“That’ll show those bloody bounders,” the woman next to him muttered. She put two fingers to her lips and gave a sharp, piercing whistle of approval.
Nothing demure about her at all. Ladies in England had changed since he’d been gone. He found them much improved.
She removed her fingers and, for the first time, she noticed him. She raised an eyebrow, as if daring him to remonstrate with her.
Not a chance. He turned to her.
“Let me guess. Your brother?” He gestured toward Stephen. He knew she was no relation, but he had no wish to reveal his own connection. “What a disgrace that was.”
Her nostrils flared. “No more than some of the other things… Well, never mind.”
Other things? So Patrick had been right. Stephen was in trouble, and there might be something Edward could do about it.
“And no,” the woman continued, “he’s not my brother.”
There was no ring on her finger. “There must be a brother somewhere,” he mused. “Someone is responsible for all this Cambridge spirit.” He gestured to her cravat.
The corner of her mouth tilted up, as if he’d said something extremely funny, and she was afraid to laugh for fear of hurting his feelings.
“My brother did go to Cambridge,” she admitted. “But that was decades ago. I don’t cheer on his behalf.”
“So you developed a taste for sport while your brother was…” He stopped. He wasn’t good at judging age; he never had been. But he doubted she’d been anything other than a tiny child decades ago.
She did snicker at that.
He tried again. “You know one of the rowers, the one who was spattered with dye. You shouted his name…?”
“Oh, yes. Stephen Shaughnessy. We Cambridge misfits ought to keep some kind of camaraderie.”
“Misfits?” He frowned, and then realized that was not the most surprising word she’d used. “We?”
“You saw what they did.” A hand went to her hip, resting against the white brocade of her jacket. “If you know the name Stephen Shaughnessy, you can guess why he’s not universally admired. As for me, you can stop gently probing. I’m technically not a Cambridge misfit—not any longer. I graduated from the Girton College for Women a few years back.”
It had been a long time since he’d been taken by surprise. He knew, vaguely, that Girton existed and women had graduated from it. But there weren’t many of them; the number was so small as to be almost nonexistent. He blinked and took her in again—that mannish blazer, that cravat knotted around her neck. Oh, women had changed since he’d left England.
“You’re a suffragette,” he said flatly.
She blew out a puff of air, and he felt an almost physical blow. The wind had blown strands of her hair loose from under her hat. It shone a brilliant auburn in the sun. That blazer ought to have made her look masculine. Instead, the cut accentuated her curves rather than hiding them, bringing every last difference between her body and a man’s into prominence. But it was her smile that made her dangerous—a smile that said she could take on the entire world, and she’d do it twice before breakfast.
She wagged a finger at him. “You’re mispronouncing that word.”
“Your pardon?” He groped, trying to remember what he’d said. “Suffragette? How does one pronounce it, then?”
“Suffragette,” she said, “is pronounced with an exclamation point at the end. Like this: ‘Huzzah! Suffragettes!’”
The moon could ignore the earth more easily than he could turn away from her. It took every ounce of willpower he had not to smile at that. Instead, he gave her a level look. “I don’t pronounce anything with exclamation points.”
“No?” She shrugged this away. “Then there’s no time like the present to start. Repeat after me: ‘Let’s hear three cheers for the women’s vote!’”
He could feel his amusement spilling out on his face despite his best efforts. He clamped his lips into a straight line and lowered his voice. “No,” he told her. “Cheering is entirely beyond my capabilities.”
“Oh, too bad.” Her tone was sympathetic, but her eyes were mocking. “I see now. You’re a womanthrope.”
He’d never heard the word before, but the meaning was all too clear. She’d judged him to be just like every other man in England. Foolish to protest that he was different. Foolish to care what this unknown woman thought of him.
He spoke anyway. “No. I am a realist. Likely you’ve never met my sort before.”
“Oh, I’m sure I have.” She rolled her eyes. “I’ve heard everything. Let me see. You believe that women will vote for the handsomest candidates without using their faculties of reason. Is that the size of your realism?”
He met her accusing gaze with an annoyed look of his own. “Do I look like a fool? I don’t see any reason for women not to vote; you’re no stupider, on average, than the typical man. If there were any fairness in the world, suffragettes would succeed in all their political aims. But the world is not fair. You’re going to spend your entire life fighting for gains that will be lost in political bickering ten years after they’ve been achieved. That’s why I won’t spare you three cheers. They’ll serve no purpose but to waste my breath.”
She looked at him for a moment. Really looked at him, as if she were seeing him for the first time rather than imagining a man-shaped…womanthrope in his stead.
“Good heavens.” She reached into a pocket in her skirt. “You’re right. I haven’t met anyone like you.”
She looked him over again, and this time there was no mistaking that slow head-to-toe perusal. His heart gave an odd little thump.
And then she smiled at him. “Well, Monsieur le Realist. Call on me if you ever find yourself in need of an exclamation point. I have an entire box of them.”
It took him a moment to realize she was handing him a card. She slipped it between the gloved fingers of his right hand; he caught it with his left before it could fall to the ground. The type was plain and unassuming, with none of the little decorations or curly scripts one expected from a woman’s calling card. But then, this was a card of business; no woman had ever given him one of those before.
Frederica Marshall, B.A.
Owner and Editrix-in-Chief
Women’s Free Press
By women—for women—about women