Maybe it was the result of gardening, that quiet sense of pleasure in touching growing things, the satisfaction of helping them thrive.
Do women hold back the evolution of such things as freedom and other social ideals, out of fear for themselves or their children? Or do they in fact inspire such things – and the risks required to reach them – by providing the things worth fighting for? Not merely fighting to defend, either, but to propel forward, for a man wanted more for his children than he would ever have.
I did say when we were wed that I would always see ye fed, no?” He pulled me closer, tucking my head into the curve of his shoulder. “I gave ye three things that day,” he said softly. “My name, my family, and the protection of my body. You’ll have those things always, Sassenach – so long as we both shall live. No matter where we may be. I willna let ye go hungry or cold; I’ll let nothing harm ye, ever.
Its appearance was greeted with cries of rapture, and following a brief struggle over possesion of the volume, William rescued it before it should be torn to pieces, but allowed himself to be induced to read some of the passages aloud, his dramatic rendering being greeted by wolflike howls of enthusiasim and hails of live pits.
He came through the front door just as I barreled into the hallway, and grabbed me round the waist, kissing me with sun-dusty enthusiasm and sandpaper whiskers.
Evidently, women are capable of experiencing rational thought and sexual arousal simultaneously, because I appeared to be doing precisely that.
Jealousy had nothing to do with logic.
Oh, many and many a time,” he whispered. “When I saw you. When I took ye, not caring did ye want me or no, did ye have somewhere else to be, someone else to love.
Grey had noticed this female paradox before: women who swooned at the notion of powerful men who would protect them at the same time liked nothing better than an open admission of helplessness on the part of any male within their sphere of influence.
For I hadn’t stood frozen at the revelation of Geilie’s pregnancy. It was something else I had seen that chilled me to the marrow of my bones. As Geilie had spun, white arms stretched aloft, I saw what she had seen when my own clothes were stripped away. A mark on one arm like the one I bore. Here, in this time, the mark of sorcery, the mark of a magus. The small, homely scar of a smallpox vaccination.
There’s always a prayer, a nighean, even if it’s only A Dhia, cuidich mi.” Oh, God – help me.
Yes, but – ” I began. “So” – he said authoritatively, holding up a finger to hush me – “if you have been deprived of your earlier life, perhaps it is only that God has seen fit to bless you with another, that may be richer and fuller.
It’s only the essence of a thing that counts. When time strips everything else away, it’s only the hardness of the bone that’s left.
Owls are keepers of the dead, but not just the dead. They’re messengers between worlds.
A party at which the guests are all of the beautiful persuasion tends to be dull indeed, as they have no conversation that does not pertain to themselves. A successful gathering requires a number of the ill-favored but clever. The beautiful are but ornaments – desirable, but dispensable.
Nothing is lost... only changed.
Even when I’ve just left ye, I want you so much my chest feels tight and my fingers ache with wanting to touch ye again.
You are alive. You are whole. All is well.
Sometimes it would be months – even a year or more – between episodes, and we would live in peace together. But then it would happen again; the silent phone calls, the too-excused absences, the late nights. Never anything so overt as another woman’s perfume, or lipstick on his collar – he had discretion. But I always felt the ghost of the other woman, whoever she was; some faceless, indistinguishable She. I.
I was convinced by now that his feelings for Laoghaire were only those of a chivalrous friendship, but I didn’t know what he might do if he knew that his uncle had seduced the girl and got her with child.