Peter does not understand why Desire cannot address the cad head on but for Desire it is unthinkable: Peter doesn’t agree with Desire’s plot and doubts the man will reacts as she plans, but while that doesn’t dissuade her, it does cause Desire to begin examining her actions and those of the people around her in more detail.

Recognizing Peter as a discrete and trustworthy accomplice, she engages his help as a decoy suitor, during which time a legitimate friendship emerges between them. Having just learned that her fiancé has a woman who has loved and supported him, and a child with her, she is determined to do the noble thing and drive him back to her. For Peter, somewhat timid in the city where he hopes to establish himself as a writer, she is impressive but impossibly distant – until she reaches out with an unusual proposal. When Peter Grimstone meets Desire Quebell, she is a sparkling young figure in London society – stately, clever, and a master of light social gab. Silberrad, a New Woman novel from 1908 that was one of the very first titles reissued by Handheld Press (and is still available as an e-book). But when the worst had passed, leaving me weak but relieved, I settled down with a book I’d been meaning to read for the last few years: Desire by Una L. Racked with a cough that settled in my lungs, scarily familiar to the pneumonia I had some years ago (when my brother lovingly described me as sounding like a dying hippopotamus), and dazed with fever, I was in no mood to read. When I had Covid earlier this year, I went down hard.

Captive Desire by Kathleen Victor