The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics (Feminine Pursuits, #1)

by Olivia Waite

Catherine blew out a breath. “So I am something in the nature of an experiment?”

until finally Lucy was able to press herself against Catherine, skin to skin.

her body tilted in languorous pride like some ancient statue of Venus.

Apparently Catherine was doomed to be caught after just one night.

At least, not the kind of frock she could wear around a countess. Or above a countess. Or underneath a countess . . .

happier than she had any right to feel.

Catherine looked up with joy—and a self-conscious blush, since Lucy had shared her bed again last night—but

Lucy blushed to the roots at the warmth in her lover’s voice.

Catherine’s smile hid behind her cup as she took another sip of coffee.

She wrapped the stellarium shawl around her shoulders and saw heat flare briefly in Catherine’s eyes.

If she were to burst into flame right here in the gallery, how many great artworks would perish with her?

“Let me assure you, the day she leaves me is not something I look forward to.”

“I am tired of twisting myself into painful shapes for mere scraps of respect or consideration. Tired of bending this way and that in search of approval that will only ever be half granted.”

Those gray eyes never wavered, though sorrow lurked in the corners as they held Catherine’s gaze.

“Why would I go anywhere?” she whispered, her mouth hot against Catherine’s temple. “Everything I want is right here, because you are here.”

Silk whispered encouragement as it slid to the floor,

As beautiful and useless as Catherine herself.

But it was also Catherine’s home, with Catherine inside.

“I am trying to tell you I love you,” she said, adorably grumpy, “and you are making it impossible.”

Catherine bit her lip. “Because a love silenced is something like death.”

“The gentlemen can go hang,” Lucy said,

The point of fashion is not for the gentlemen: they call it trivial because they cannot bear the thought of women having a whole silent language between themselves.

“‘O for a muse of fire . . .’” she said softly.

“Loving you is entirely different. You make me feel expansive, as though my heart is big enough and strong enough to contain the whole world. As though I can become anyone I need to, or want to, without fear—I can reach higher and farther and not lose you for the striving. And oh, my love, do you know how great a gift that is?”

her hands trembled too violently. She set the note on her desk and wondered what on earth

The serpent’s fangs bit deep, and Catherine could feel her heart’s blood running out and leaving her body hollow and cold, chiming beneath the little blows like a church bell in a hailstorm.

Gray eyes pierced Catherine where she sat. “You wouldn’t have opened it, but since it was opened already—you did read it?”

So much for fossils. Something here still lived.

She could feel it, though, plunged like a poisoned arrow into her breast. Every instinct told her that Priscilla Winlock meant no good by this.

Lucy turned again, gray eyes flashing like Athena in a rage.

you had to choose the other person over and over again, every time. What’s worse, you had to trust them to choose you.

“I think some women will set the world on fire for the privilege,” Mrs. Griffin said, her voice low and intense.

It would not destroy her, Catherine vowed. It would not.

Like visiting the ruins of Pompeii and marveling over the remnants of that ancient tragedy.

kiss like a moth, a nighttime creature, trembling and sad and not destined to live long.

Anguish silvered her eyes and twisted her lips; it was all Catherine could do not to reach out to hold her for comfort.

Lucy’s eyes snapped wide at Catherine’s whispered response.

We’re already forever.”

it seared into ash everything that had come between them.

Tonight there was only the woman above and the woman below, setting one another aflame.

she was clad in a rich blue gown that set off her brown skin to perfection,

Her eyes flicked down to Lucy’s mouth, and Lucy wished more than anything that she could steal a kiss for luck.

For her sins, they’d seated Richard Wilby on her left.