Greetings again, gentle readers! I've decided I have another recap entry in me, since clowning on this book is sort of becoming a hobby for me. Some people are into BASE jumping, some people keep tarantulas as pets, I dunk on braincell-killing literature. Don't judge me.
Shall we?
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| Today's reading face, courtesy of the underrated masterpiece (read: absolute stinker) Alien Domicile. Yes, that's a real movie and yes, I've seen it. |
Chapter 10: Thinking With the Downstairs Brain
Previously on Moonlit Obsession: after precisely one night and one morning of heroically resisting Stephen Burke's attempts to abuse some intel out of her, interestingly-named spy Anemone Carstairs decided to give up the intel he wants from her anyway. 'God help book!England if this is their top spy' continues to be an eternal mood with this book, I swear. Alas, that still wasn't soon enough not to give Burke more opportunities to be a sleazy creep to her, which kicked my blood pressure into the high heavens – again. He also realized that Anemone might have other intel that could be very valuable to him, and decided to seduce it out of her. And since we're in a romance novel... God help us all, too.
Chapter 10 starts after a five-day time skip, which Anemone has spent not as a prisoner but as a guest now. This is part of the bargain she made with Burke in the previous chapter: as she decided to cooperate with him, Burke has stopped constantly harassing her and agreed to allow her more freedom on board of his ship (mostly because he decided to simply manipulate the hell out of her without her knowledge from now on, what a charming man). He's also been giving her a shitload of expensive dresses and underwear, which she takes a spiteful pleasure in wearing, since she thinks he's been forced to give up things he bought for a mistress to please Anemone. Frankly, I'd sooner put on a used tablecloth than accept anything from a guy like this, but whatever gives the author an excuse to put the heroine into fancy clothes, right?
We also find out that Anemone has spent so much time at sea with her dad that she's "an excellent sailor" – I presume we'll soon find out that she's also a black belt in judo and a seven-time crochet world champion. I say that because there's absolutely no reason for us to find this out except more character shilling. She is in fact allowed to wander around the ship now and no one bothers her much, so at least some of the skin-crawling creepiness of her captivity is subsiding, but worry not, we have many more occasions to headdesk waiting for us.
To prove I'm right about that, the sixth day of the journey finds Anemone on the upper deck, wondering about Lord Pelham's murder, when Burke stops to have a chat with her... and as soon as the words "please go in, it's fuck cold out here" are out of his mouth (paraphrasing, obviously) Anemone immediately starts thinking about how hot he is. She fondly remembers all the interactions the two of them had before Burke kidnapped her, such as him calling her ugly to the guy who assaulted her, him seducing the daughter of the man he spent most of a chapter threatening, and him knocking Anemone over into a puddle. Her thoughts on that last one have to be some of the most marvelous authorial gaslighting I've seen in a while.
He had become strangely gentle then, and unexpectedly kind.
Sure, Jan Jill. Here's a quick reminder of Burke's unexpected kindness.
"Are you hurt? You ought to be!" the tall man said harshly, his fingers enclosing her arm like steel bands. "Didn't anyone ever teach you to watch where you're going?"
This is a very strange way to be gentle indeed, I'll say that much.
Back in the plot, I get to hear about Burke's "splendid physique" as Anemone ogles him while they're standing at the ship's rail. Thank you. I have a bit of a rant in me about certain romance novels being of the opinion that hotness excuses any amount of reprehensible actions from a love interest, but we'll get there in my final thoughts section. Until then, I get to "enjoy" the sight of Burke smugly catching Anemone making googly eyes the size of a dinner plate at him, and since she didn't immediately obey him telling her to go inside, he straight up hugs her to warm her up. I see someone has taken a page out of the Jacob Black Handbook of Flirting – just wait until she gets cold and drape yourself over her! (Yes, I'm making Twilight jokes in the year of our Lord 2023. Deal with it.)
Anemone takes a moment to melt against him like a slushie spilled on hot asphalt, then she untangles herself from his beefy arms and goes to her cabin, where she gets angry at herself for letting him grab her like that. Then she thinks that her feelings towards him are changing because... well, the author waved the Magical Amnesia Stick of Plot Convenience is my best guess, if five days were enough to make her forget all the horrifying shit he did to her. And then she makes me laugh very hard, mostly so I don't burst a blood vessel or two.
True, he could be dangerous, relentless, and harsh, but she had only witnessed these traits when he was crossed.
Ma'am. This is the man you carry bosom feelings for. You witnessing these traits to begin with is a red flag the size of Canada. She also thinks that "There was no longer the slightest reason to hate or fear him" and I can give you nine reasons without needing a second to think, how about THE PREVIOUS NINE CHAPTERS.
God.
After some inner monologuing, Anemone decides that she just has a fear of intimacy because her first crush had broken her heart – basically, at sixteen she was sweet on this young soldier but found out he had a bunch of side chicks, and "The pain and betrayal had burst through her like cannon fire [...]". Um... ow? Interesting choice of metaphor there. Anyway, she showed the guy that she was not to be messed with by insulting him in public and shoving him into a horse trough, and even though the lack of era-appropriate etiquette pains me deeply, I would love to see her show that kind of spark to Burke too and push him into the nearest body of water. (Yes, they're in the middle of the ocean. A girl can dream. Can't I?) Alas, Anemone is firmly thinking with the downstairs brain right now and torments me for another page and a half by thinking about how hot and bothered she is by Burke's muscular masculine musk. Me? I'm just bothered.
After Anemone makes me scratch the paint off the wall in frustration by refusing to shut up about Buffalo Burke, a younger crewmate, Tom, appears with a message for her from the esteemed garbage fire himself. Turns out it's a dinner invitation, which Anemone declines by saying she has a headache – yeah, Burke, she's not in the mood tonight. (Sorry. Bad joke, given the context of their dynamic, but it was asking to be made.) After dining alone in her cabin instead, she gets bored and decides to walk it off, but ends up stumbling across a few sailors playing dice instead. They stop when they see her, but she tells them that "I enjoy tossing the dice immensely myself" and I wanted to make a sex joke here because I swear that sentence sounds like a double entendre, but it might just be because the last book I picked up before this one was Venus In Furs. Dunno. Judge for yourselves.
There's a genuinely sweet scene for a change where Anemone spends a fun hour playing dice with the sailors, until Burke notices them and starts lurking in the background like Slenderman without them seeing him. He ends up interrupting their game and giving her the stinkeye hard enough that everyone else is unsettled, but it's pretty clear to Anemone that he's just offended she'd rather toss other men's dice than his. (Okay, no, definitely sounds like a sex joke.) Anemone decides that now is an excellent time to discover her long-lost backbone and tries to deflect his anger, very correctly noting to herself that she's supposed to be a guest on his ship now and not a prisoner.
Since Burke is an absolute morality black hole of a person, he immediately walks back on that agreement the second it doesn't suit him and drags Anemone to his cabin. The chapter ends by him saying that since she's so fond of games he is going to play one with her, and rarely do I wish even for fictional characters to end up in a situation like that, but here's someone I would absolutely LOVE to see Burke play a game with.
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| source: Wikipedia |
Ah, the image of Buffalo Burke getting Sawtrapped is my new happy place to make it through this recap with.
Cheers, gentle readers. Stay tuned for some more freshly brewed fuckery next time.
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