The Gentleman's Gambit (A League of Extraordinary Women, #4)

by Evie Dunmore

She had deciphered the pattern a few years ago, while tutoring Peregrin on hieroglyphs: bright, charming, carefree, if not careless, he had instantly appealed because he embodied something she lacked.

“There are three kinds of stories: a man goes on a journey; a stranger comes to town; and a man hunts a whale.”

see.” The thought of some stiff German count playing away with her in close quarters annoyed him. “Please. Choose your color.” “Dark,” she said easily.

Her fingers were slender and straight, and the backs of her hands looked unnaturally smooth as though she spent all her time indoors. Her fingernails were noticeably short, though, and ink smudged the side of her middle finger like a bruise. There was a bump, from always holding a pen. In its own way, it was a working woman’s hand.

love this!

“Leaders wage war over power,” Catriona said, unmoved. “The fairy tales they spin to rally the common soldier is of course quite another matter.”

She fixated on Palmer through her gold-rimmed glasses, but everyone was looking at her. She stood tall and unmissable. This was her element; she was unfurling, one quick petal at a time, and a wiser man in Palmer’s position would beat a retreat before she was in full bloom. Breathtaking was the word, Elias thought.

“Scotch, I understand, is an acquired taste.” His voice deepened when he said: “Many of the best things are.” “Hm. Why do you think that is?” “It takes a certain maturity to appreciate complexity.” The air seemed to swelter over her skin. Outside the faint circle of light around them, surroundings melted into the night. “I wasn’t offended earlier,” she finally said, softly. “Not in the slightest.”

Such a good line

the reception room had been devastating. She hadn’t realized how much she fancied him until she had felt hidden hopes shatter inside her chest. Even numbed by Scotch, she still felt the sting of the cuts. She had misread him—he was nothing like the crushes of her past. He wasn’t just layers of sunshine. He knew pain, and he articulated it. Behind his easy smile lay the vast landscape of a serious, inquisitive disposition, and an urge had gripped her to crawl into him to see . . . everything. She suspected he could follow into the black depths of the human mind but withdraw again before he became lost. A unicorn, light and dark, humorous yet sincere. Sadly, he had spelled out in brutal clarity how much divided them: nothing short of the current world order. Did he loathe being here? Did he loathe her?

“I’m listening,” he murmured. A soft roar filled her head. I’m drawn to you when I shouldn’t be. What is in your heart? Do you ever think of us? “When we first met, at the loch,” she said. “Did you like what you saw?”

A memory flashed, of Elias looking not at all scholarly as he prowled along a narrow, smoky corridor in a Glasgow inn, priming to take on three men at once. Swallowing hurt. She had known something had been off about him.

Apparently, he’d still take stupid risks for an unsuitable woman.

Why her? Yes, she’s beautiful and the family is noble, but many other women offer the same? Elias had answered truthfully: Because I want to know her thoughts and I know she wants to hear mine. You have exchanged three sentences! It was in her eyes. Lord. Women are women, they’re not your friend, that’s what men are for.

Touched, yes, seen exposed in parts, yes, but never all of her. Beneath layers of expensive fabric, her firm middle, her thighs, her breasts, would wither away over the years and her finely turned ankles would swell with age, until the current her was irretrievably gone. There would be no photograph, no one else’s memory, to preserve this version of her in time. It sickened her to even have this notion, that she did not really exist unless another person carried a lasting impression of her. The price a woman paid for her peace was oblivion, so to still crave space in another’s head felt greedy and indecisive, almost weak. Elias, however . . . He wasn’t just a random person. He had seen every inch of her, had broken down the barriers before he had even known her name.

The sheer depths of her emotion sanctified their transgression, or so he told himself. They would repeat their mistake many times before the week was over.

The cruel irony that the displaced turned to the shores of the displacer was not lost on him, but the truth was that a home without a future felt like a graveyard to the young.

He had accepted this about himself almost unconsciously; given that his origins lay somewhere between mountains and sea, he had always been destined for the places in between. It still left him feeling restless. A sense of what next? had become a rather constant companion.

“Yes,” he murmured, a glowing sensation spreading in his chest. “Show me what feels good for you.”

yall are trippin, this book is so good!

He could have told her that every man who truly cared about a woman would observe her closely, but her ears might not be open to it.

“Ah,” she said. “Yes, I know it. We call this the Shelleyan way of cohabitation. It caused some trouble for some of our suffragists.”

His words seemed to freeze her in place; her whole body went still as though he had triggered two equally strong but directly opposing emotions in her. Well. In the presence of a flighty creature, he just had to refrain from making loud noises and sudden movements to keep them from taking off.

“Ah.” The woman glided closer. “How about fellow humans—can you abide their presence? Or do most strike you as rather . . . loud?” The situation was becoming more absurd by the moment. Mrs. Weldon nodded slowly. “It’s not the volume of their voices that bothers you, Lady Catriona, it is everything else they bring with them, the things unseen, the untouchable ones. Now, with some practice, someone like you could achieve remarkable things in the field of the occult. An open mind is of course required.”

Is there a connectuon being made here btw HSP and spiritual opacity.

Except for the extravagant piece of jewelry, little was left of the girl she had been in the piercing parlor in Paris.

It was ill-advised to make assumptions about a girl, whether she was one of those, and it was plain foolish to risk losing her only friend in a hostile environment.

“My dear,” she said, “a single moment is enough—if it’s a moment that you have been waiting for all along.”

As for me, I desire no thanks for helping you get those rights, but don’t begrudge me my rest. I shall spend the next part of my life napping, going to pretty places, and making my husband happy. Ah. Speaking of the devil.”