A Curious Beginning (Veronica Speedwell, #1)

by Deanna Raybourn

I took a sip of the tea, pleased to find it scalding hot and properly strong. I abhorred weakness of any kind but most particularly in my tea.

“Mrs. Clutterthorpe, I can hardly think of any fate worse than becoming the mother of six. Unless perhaps it were plague,

“I am quite determined to be mistress of my own fate, Mrs. Clutterthorpe, but I do sympathize with how strange it must sound to you. It is not your fault that you are entirely devoid of imagination. I blame your education.”

Sick burn

One cannot innovate new improvements without understanding old failures.”

I have faith that men can be as reasonable and logical as women if they but try.”

“What a lovely wife you make.” “How revolting. I didn’t do any of this for you, you impossible man. I did it for myself.

“God, you have a vicious tongue,” he retorted. “But I am no more afraid of you than you are of me. I have little doubt your bark is worse than your bite.” “How do you know, Mr. Stoker? I haven’t bitten you yet.”

in my experience, it is far better to tell a man what he wants to hear and then do as you please than attempt to reason with him.

“There are times when it is entirely safe to show one’s vulnerability, to roll over and reveal the soft underbelly beneath. But there are other times when pain must be borne without a murmur, when the pain is so consuming that if you give in to it, even in the slightest, you have lost everything.”

I aspired to such sangfroid, but I had found it impossible to reconcile detachment with passionate fervor. One may be elegant or enthusiastic, but seldom both.

“O, the perfidy of men.” “What have I done?” he protested. “Nothing at present, but you are the only representative of your sex I have at hand to abuse. Take your lumps for your brothers.”

There are no masculine virtues, Veronica. And none sacred to women either. We are all of us just people, and most badly flawed ones at that.”

Of course, as had become our habit, we quarreled over what the end should be—or at least Stoker quarreled and I carried on doing precisely as I wished.

in light of his stubbornness, the most expedient way of dealing with him was simply to do as I pleased and trust he would follow.

The thought of living the rest of my life without his irascible temper to challenge me, his idle verses to cheer me, his pockets full of sweets and his mind full of secrets and sorrows . . . but it would profit me nothing to dwell upon these.

“I can only quote Xenocrates, dear lady. ‘I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.’”