marked the beginning of the end of her old world. And she would never be able to go back to it. The only way was forward, into vaguely chartered territory where kissing Tristan was necessary and good. And where her own place was largely a white patch on the map.
“You have not really thought I would simply leave it at that.” He was studying her with mild reproach edging his lips.
She had. Before she had known about the cat.
“Silly,” he said. “I would have tracked and found you. To grovel,” he added hastily, “for keeping secrets, and for proposing to you with the grace of a wildebeest.”
“Oh.”
His head lowered, and her lips already parted in response. A wicked gleam kindled in his eyes. “I was going to kiss you.” His mouth brushed against hers, the velvet of his lips light like a whisper. “And then,” he said, “I would have shown you a list.”
She drew back. “A list.”
“I know you like a good list.” His fingers slid into the chest pocket of his waistcoat and extracted a slip of paper. “Voilà.”
The list contained names:
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Shelley
Ada Lovelace
Mary Somerville
Harriet Taylor Mill
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson
Millicent Fawcett
Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Millicent’s sister and the first woman to obtain a medical degree in London. Ada Lovelace, known for her excellent mathematical work on a difference engine. All women who were pioneers or outstanding contributors to a particular field. But if that was the criterion, the list was hardly exhaustive, and so her mind scrambled, trying to find the common denominator linking the names. . . .
“Women who advanced worthy causes outside the home,” said Tristan, “despite being burdened with a husband, protocol, and oftentimes, children. Mary Somerville had six, I think. I am sure there are many more, it is my knowledge about them which is limited.”
Her gaze locked with his. Heat ignited in her belly, her cheeks were hot. He had listened. During their argument at Wycliffe Hall, at the height of his own emotions, he had listened. And he was addressing her worries, rather than judging her bitterly, as was the common, if not only, reaction when a woman questioned her ordained role as mother and wife.
She was rather certain she loved him then.
“I knew of these women,” she said hoarsely.
“I assumed as much,” he said. “I wondered why you chose not to remember them.”
She blew out a breath, crumpling the list in her fist. “What if I am not like them?”
His brows pulled together. “No one could deny that you are equal to them in terms of determination.”
As observed from the outside, perhaps. Her fist holding the list was shaking. “I’m not good at doing things half-measure.”
“I never guessed.” He noticed the shaking, and his hand closed protectively over her fist. “What is it?”
She held his gaze with some difficulty. “What if I love you too much,” she said. “What then?”
“Love me . . . too much?”
“Yes. And what if our connection resulted in a child, and what if I loved the child too much. And it made me stop fighting for the Cause with all that I have.” Her mouth was trembling, too. “You saw what happened, how I began to neglect my duties—missing appointments, lacking attention. The truth is, I hardly felt sorry for it, in the moment. What if I stop fighting because I stop caring, whether I want to or not?”
His features gentled with dawning understanding. “I see,” he said. “It is not only the constraints and loss of credibility you fear.”
She gave a helpless little shrug. “Being at the front line is exhausting.”