Scarlet Devices Read Online Free PDF Page B

repeated the word as though Charlotte had suggested she kiss a toad. “It sounds positively uncivilized.”
    â€œListen to yourself! You’re an elitist snob, my darling. Time to go out and actually
do
some of the things you advocate, instead of trying so hard to become the new generation’s Eliza Chen.”
    â€œI’m not,” she insisted immediately, but a little bell rang in Eliza’s mind—because Charlotte had struck it hard. “I’m simply trying to focus on truly important issues. If some of them happened to be causes that my grandmother fought for as well, then isn’t it all the more important people continue working to correct those ills?”
    â€œOf course it is. But do you have to do it to the exclusion of all else? You’re getting grim, Eliza. Oh, not all the time,” Charlotte amended when Eliza started to protest, “but if you don’t take steps soon it will only get worse from here. You need to get away from this place, these people. From academic life and charitable societies too. It might give you a chance to . . . oh, I don’t know, explore other ways of thinking and living. Other things about which you’re curious.”
    Eliza was sure she couldn’t have heard that correctly. Was Charlotte implying she needed to sow wild oats? “I beg your pardon?”
    â€œYou say you want to be somebody whose opinion is respected. You want your voice to be heard. But right now, all you’re doing with that voice is responding to the society you claim to want no part of.”
    â€œI never said
no
part.”
    â€œNear enough. You’re letting those ideas shape you, and lately all you talk about is the things you don’t want, the life you don’t want to be trapped in. But what
do
you want, Eliza? Do you even know who you are, what sort of life you would lead, given the choice? What is your natural inclination? I don’t think you can know that, because you’ve never seen anything but the safe little high society world and then academia, and I doubt you’re destined for either of those.”
    Eliza bristled at the characterization. After that morning’s fiasco at the lecture hall, she felt polite society and the academic world were anything but safe. It all felt like a wilderness, full of hidden perils and vicious beasts ready to attack. “You’re hardly one to judge. Is your life so out of the ordinary?”
    â€œMy life,” Charlotte asserted, “is exactly the life I chose to live,
after
exploring other options about which you know nothing. A whole career, in fact, about which you know nothing. And I’m sorry if I sound impatient, Eliza, it’s partly just this damned—this miracle of life within me.”
    â€œYou’re calling it a miracle of life and using profanity?” Dexter said, sounding concerned as he approached his wife. “Is it time to send the guests home? Are you going to start throwing vases? Do I need to procure any particular food for you?”
    Charlotte chuckled wearily up at Dexter, who bent to kiss the top of her head. Eliza felt a pang of envy at their ease with one another, at the obvious affection between them.
    He’s definitely the one she’s had the climaxes with
, she thought, then had to look away from her cousin for a few moments and think about puppies to clear her mind.
    â€œWhat has you looking so flustered, my delicate petit four?” Dexter asked Charlotte. Eliza couldn’t help but smile at the endearment; he always seemed to have a new one.
    â€œI’m worn out trying to convince Eliza to take my place. She’s dead set against it.”
    â€œJust as well,” Dexter replied. “Nobody would get a moment’s peace at the rest stops with my cousin and poor Matthew at each other’s throats.”
    Eliza’s head snapped back toward Dexter. “Who?”
    â€œPence,” Dexter