161
" You must have traveled all night,” she heard herself say.
“I had to come back early.” She felt his lips brush her tumbled hair. “I left some things unfinished. But I had a feeling you might need me. Tell me what’s happened, sweetheart.”
Amelia opened her mouth to answer, but to her mortification, the only sound she could make was a sort of miserable croak. Her self-control shattered. She shook her head and choked on more sobs, and the more she tried to stop them, the worse they became.
Cam gripped her firmly, deeply, into his embrace. The appalling storm of tears didn’t seem to bother him at all. He took one of Amelia’s hands and flattened it against his heart, until she could feel the strong, steady beat. In a world that was disintegrating around her, he was solid and real. “It’s all right,” she heard him murmur. “I’m here.”
Alarmed by her own lack of self-discipline, Amelia made a wobbly attempt to stand on her own, but he only hugged her more closely. “No, don’t pull away. I’ve got you.” He cuddled her shaking form against his chest. Noticing Poppy’s awkward retreat, Cam sent her a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, little sister.”
“Amelia hardly ever cries,” Poppy said.
“She’s fine.” Cam ran his hand along Amelia’s spine in soothing strokes. “She just needs…”
As he paused, Poppy said, “A shoulder to lean on.”
“Yes.” He drew Amelia to the stairs, and gestured for Poppy to sit beside them.
Cradling Amelia on his lap, Cam found a handkerchief in his pocket and wiped her eyes and nose. When it became apparent that no sense could be made from her jumbled words, he hushed her gently and held her against his large, warm body while she sobbed and hid her face. Overwhelmed with relief, she let him rock her as if she were a child.
As Amelia hiccupped and quieted in his arms, Cam asked a few questions of Poppy, who told him about Merripen’s condition and Leo’s disappearance, and even about the missing silverware.
Finally getting control of herself, Amelia cleared her aching throat. She lifted her head from Cam’s shoulder and blinked.
“Better?” he asked, holding the handkerchief up to her nose.
Amelia nodded and blew obediently. “I’m sorry,” she said in a muffled voice. “I shouldn’t have turned into a watering pot. I’m finished now.”
Cam seemed to look right inside her. His voice was very soft. “You don’t have to be sorry. You don’t have to be finished, either.”
She realized that no matter what she did or said, no matter how long she wanted to cry, he would accept it. And he would comfort her. "
― Lisa Kleypas , Mine Till Midnight (The Hathaways, #1)
164
" Just as Cam left Ivo Jenner’s apartments, St. Vincent met him in the hall. There was a scowl on the blond man’s face, and a vein of chilling arrogance in his tone. “If my wife finds comfort in trite Gypsy homilies, I have no objection to your offering them. However, if you ever kiss her again, no matter how platonic the fashion, I’ll make a eunuch of you.”
The fact that St. Vincent could stoop to petty jealousy when Ivo Jenner was not yet cold in his bed might have outraged some men. Cam, however, regarded the autocratic viscount with speculative interest.
Deliberately calibrating his reply to test the other man, Cam said softly, “Had I ever wanted her that way, I would have had her by now.”
There it was— a flash of warning in St. Vincent’s ice-blue eyes that revealed a depth of feeling he would not admit to. Cam had never seen anything like the mute longing that St. Vincent felt for his own wife. No one could fail to observe that whenever Evie entered the room, St.Vincent practically vibrated like a tuning fork.
“It is possible to care about a woman without wanting to bed her,” Cam pointed out. “But it appears that you don’t agree. Or are you so obsessed with her that you can’t fathom how anyone else could fail to feel the same?”
“I’m not obsessed with her,” St. Vincent snapped.
Leaning a shoulder against the wall, Cam stared into the man’s hard eyes, his usual reserve of patience nearly depleted. “Of course you are. Anyone could see it.”
St. Vincent gave him a warning glance. “Another word,” he said thickly, “and you’ll go the way of Egan.”
Cam raised his hands in a mocking gesture of self-defense. “Warning taken. "
― Lisa Kleypas , Devil in Winter (Wallflowers, #3)
165
" Ironically,” she commented, “this will be the first time I’ve ever done anything to please my father.”
With a sympathetic murmur, Matthew gathered Daisy close against him. He knew her father as well as anyone, having become well acquainted with the man’s tempers, his self-absorption, his impossible standards. And yet he understood what it had required for Bowman to build a great fortune from scratch, the sacrifices he’d had to make. Bowman had discarded everything that would have gotten in the way of achieving his goals. Including closeness with his wife and children.
For the first time it occurred to Matthew that Bowman and his family would benefit from someone acting as a mediator, to ease their communications with each other. If such a thing were in his power, he would find a way to do it.
“You,” he whispered in Daisy’s hair, “are the best thing he’s ever done. Someday he’ll realize that.”
He felt her smile against his skin. “I doubt it. But it’s nice of you to say so. You don’t have to be concerned on that account, you know. I reconciled myself to the way he was a long time ago.”
Once again Matthew was taken unaware by the extent of the feelings she inspired in him, his own limitless desire to fill her with happiness.
“Whatever you need,” he whispered, “Whatever you want, I’ll get it for you. Just tell me.”
Daisy stretched comfortably, a pleasant shiver running through her limbs. She touched his lips with her fingers, tracing the smoothness. “I want to know what your five-dollar wish was for.”
“Is that all?” He smiled beneath her exploring fingertips. “I wished you would find someone who wanted you as much as I did. But I knew it wouldn’t come true.”
The candlelight slid over Daisy’s delicate features as she raised her head to look at him. “Why not?”
“Because I knew no one could ever want you as much as I do.”
Daisy levered herself farther over him until her hair tumbled in a dark curtain around them both.
“What was your wish?” Matthew asked, combing his fingers through the fall of shimmering hair.
“That I could find the right man to marry.” Her tender smile stopped his heart. “And then you appeared. "
― Lisa Kleypas , Scandal in Spring (Wallflowers, #4)
171
" You’re not responsible for everything. Your brother is an adult. So are Winnifred and Poppy. They agreed with your decision, didn’t they?”
“Yes, but Leo wasn’t in his right mind. He still isn’t. And Win is frail, and—”
“You like to blame yourself, don’t you? Come walk with me.”
She set her empty wine cup at the corner of the stall, feeling light-headed. The second cup of wine had been a mistake. And going anywhere with Rohan, with night deepening and revelry all around them, would be yet another. But as she looked into his hazel eyes, she felt absurdly reckless. Just a few stolen minutes … she couldn’t resist the lawless mischief of his smile. “My family will worry if I don’t rejoin them soon.”
“They know you’re with me.”
“That’s why they’ll worry,” she said, making him laugh. "
― Lisa Kleypas , Mine Till Midnight (The Hathaways, #1)
173
" Turning at the sound of voices, Amelia saw Merripen carrying her sister outside. Win was dressed in a nightgown and robe and swathed in a shawl, her slim arms looped around Merripen’s neck. With her white garments and blond hair and fair skin, Win was nearly colorless except for the flags of soft pink across her cheekbones and the vivid blue of her eyes.
“… that was the most terrible medicine,” she was saying cheerfully.
“It worked,” Merripen pointed out, bending to settle her carefully on the chaise.
“That doesn’t mean I forgive you for bullying me into taking it.”
“It was for your own good.”
“You’re a bully,” Win repeated, smiling into his dark face.
“Yes, I know,” Merripen murmured, tucking the lap blankets around her with extreme care.
Delighted by the improvement in her sister’s condition, Amelia smiled. “He really is dreadful. But if he manages to persuade more villagers to help clean the house, you will have to forgive him, Win.”
Win’s blue eyes twinkled. She spoke to Amelia, while her gaze remained on Merripen. “I have every faith in his powers of persuasion. "
― Lisa Kleypas , Mine Till Midnight (The Hathaways, #1)
177
" It’s like your whole life you’ve been falling toward the earth, until the moment someone catches
you. And you realize that somehow you’ve caught her at the same time. And together, instead of
falling, you might be able to fly.” The ghost went to the discarded clipping and stared down at the
photo, riveted. “She’s a beaut, isn’t she?”
“Sure,” Alex said automatically, although there was nothing of Zoë’s sparkling allure in the
photo, only a hint of resemblance. "
― Lisa Kleypas , Dream Lake (Friday Harbor, #3)
178
" There was something wonderful about the atmosphere at Stony Cross Park. One could easily imagine it as some magical place set in some far-off land. The surrounding forest was so deep and thick as to be primeval in appearance, while the twelve-acre garden behind the manor seemed too perfect to be real. There were groves, glades, ponds, and fountains. It was a garden of many moods, alternating tranquility with colorful tumult. A disciplined garden, every blade of grass precisely clipped, the corners of the box hedges trimmed to knife blade crispness.
Hatless, gloveless, and infused with a sudden sense of optimism, Annabelle breathed deeply of the country air. She skirted the edge of the terraced gardens at the back of the manor and followed a graveled path set between raised beds of poppies and geraniums. The atmosphere soon became thick with the perfume of flowers, as the path paralleled a drystone wall covered with tumbles of pink and cream roses.
Wandering more slowly, Annabelle crossed through an orchard of ancient pear trees, sculpted by decades into fantastic shapes. Farther off, a canopy of silver birch led to woodland beds that appeared to melt seamlessly into the forest beyond. "
― Lisa Kleypas , Secrets of a Summer Night (Wallflowers, #1)
