No one minds a touch of the farouche in a new bride. (pg.184) -- Either fierce, wild, or exhibiting withdrawn temperament and shyness coupled with an air of cranky, often sullen fey charm. Sounds like opposites, to me.
Made a cake of myself (pg. 177) -- Seems to be a Regency phrase, can't find a definition, but in context I take it as to do something foolish.
"Gammon", said Lady Sylvia. (pg. 99) -- Are they playing backgammon? Is it a pet name? An ejaculation?
reticule (pg. 90) -- a woman's drawstring bag used especially as a carryall.
commonplace book (pg,. 11) -- A kind of notebook, to my mind.
I totally do not understand the paragraph on pages 192-193.
A review on Amazon.com says this is a retelling of Hamlet. Don't know, never read it. It certainly is a tragedy, though!cold lightning...Only hot lightning makes thunder. (pg. 51) -- Cold lightning has a shorter duration than hot, but I'm not finding anything about the lack of thunder.
Leinenkugel (pg. 175) -- A brand of beer from Wisconsin. I read they introduced Big Eddy Russian Imperial Stout in 2010, sounds impressive!
chiaroscuro figure (pg. 325) -- Several definitions, I'm going with "the quality of being veiled or partly in shadow".
Eight-letter word for 'Formed of fire or light.' Starts with E, ends with L." (pg. 395) -- Turns out to be empyreal.
A little hay goes in, huge cowpies come out. How does that happen? -- (pg. 415) You can't explain that!
"You'll be fine. Just try to stay clam." (pg. 18) -- Ancient Chinese saying? Or typo?
Palimpsest (pg. 242)-- Writing material used one or more times after earlier writing has been erased. The text refers to the remains of a wine bottle label. From a Greek/Latin words meaning scraped again, so maybe the author means a more literal sense.