You make it sound as if I hit her. I did nothing to Edie!'
'Oh? You did nothing? The woman I found in your wake, stripped of all self-repsect, convinced that she was a failure as a mother and a lover: that wasn't your work? Because I think it was!
There was no point in taking issue with Marilla's overweening self-regard. It was as infinite as a starry night.
Eloisa JamesYou cannot ask women to marry you whom you barely know.'
'Why not?' he asked. Compatibility is not something one discovers after five encounters rather than one. One must make an educated guess.'
'That's just it: you know nothing of me!'
'Not so,' he said promptly. "Number one, you're Scottish. Number two, you're Scottish. Number three -'
'I can guess,' she said.
'You're beautiful,' he finished, a fleeting smile crossing his face.
The sky was a high, pale blue, like faded linen hung in the sun ... Under the alders were bluebells, dark blue, blue flowers hanging their little heads from the beauty of their blossoms.
Eloisa JamesTags: nature-s-beauty
The sun danced through the small leaves of the oak, turning them saffron and dappling the blankets with the ghosts of baby leaves. Ewan very seriously filled all the glasses with bluebells, and gave them water from the stream, so the picnic turned from a very formal affair, all heavy silver and starched linen, to a child's tea party.
Eloisa JamesTags: picnic
From here she could see miles of dark emerald forest with just a few birds erupting from its depths like flying fish skimming an ocean ...
'Annabel!' Ewan called.
She looked down. He was standing in water, after all. So without a moment's trepidation, she launched herself from the downed carriage, coming home to his arms with all the security and the pleasure of child leaping from the second stair.
Gabby seemed to have made up her mind. 'I certainly wish I could help you, Lord Breksby,' she cooed, tilting her head to the side.
Quill watched cynically from the other side of the room as Breksby melted in front of his eyes. At least he wasn't alone in being bowled over by Miss Gabrielle Jerningham. Although he rather thought he, Quill, hadn't been lied to yet. If so, he reminded himself, it was only a matter of time.
She'd always thought that a broken heart sounded rather romantic. But in truth it was physical. Her whole chest ached, as if she'd been struck with a knife. With all her witless calculations about how to make a man desire her, she'd never realized that the most important thing was to make him like her. Or even love her. What a fool she was.
Eloisa JamesTags: broken-heart
There was no mistaking the look in his eyes. Pain wrenched her heart. All those skills she had developed so painstakingly as a girl were apparently going to destroy a dream that she'd never had the courage to hold...'It's only desire,' she explained, watching his eyes. 'Desire is an artificial thing, created by - by -'
'By what?'
'By artificial things,' Annabel said obstinately. 'Smiles I practiced, Ewan...You don't understand how fabricated it all is...I let my hips sway when I walk, because men like it. You like it.'
'Your hips don't sway naturally?'
'No. Or perhaps they do at this point, but only because I consciously changed my walk when I was younger. But it's all just a facade, put on to inspire desire.' ...
'A game of desire?'
"No. A game to get what I wish from men.
Ewan felt a searing stab of guilt. He'd taken an exquisite, laughing young woman away from the London ballrooms that were her natural milieu and reduced her to a tearful, freezing damsel in distress. What's more, he'd taken her virginity, and given her only potatoes to eat. And for what? Due to a quixotic idea that he would alleviate her fear of poverty?
No. Annabel had accused him of not being honest with himself. The truth of it was that he'd sent his carriages away out of pure, unadulterated lust, no matter how much he would like to dress it up in fancy ideas.
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