It’s only when the blood is bright red, and a terrible lot all at once, that ye worry.
To the taste of breasts like apricots, the warm scent of a woman’s navel when she wakens in the winter, the warmth of a mound that fills your hand like a peach, split with ripeness.
If thee thinks the spirit of God is necessarily logical, thee know Him better than I do.
He said the greatest thing in a man’s life is to lie wi’ a woman he loves,” he said softly. He smiled at me, eyes blue as the sky overhead. “He was right.
He had enough experience in the business of prayer to recognize an answer when it showed up, though, however unwelcome.
And then it came to me, as one of the redcoats, knocked flat by a fleeing Scot, rose and shook his fist theatrically after the horses. Of course. A film! I shook my head at my own slowness. They were shooting a costume drama of some sort, that was all. One of those Bonnie-Prince-in-the-heather sorts of things, no doubt. Well.
Pleasure?” Her voice rose behind me, incredulous. “Ye mean some women like it?
We had chosen the Highlands as a place to holiday before Frank took up his appointment as a history professor at Oxford, on the grounds that Scotland had been somewhat less touched by the physical horrors of war than the rest of Britain, and was less susceptible to the frenetic postwar gaiety that infected more popular vacation spots.
To create, to hoard, to send these things, these fragile documents, down through the years, with only the hope that they would survive and reach those for whom they were intended.
Escorted by Murtagh, who was disguised as my groom, I had barely made it out of sight of the prison before sliding off my horse and being sick in the snow.
I relaxed my grip on the knife; she could hardly attack me with a lapful of goat.
It’s two hundred year, in the Highland tales – when folk fall asleep on fairy duns and end up dancing all night wi’ the Auld Folk; it’s usually two hundred year later when they come back to their own place.
There’s worse has happened to others, lass,” he said quietly. Then he let go and the spell was broken.
It’s a rare plant,” he said, touching the sprig in my open hand. “Flowers, fruit and leaves all together at the one time. The white flowers are for honor, and red fruit for courage – and the green leaves are for constancy.
Well, legends are many-legged beasties, aye? But they generally have at least one foot on the truth.
Besides, what would you do with the body, if you killed him? the logical side of my mind inquired. He wouldn’t fit in the cupboard, let alone the hidey-hole.
I marched into the shop and bought the vases.
As a mother, I had the lightness now of effort complete, honor satisfied. Mission accomplished.
You can’t make a horse do anything. You see what he’s going to do and then you tell him to do that, and he thinks it’s your idea, so next time you tell him something, he’s more likely to do what you tell him.
All loss is one, and one loss becomes all, a.