The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2)

by Mackenzi Lee

The ruffles of yet another ridiculous dress whisper against the floor behind her. Not ridiculous, I correct myself. Softness can be an armor, even if it isn’t my armor.

Everyone has heard stories of women like us—cautionary tales, morality plays, warnings of what will befall you if you are a girl too wild for the world, a girl who asks too many questions or wants too much. If you set off into the world alone. Everyone has heard stories of women like us, and now we will make more of them.

I want to understand the world, and how it moves and how the intricate strings of existence weave together into a tapestry, and I want to weave those tapestries with my own two hands.

But nothing is simple, not a life in a bakeshop in Scotland nor one exploring the world’s untouched trenches. And thank God, because I do not want simple. I do not want easy or small or uncomplicated. I want my life to be messy and ugly and wicked and wild, and I want to feel it all. All those things that women are made to believe they are strange for harboring in their hearts. And I want to surround myself with those same strange, wicked women who throw themselves open to all the wondrous things this world has to offer.