Sublime

“Have you given him a name?” “Considering what an insufferable pain he is, I’m leaning toward Ashbury.”

Grace Macaulay, then: seventeen, small and plump, with skin that went brown by the end of May. Her hair was black and oily, and had the hot consoling scent of an animal in summer. She disliked books, and was by nature a thief if she found a thing to be beautiful, but not hers. She didn’t know she couldn’t sing. She was inclined to be cross.

‘the morals of the

“Not because of the size of his cock,” the baroness explained, to clear up any misunderstandings that Archimboldi, next to her in bed, might entertain, “but because of a kind of shape-shifting quality: he was cleverer than a crow when he talked and in bed he turned into a devil ray.”

“Gabriel—” the duchess began, but fell silent as he slid her a glance of bright mischief. The duke regarded his son dubiously. “If you’re trying to be charming,” he said, “I should tell you that it’s not going well.”

turpitude.”