A Restless Truth (The Last Binding, #2)

by Freya Marske

At which point Elizabeth had called him an imposing busybody and strode past, leaving Miss Blyth making apologies in her wake. Pointless. Men would never learn to behave if you apologised at them.

Oh my heavens,” Maud heard herself squeak, and sagged back against the door. She felt a ludicrous pang of disappointment. Firstly, that she had squeaked. Secondly, that she hadn’t seized the opportunity to say Fuck. She’d never been game enough on any lesser occasion, and surely this was the most obscenity-deserving situation she would ever find herself in.

The opera singer had a voice like running one’s hand first the wrong way and then the right across an expanse of velvet.

Honest unpleasantness was to be chosen, every time, over hypocrites and liars.

He sent his wife a besotted look. Hers, in return, was more muted, and contained clear doubt as to whether Lord Welmotte would be as swayed by her charms as his son had been. Did it contain love? Did it matter? People used one another. People made partnerships, romantic and otherwise, for every reason under the sun. Did it make a difference if he was being played, as long as they were both getting what they wanted out of it? At least she’d have to stay with him, to take advantage of what he could offer.

Mrs. Moretti was holding court nearby. The self-proclaimed medium was somehow wearing more furs every time Violet saw her. Perhaps the things were mating.

“You barely need illusion. You’re still holding yourself like a man,” said Maud. “Exactly like when you were playing the young man who rescued the nymph. It’s extraordinary.” “It’s part of music-hall.” Violet stepped back and spread her hands. “The audience likes seeing men dressed as women and women dressed as men, so they can laugh over it. Of course, they don’t laugh so merrily when faced with someone who prefers to live in what society thinks of as the wrong clothes all the time.” She was watching Maud as if eager to shock her, but she was a few years too late for that.

“Mrs. Sinclair says you look at the world and decide you can live with it or decide you can’t. And if you can’t, you decide what you’re prepared to do about it.”

But if I have to create myself every day, with every choice I make, then I want to make the choices I won’t regret when I look back on my life at its end.”