Charade In Winter

by Anne Mather

as witness his physical ejection of one of her colleagues from an exhibition he had been holding in Kensington, when it had been suggested that without his wife’s patronage he might well have found his work harder to sell—and

historically female artists are the ones dealing with those suggestions...shoe is on the other foot and he can't take it.

to take my pleasures with unpaid members of your sex, however delectable they might appear!

What? An hp hero who pays for sex

always expect too much, Mrs Thornton,’ he replied with irony. ‘That’s why my life has been one long disappointment to me.’

And yet he had told Alix that he preferred to pay for his pleasures. Did he pay Myra?

Okay that answers that

She dressed in slim-fitting orange pants and a shirt in an attractive shade of olive green.

Is there such a thing?

Oliver Morgan and his daughter were walking towards the house from the direction of the surrounding belt of trees, laughing and talking together with an easy camaraderie.

Nice from an hp hero.

Whoever would have guessed that the unapproachable scourge of the Royal Academy could be so sensitive to a little girl’s fantasies?

!

newspapers, pushing their noses into other people’s affairs, making their lives a misery!’ Alix hesitated. ‘I suppose the answer to that is that if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear,’ she said.

Yeah of course

don’t honestly see why being a sculptor pre-empts my right to live my life as I want it.

She had never felt that kind of weakness before, never thought herself the kind of girl to experience actual physical desire for a man.

Good god why not? This demisexuality thing is so Victorian

In black velvet trousers and a ruffled silk shirt, he was disturbingly attractive; his attire as suitable to the nineteenth as to the twentieth century.

AM and Sara Craven love a man in a ruffled shirt

Myra departed again, and for a while they all concentrated on the food. In spite of his meagre appetite at dinner last evening Oliver ate quite a hearty breakfast, and as she covertly watched him, Alix was disturbed anew by the feelings he aroused

i guess watching someone eat eggs is humanizing and arousing?

In a cream suede jerkin and matching pants, he looked darkly disturbing, his hawklike features drawing into a frown when he saw the envelopes in her hand.

Stylish

Were all divorced or separated women subjected to these oblique comments regarding their relationships with men? Why was it assumed that because a woman had been married she would welcome any man’s attentions? Women were not like men. They didn’t need a constant assuagement of the senses, and Lady Morgan, as a widow herself, should know that!

She's so proud of her past physical indifference to men yet by this point her behavior is self-refuting

She didn’t know what she had expected—a bath towel perhaps, draped carelessly about his hips, or silk pyjamas which would reveal far more than they concealed of his lean indolent

Hah

and with a savage ‘Come here!’ he caught her wrist and jerked her down beside him again. Uncaring that his blood would stain her jerkin too, he forced her back against the yielding upholstery, and covered her parted lips with his own. Alix tried to fight him off, but the hungry pressure of his mouth released all the pent-up longing inside her, and with a

She's been all "gross--urges are what men have" but then all it takes is a well placed and savage come here and behold her "pent up" passions emerge.

But he was wearing a curiously defeated expression, and her heart seemed to stop and then start again with erratic rapidity. It was crazy, because he entertained nothing but contempt for her, but at that moment she could have denied him nothing.

I like that reaction it makes me almost feel sorry for him

Alix looked down, and forcing a smile to her lips, she deliberately stood on his toe. A grimace of pain crossed his face as he took a backward step, and bestowing a triumphant look in his direction she took Melissa’s hand.

Hah which of us is 8?

ought to break every bone in your body!’ he muttered harshly.

I know we're "back in the day" and shit but it's really such a repellent way of conveying the strength of his feelings

although she loved him she would not become his mistress. She would never take the risk of bringing another unwanted child into the world, and anything else was out of the question.

Why not just use the term by-blow and really lean into the 19th century? being unmarried doesn't necessarily mean a pregnancy or child is unwanted.