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“I don’t care if you’re gently bred, roughly bred, or a loaf of brown bread with butter. You’re educated, you understand propriety, and you’re . . . breathing.”
in the past week alone I’ve gone through a decade of bank ledgers, given seven orgasms, and interviewed five governesses.
“A binary star is created when two stars are drawn together. Once they come near enough, neither one can resist the other’s pull. They’re stuck together forever, destined to spend eternity revolving about each other, like . . . like dancers in a waltz, I suppose.” She scribbled a note in her notebook. “The fascinating thing is, a binary star’s center of gravity isn’t in one star or the other. It’s in the empty space between them.”
Seducing you would never even cross my mind. —Mr. Charles Reynaud, 1817
She put away the soap and vinegar. “My father was American. After the Revolution—” “The rebellion,” he corrected.
bitch
“It’s a terrible letter,” Nicola said. “Ashbury wrote it. Never trust a man to write about babies.” “No descriptions whatsoever.” Penny sighed. “How are we to know what he looks like? Which of his parents does he favor? What about his temperament?” “He’s probably pink, wrinkly, bald, and hungry, like all newborn babes. I doubt he’s had time to declare a political affiliation.”
She would not participate in transforming them into well-mannered, empty-headed, docile young ladies who wouldn’t cause him any trouble. She’d help them become women who couldn’t be ignored.
“Are you going to draw me like one of your French girls?”
that line came way after
Covered in filth, lice, rats, disease.” “Disease!” Daisy cheered. “Which ones?” “Very, very boring ones,” he said. “And don’t cheer.
“The girl ca—” Daisy stopped and tried again. “The girl cat-cheese . . .” “Catches,” Alex gently corrected. “The girl catches the fish.” “Very good, darling. Go on.” Now that she’d been fitted for spectacles, Daisy was flying through her primers. Her mind had connected the letters and sounds long ago. She simply hadn’t been able to see them. The primers had needed a bit of editing. As originally written by a certain Mr. Browne—who suffered an appalling lack of imagination—the boys did everything interesting and the girls never left home. Nothing that a few snips of the shears and a couple dabs
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A man rose to his feet for a lady, his queen, or a divine being, and she was at least one of those—if not all three.
“Don’t do it, Alex. Don’t try to hold me with my head in your lap, and kiss my tortured brow and stroke my hair, and tell me I’m blameless and misunderstood.” Her nose wrinkled. “I hadn’t intended to do any such thing.” “Oh,” he said. “Well, then. Good.” Damn.
Alex was surrounded by her dearest friend, a baby, a cat, and a cake. “Really,” she declared, “who needs men at all?”
