Portrait of a Scotsman (A League of Extraordinary Women, #3)

by Evie Dunmore

“But I had very much hoped to marry a friend.” “A friend,” he said, slowly, as if it were a foreign word eluding a confident pronunciation. His Scottish brogue was showing, too. She half turned away to look out over the rooftops of London. “Yes, a friend,” she said thickly. “I wished for a husband who shares his time with me, who would enjoy inhabiting our own small world, which we alone created. And he would be kind.”

Fairy tales express our hopes, not reality. The tale of women being tied to men they don’t want is as old as time, so of course we want hope. However, the reality is, a woman’s martyrdom will not change a man who doesn’t wish to change.

“It is a line by Jane Austen.” “Ah.” He’d heard of Jane Austen but knew nothing of her work. “Of course,” she said. “You wouldn’t know—you don’t read novels. In any case, you could not be farther from a Mr. Bingley if you tried.” He had no idea how to reply to such a thing, so he took a long draft of his ale. “You are beyond even a Mr. Rochester,” Harriet said, and he didn’t know that fellow, either, but he deduced he was odious so he pinned her with a look over the rim of his glass. “In fact,” she said, her eyes widening with shocked realization, “in fact, you—you are a Heathcliff.”

“You must understand: every woman needs something that serves no purpose other than that it please her eye. Or something that makes her feel pretty. There is a lot of pleasure to be had from being frivolous.”

The woman contemplated her. “I don’t know if it’s my story to tell,” she then said. “If he’s not told you, he might’ve had his reasons.” “I believe his reasons,” Hattie said, “are that he suffers from stunted emotional growth and finds it easier to build a business empire from nothing than to share relevant stories with his wife.”