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

by Evie Dunmore

She gasped. It went unnoticed; everyone was preoccupied with their own surprise.

Just assume people are chiefly motivated by convenience, vanity, or greed.

the things one had learned early often felt instinctual, as unquestionable as the act of breathing, and the familiarity of them mattered rather than whether they were good or harmful.

this compulsion to say one thing while thinking another, to agree to things one disliked, to laugh about jokes that were dull—most women, but not Catriona. When Catriona wished to conceal her thoughts, she was silent. Quite sensible, actually, but when all suffered the same ill, the healthy ones appeared abnormal.

But perhaps every woman had known a moment when she felt as though she were drowning, and the only comfort was that there could be some beauty, some dignity, in that, too.

“I gather you place your trust in machines,” she said. “I, however, trust in humans.”

“Why does the world insist that substance worthy of acclaim always comes in the shape of machinery or old men?”

A creative mind had the ability to spiral deep into dark places, and sometimes she had tried to picture the moment when a great catastrophe befell her.

les rousses viennent de l’enfer.”

Protection to the point of asphyxiation. She had once thought this a proof of love, but it was almost certainly a consequence of her being deemed lovely, foolish, and possibly weak.

Now she knew why girls were not allowed to feel anger—there was a reckless hope in it, and power. She would not loathe the compliant woman she had been this morning, oh no; she would direct this precious anger outward, and her gaze forward. Les rousses viennent de l’enfer—redheaded women are from hell. Lovely was dead. Enter the witch.

“Were you really hoping to see mountains?” he said, because apparently, he was perverted and craved rejection.

He liked having a companion for debate in his wife,

She had words for things he usually only felt intuitively.

her excitement made him feel all sorts of ways.

She’d never last through a Sunday evening of him reading to her, she realized. As he had drawled those words with his Scottish burr, her heart had fluttered like a butterfly under an unexpected sunbeam.

someone else’s displeasure than to express her joy. Any remotely self-determined woman should claim control over the curve of her own mouth.

the Scotch in her blood agreed that this was an excellent idea.

It sounded dangerous, so naturally, she ached for it.

It seems that labor, once it crosses the door into a home, is magically transformed into a priceless act of love or female duty—meanwhile, women’s hands are raw from very real chores.”

Or they insist on controlling meaningless details just to feel in control of something.

And yet, much as his instinct was to protect and control what he loved, he had concluded that love itself demanded vulnerability.

But on the artist’s color wheel, two opposite colors were considered complementary. Their high contrast caused high impact, and they looked their brightest when placed next to each other.

Hattie brazenly slipped her whole hand into Lucian’s. “I am the orange to your blue,” she said. He gently pressed her fingers. “My fanciful lass.” “It means we are fine on our own,” she said. “But side by side, we’re brilliant.”