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by
Evie Dunmore
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January 26 - February 5, 2025
“You . . . are a woman,” he said, sounding vaguely stunned. “Astutely observed, sir,” she said, incredulous.
She was real. She was here. And he couldn’t unsay any of the words he had said. It’s nothing I have not seen before. God take him now.
All he knew came from a book he had hastily acquired in Marseille while on his way here. Had he skipped the chapter on sea lore and selkies, he might not have stood and stared at the earl’s well-formed daughter like a pervert.
He glanced at her, his gaze brushing hers as carefully as fingertips would test the heat of a stove top.
He was stretched on some resplendent torture rack where the lure of her fine skin pulled him to one direction and basic manners to the other.
“Father, let us not bore poor Mr. Khoury with my failed academic endeavors.” “I could not be bored by you,” Elias said.
Wester Ross turned to Elias, his weathered face unreadable. “You have my word that she is a worthy representative for me at Oxford,” he said. “She is my best man.”
A movement in the corner of her eye drew her attention back to Mr. Khoury. He was stalking along with the predatory deliberation of a big cat, his narrowed gaze singularly focused on the men as they disappeared down the other end of the corridor.
He positioned himself next to her, his shoulders effectively blocking any lewd backward glances. A tension in her neck loosened, as if her body knew that it was safe in the shelter of his.
A scholar who moved like a soldier at the sign of trouble.
“I just wondered,” he said, “is it very lonely, being so clever?”
article. Do you understand my dialect well?” “I do. It’s lovely. Your pronunciation, too.” “Is it?” he asked idly. The blush on her throat was instant.
He would have preferred to hear more about how lovely she found his dialect.
He steered his mind away then, because a rude feeling heated his cock, and these tight Western trousers hid nothing.
“Now, if women were allowed to properly matriculate and sit the same final exams here as the male students, they might be deserving of the gown,” she mused. “But, according to leading physicians, such educational exertion will cause swelling to the female brain, damage to her reproductive organs, and usher in the collapse of society. Hardly worth the ephemeral glory of wearing the academic gown?”
He had told her he was from Zgharta, which was only half-true—his mother was indeed from the mountain, but his father had grown up on the coast. Mountains and sea were indomitable forces; they molded their inhabitants rather than the other way around. His mother’s people had become inward focused and embodied the fierce stubbornness required to turn rocks into fertile gardens, while his father’s side had kept their eyes on the horizon, curious, mobile, counting strangers as opportunities rather than as threats.
Lady Catriona struck him as her own center of gravity. She would be the same peculiar woman in London as in Beirut.
“Say, is there anyone who isn’t aware of my silly crush on him?” “Yes,” said Hattie, “Lord Peregrin.” If only. “Do you remember when he called me a ‘good chap’ to my face?” “Oh well, that was ghastly.”
At her entrance, he looked up. A pang of feral excitement hit her belly. He stood. When she arrived at the table, the corner of his mouth tipped up. “You have decided to play,” he said, his voice low and husky.
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.
“If I were the only person in the world,” she said to the ceiling, “how would I even know I was a woman? Who would tell me? Who would make me? I would just be me. Why can’t I just be me?”
“You have played out an entire marriage in your head and divorced the man before you even attempted courting,” Hattie cried.
It wasn’t so much his physicality that compelled erotic surrender but something more ephemeral, the hot ardor pulsing under Elias’s skin that said nothing and no one would have kept him from kissing her, that he would have battled the very elements to feel her body in his hands.
“We will not do this again,” he said. They took measure of each other’s damp faces and turbulent eyes, and without any more words being exchanged they both knew that they would absolutely do this again.
“Do you know how a tree changes shape to grow around an obstruction?” she asked, her voice hollow. “How it develops an unnatural bent, or ugly bulges?” “I have seen these trees, yes.” “I’m wondering how misshapen I am,” she whispered. “I wonder how bent out of shape I am from these attempts to exist around some fear, instead of just growing, straight and up, as I should have.”
“I have seen you,” came his voice, low and dark. “You’re not misshapen. You are a beautiful creation.”
With a muttered curse, Elias pushed himself up on one arm and ripped the chain off, causing her to gasp with surprise. He stroked her face with both hands. “It was annoying you, my darling.”
HAWT
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.
“My husband,” she said, “he would have to leave me be, and he must never confine me to the home.” She could sense him smirk. “He wouldn’t have to. You are, by nature, a housecat.”
“Do you know why I enjoy watching birds of prey?” “Tell me?” “Because they thrill me. How they soar, and swoop at great speed. They are pure freedom. On my life, I would never clip the wings of a falcon.” “A wife is not a bird.” “Indeed,” he said. “So imagine how much more I would care for her happiness.”
All lives had been lived before; no triumph or defeat was new. A man might as well make his own choices.
He hooked a finger into her apron pocket and pulled her against him. “Why are you attempting to cook for me, sweetheart?”
“Have you ever used an appliance invented by a chimpanzee?” A shocked laugh came from the back of the room. “I’m afraid I don’t understand your meaning,” Mrs. Keller said stiffly. “Reproduction isn’t what sets us apart from animals,” Catriona said. “Every wild creature multiplies and raises its young.”
His lips grazed the crown of her head. “You want me to command you to stop flitting about,” he said, “so you don’t have to feel guilty for making that choice yourself?” “I’m a grown woman,” she muttered. “I can make that choice. All right. Command me.” “Stay home for a while, wife. Put up your feet, enjoy your belly, and eat biscuits.” She kissed his cheek and greedily inhaled the scent of his skin. “I love you so,” she whispered.
“So,” he said. “Is there any news in your life?” She feigned a smile. “You make it sound as though we haven’t seen each other in years.” “The days seem long without you,” he replied.
“She’s from an honorable family. She is highly educated. She speaks our language. She is kind, and wealthy, and she likes our food.” And he loved her, and for none of those things.
“A technicality for a Catholic, but let me be very clear,” Elias said. “I don’t care whether she is from the depths of the sea, or the surface of the moon. It’s her, or no one.”
“How can you change your mind so fast, after all the work you have done to take them back.” “It’s not a new idea,” Elias said quietly. “It was always there.” Nassim shook his head. “Always?” “Yes. Like smoke on the back of my mind. I think since the day I first laid eyes on her.”
Here, he shot a glare at the gallery, causing some of the women to shrink back. Lucie bared her teeth.
It dawned on her then that she was holding the white king. He had surrendered the one piece that had to remain standing for there to be a game. Checkmate.
“Be honest with me,” Catriona said, looking at Hattie, then at Annabelle. “Is a month enough to know? Can one month make you want to change your life?” Annabelle’s green eyes were soft with compassion. “My dear,” she said, “a single moment is enough—if it’s a moment that you have been waiting for all along.”
“Is it the number of children?” he asked after a pause. “Or do you want none at all? You don’t want them on principle?” The look on his face was serious, bone-deep apprehension. A curly head, leaned against his shoulder, a small starfish hand on his chest. She scoffed with mild self-deprecation. “It’s become clear to me rather recently that I wouldn’t mind one. I don’t object on principle. I object to this notion that it would be my highest purpose, or my only purpose. Because I don’t think it is. I think that I . . . I matter. A woman matters, married or not, children or no children. I
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“It seems I’m still weak for you,” he murmured. “Whatever is beating inside my chest is not my heart, because you have taken it from me.”
We will never know how many female contributions are missing from science, the arts, and politics, just because rigid gender norms forced women to choose between sharing their gift or being socially accepted. I’m forever grateful to the women who came before me who found the strength to be true to themselves under such circumstances. We stand on their shoulders when we choose who and where we want to be today.
