Book Title: THE GENTLEMAN’S GAMBIT
Character Name: Lady Catriona
How would you describe your family or your childhood?
I loved my childhood, at first. My parents were academics, and I was part of their excursions and research activities since I took my first steps. It was always the three of us. Then my mother did during childbirth when I was nine years old. Everything changed. My father drifted into his own world, and I was alone in a Scottish castle. I fell into books. Books became my friends, my solace, and my teachers. I did have one real-life friend, Charlie, but he turned out to be a massive disappointment. I suppose you can say I wasn’t properly socialized. By the time my father noticed I was peculiar and needed guidance to become a lady, the ship had sailed. I did not last long at Mrs. Keller’s Swiss boarding school. My father and I are on good terms now, but it was a journey.
What was your greatest talent?
I have an extraordinarily high pattern recognition. It has enabled me to teach myself languages from books by myself and to become a proficient linguist. It also means I can see how something is going to go long before others will. That’s how I earned my reputation as a pessimist. (I’d call myself a realist). At least I’m the one with a plan when things inevitably go pear-shaped.
Significant other?
I had three proper duds before meeting Elias. So I hadn’t planned on Elias. I didn’t want him. Romance and feelings are exhausting, aren’t they. But I was literally naked in front of him when we first met and then we were shoved into a forced proximity road trip where he was all charm and protectiveness. How do you keep someone out under such circumstances? How do you stand firm when he looks right into you from under his absurdly long eyelashes and gets the linguist in me all flustered? Under his gaze I felt like the version of myself I only harbored in my dreams. I honestly don’t blame myself for not picking up on his little secret sooner. I was bedazzled.
Biggest challenge in relationships?
Understanding that my lover can’t read my mind. Emoting in a way that is recognizable to others. Not predicting the worst outcome at all times, which really is just a mechanism to protect myself from hurt but it creates self-fulfilling prophecies.
Where do you live?
I spent my time between Applecross in Scotland, and Oxford University.
Do you have any enemies?
My brain.
What do you do for a living?
I co-write or ghostwrite my father’s academic papers, for which I receive a share of the proceeds. But frankly, I’m the daughter of a Scottish earl and my mother left me a whole town house, and thanks to Scottish inheritance laws, I am in line for the family estate. It’s an ailing estate though and I’m terrible at maintaining focus as soon as we talk about business and balance sheets. I would just like to write my book.
Greatest disappointment?
I don’t deal well with noise, at all. This gets me into trouble sometimes. I’m disappointed that I can’t will myself out of that one.
Greatest source of joy?
When the conclusion of a long, laborious research phase finally clicks together and creates a beautiful little piece of knowledge that hasn’t existed in that particular shape before. That, and Elias.
What do you do to entertain yourself or have fun?
I read, I swim, I let Elias pull me into dark chambers. I can have fun at parties with my friends, too, but I need a few wee drams to get over the fact that I’m wasting irretrievable hours of my life on silly parlor games. I think secretly, everyone is lying when they say they enjoy playing Squeak Piggy Squeak.
What is your greatest personal failing, in your view?
I struggle with balance.
What keeps you awake at night?
My anxiety, my research, Elias (smirk).
What is the most pressing problem you have at the moment?
Deciding whether to take the leap into a fully committed relationship with a man who holds my terrified little heart in his hands.
Is there something that you need or want that you don’t have? For yourself or for someone important to you?
Yes. My rights. My right to properly matriculate and graduate from Oxford, to become a fully tenured professor, my right to vote. It’s 1882 and my English friends still don’t have the right to maintain their own legal persona and property the moment they marry. Hence my friends and I are fighting for an amendment to the English Married Women’s Property Act, with an eye on our long-term goal: a married woman’s right to vote.
Why don’t you have it? What is in the way?
A particular attitude is in the way: that votes for women or co-equality in a marriage between men and women will destroy society, unman the husbands, and traumatize the children. I have heard those words with my own ears. Read the minutes or newspaper articles if you doubt me. My friends and I, however, believe that true romance is only possible when both parties see eye to eye and are free to choose each other. So that is what we fight for.
THE GENTLEMAN’S GAMBIT by Evie Dunmore
League of Extraordinary Women #4
Bookish suffragist Catriona Campbell is busy: An ailing estate, academic writer’s block, a tense time for England’s women’s rights campaign—the last thing she needs is to be stuck playing host to her father’s distractingly attractive young colleague.
Deeply introverted Catriona lives for her work at Oxford and her fight for women’s suffrage. She dreams of romance, too, but since all her attempts at love have ended badly, she now keeps her desires firmly locked inside her head—until she climbs out of a Scottish loch after a good swim and finds herself rather exposed to her new colleague.
Elias Khoury has wheedled his way into Professor Campbell’s circle under false pretenses: he did not come to Oxford to classify ancient artefacts, he is determined to take them back to his homeland in the Middle East. Winning Catriona’s favor could be the key to his success. Unfortunately, seducing the coolly intense lady scholar quickly becomes a mission in itself and his well-laid plans are in danger of derailing…
Forced into close proximity in Oxford’s hallowed halls, two very different people have to face the fact that they might just be a perfect match. Soon, a risky new game begins that asks Catriona one more time to put her heart and wildest dreams at stake.
Romance Historical [Berkley, On Sale: December 5, 2023, Trade Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9780593334669 / eISBN: 9780593334676]
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About Evie Dunmore
Debut author Evie Dunmore is a freelance strategy consultant with an M.Sc. in Diplomacy from Oxford. Bringing Down the Duke is inspired by the magical scenery of Oxford and Evie’s passion for romance, women pioneers, and all things Victorian. She is a member of the British Romantic Novelists’ Association (RNA). Evie lives in Berlin in an Edwardian flat, and pours her persistent longing for England into her writing.
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