The Suffragette Scandal (Brothers Sinister #4)(2)

The boat was close enough now that Edward could see Stephen miss a beat, wipe his face. Some kind of an orange dye in a brittle shell had been lobbed at him.

“Oh, infamous!” shouted the woman in the cravat. “Don’t let them take you down, Stephen. Show them!”

He turned back to her. She knew Stephen? The mystery deepened. Here she was, rigged out in Cambridge colors, cheering for Stephen as if she had every right to do so. He had no idea who she was. She might be his fiancée, although he’d not heard of a betrothal. She wasn’t family; that he knew for certain.

Edward couldn’t make out Stephen’s expression at this distance, but he didn’t need to. There was a determination to the set of his shoulders, one Edward recognized all too well.

He’d been best friends with Stephen’s elder brother. Stephen had been five years younger—a persistent extra at best, an annoying hanger-on at worst. He’d followed the older boys around looking precisely as he did now: determined that he would not be excluded. The harder they had tried to leave him, the more he’d attached himself. Apparently that stubbornness hadn’t changed, because now he pulled harder. The Cambridge boat slid ahead a quarter of a length, and then another. And then they were in the lead, sliding past the judge’s boat to the roar of the crowd.

“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.”