Chapter 11

She had crossed the Oxford town center and walked the length of Parks Road at a brisk pace, but when she arrived at her house on Norham Gardens she was still shaking with emotions.

She nearly stumbled over a bag of mail Mrs. Heath had deposited in the dark corridor. On her way to the kitchen, she snatched an unsuspecting Boudicca up into her arms and the bemused cat sank five claws into her left palm. She dropped the animal with a hiss. At least the stinging pain diluted the urge to go back to Logic Lane to shoot Tristan in the knee.

There was a pot of cold stew in the kitchen, and she ate two spoonsful before her stomach became tied up in knots and she admitted defeat. There were days when one had to just retire to bed early and wait for a new morning.

Her room was overwarm, here under the roof in midsummer, and the standing collar of her dress jacket was constricting like a noose. She unhooked the skirt and let it fall to the floor, then discarded the jacket with equal carelessness, followed by her underskirt, her corset, and the chemise. A chill touched her bare torso.

The ceramic basin in her wash corner had been filled with fresh water. She grabbed the clump of soap and rigorously lathered up the flannel. She scrubbed the scratches Boudicca had inflicted and it stung, however, there was no need to end a tedious day with an infection. She rubbed the flannel over her face, her neck, her arms, as though Tristan’s lewd proposition could be washed clean off.

Unfortunately, the matter went beyond skin-deep. Images kept flashing: rippling back muscles beneath fire-tinged skin. The up-and-down motion of a well-formed hand.

She dropped the flannel into the basin and started at her reflection in the mirror.

Tonight, he had treated her with utmost disrespect.

You were not exactly kind to him, either. . . .

She leaned in, blinking away the soap in her eyes. A tension around her mouth and between her brows had her looking a hundred years old.

Her pupils narrowed to small black dots as she studied herself.

Her face, presumably, was still a fine enough face.

She pulled back until the tops of her breasts were visible in the mirror.

Her body was useful, never sickly and reliably carrying her everywhere.

But as an object of a man’s desire?

She had overheard comments about her person, uttered just loudly enough for her to hear. There’s more meat on a butcher dog’s bone . . . bedding her would be like pulling a splinter . . . would she rattle, you think? It was enlightening, the words coming out of purported gentlemen’s mouths when they did not consider a woman a lady. Naturally, a woman’s appearance was an easy target; even the most dull-witted could hit with great effect. She knew this. The words still returned to her now as she was trying to see herself through the eyes of a man.

She laid a finger against her collarbone. It felt hard and pronounced, beneath skin that was never touched, not by sunbeams, not by glances. Never by another’s hand.

She traced a vein from the hollow of her throat, down across her chest. A tingling sensation followed in the wake of her fingertip, raising the fine hairs on her arms. The shallow curve of her left breast was petal soft and cool against the back of her knuckles. But she was hardly a fashionable size. No bubbies on this one.

She slid her arms around herself and squeezed. How would it feel, if someone were to embrace her?

Possibly equally disappointing as kissing. A young man from the Law Society had had the honors of her first kiss. She had thought him shy and guileless, but soon after the event, rumors had reached her through the society that he had won fifty pounds at White’s for daring to kiss the Tedbury Termagant. Fortunately, the whole affair had not been as exciting as she had hoped; it had been oddly detached and their teeth had collided—hardly a loss.

But Tristan’s lips looked soft and sensual, and he would certainly know how to kiss . . .

Angry heat sizzled through her. If it were not for his charming looks, his offer would not merit a second’s worth of consideration, which told her exactly how bad of an affront it was. Besides, he had not propositioned her because he desired her—he had done it to provoke her. And he probably liked the idea to have her surrender to him in the most primitive way possible.

Her gaze made a slow journey around the Valentine Vinegar cards flanking the mirror, the hatchet-faced suffragists and the withering rhymes about women who dared. They had been sent to her to intimidate her in her own home. She had taken them into the sanctity of her bedchamber and made them hers, until familiarity had blunted the cutting words and mellowed the ugliness. This was how she dealt with adversaries: she met them on the field. She would deal no differently with Tristan. When she locked eyes again with her reflection, her face was determined. If his lordship wanted war, he’d better batten down the hatches.