The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love (Love's Academic, #1)

by India Holton

intrepid

binate

Spain, 1890

“By Jove,

contingent

restively

ballast

thaumaturgic

nefarious

knave

wiles,

wryly

unscrupulous

preeminent

interloper

derring-do,

rapscallion,

wiliest,

stupefaction,

But dang it, she really was pretty,

scowling at him as if she’d like to stab him with her furled parasol. He wished she would. Pretty was nice; naughty was ever so much better.

zealous!

downtrodden

Until next time, he promised silently, and his body throbbed at the thought of it (or possibly due to the beating she’d given him).

unseemliness,

genteel

thaumaturgic

strident

perambulating

countenance

wanton

“You,” he replied, his tone more friendly and thus far more dangerous than hers.

languorously,

pallid

fracas

“Egad!”

equanimity.

remonstrated

askance

mollified

If he’d whistled a birdsong, she’d have been able to interpret it at once, but her ability with human conversation was mediocre at best,

he cocked an eyebrow at the sight of Beth holding up her own blade, which she had taken from a skirt pocket. “I thought you were a nice girl,” he said. She looked him in the eye steadily. “That doesn’t mean I’m weak.”

brusque

“I fear you are also very rude.” “And yet, you’re still staring.”

they parted ways without a word, set on never meeting again. (Then traveled the same route back to Hôtel Chauvesouris, took the same elevator to the seventh floor, and walked down the same corridor to where their rooms were located side by side—but

dastardly!”

blighter.

cadre.

he muttered about dumb associates (or possibly “yum, opiates!” which might explain quite a bit).

The woman might be pretty, but she was also a rival in the field, an academic foe, an associate of the unscrupulous Hippolyta Quirm, and so very pretty the air around her seemed to glow.