101
" If not hatred," put in her brother-in-law as the path broadened so that they could walk all abreast, "what of love?"
Out of the corner of her eye, Mary saw her sister and brother-in-law exchange a sickeningly speaking glance.
"Hmph," was Mrs. Fustian's eloquent opinion on that subject. For the first time that evening, Mary found herself in perfect agreement with her. "Good enough for shepherdesses, but not at all the thing for civilized folks. Love is a severely destabilizing emotion. Look at Paris," she finished, as though that said it all.
"The city, or the Greek?" inquired Letty in a tone of suppressed laughter, her arm twined possessively through her husband's.
"Either!" declared Mrs. Fustian. "
― Lauren Willig , The Seduction of the Crimson Rose (Pink Carnation, #4)
103
" Jane’s been captured?” Lady Henrietta surged forward like the statue on the prow of a ship.
“She’s gone in,” Jack corrected shortly. “Voluntarily.”
“And you let her?” Lady Henrietta’s eyes were as wide as they could go.
A dry cackle came from the hatch that led to the nether regions of the yacht. “Have you ever seen anyone ‘let’ Jane do anything?”
A parasol emerged first, a purple parasol, the point hitting the deck with a force that made Miles jump. The newcomer strode forward, blindingly purple skirts swishing around her legs. Jack had never seen that much purple all in one place before. It was like being assaulted by an aubergine.
“If Jane is there, it’s because she chose to be there,” said the newcomer definitively. Jack wasn’t sure whether to appreciate or resent her support. “Jane does or she doesn’t. I would as soon try to yoke an aardvark.”
Lady Henrietta cocked her head. “Does one yoke aardvarks?”
“No,” said Jack shortly, putting an abrupt end to what might otherwise have become a fascinating and largely pointless discourse on natural history. "
― Lauren Willig , The Lure of the Moonflower (Pink Carnation, #12)
105
" When I was in Ireland," Letty blurted out, "Vaughn was there, too."
"A hanging offense, to be sure," Mary drawled, in her very best imitation of Vaughn.
The furrows in Letty's brow dug a little deeper, but she didn't allow herself to be deterred. "There was a woman . . ."
"With Vaughn, I imagine there would be," replied Mary thoughtfully, abandoning the drawl. "He's that sort of a man."
"You almost sound as though you admire him for it."
"I do," said Mary coolly, and was surprised to realize she meant it. He was a man who knew what he wanted and took it. She had had enough of poets and moralists, the sort who sighed and yearned and never had the backbone to act. It had taken months to coax, wheedle, and maneuver Geoffrey into taking the final steps towards elopement, and even then he had done so with a heavy conscience and an inauspicious eye. A conscience, Mary decided, was a damnably unattractive trait in a man. "
― Lauren Willig , The Seduction of the Crimson Rose (Pink Carnation, #4)
106
" Colin rubbed his neck with his hand, regarding me like a hopeful puppy dog. "Are you sure you wouldn't prefer just to fling something at me and get it over with?"
I leaned back against the cushioned back of the banquette, folded my arms across my chest, and waited.
"Dempster?" I prompted.
Colin considered for a moment, contemplated the olive plate, considered some more, and came out with, "We don't get on."
"That much I figured out on my own."
Colin shifted restlessly in his seat. "It's a long story."
I patted the side of the glass carafe. "We have a large carafe of wine."
Colin let himself relax into a rueful grin. "I really am sorry. I didn't mean to drag you into it."
"Since I've already been dragged," I suggested, grasping the carafe with two hands and tipping it forwards over his glass, "it would be nice to know what's going on."
"Thanks." Colin took the glass I held out to him. He raised it an ironic salute. "Cheers. "
― Lauren Willig , The Seduction of the Crimson Rose (Pink Carnation, #4)
107
" For a long moment, he held her gaze without speaking, simply letting the impact of words sink in, before adding rapidly, as though he wished to get it over with as quickly as possible, "I won't deny that you're beautiful. No mirror could tell you otherwise. But there are beautiful women for the buying in any brothel in London. Oh yes, and the ballrooms, too, if one has the proper price. It wasn't your appearance that caught me. It was the way you put me down in the gallery at Sibley Court." Vaughn's lips curved in a reminiscent smile. "And the way you tried to bargain with me after."
"Successfully bargained," Mary corrected.
"That," replied Lord Vaughn, "is exactly what I mean. Has anyone ever told you that you haggle divinely? That the simple beauty of your self-interest is enough to bring a man to his knees?"
Mary couldn't in honesty say that anyone had.
Vaughn's eyes were as hard and bright as silver coins. "Those are the reasons I want you. I want you for your cunning mind and your hard heart, for your indomitable spirit and your scheming soul, for they're more honest by far than any of the so-called virtues."
"The truest poetry is the most feigning?" Mary quoted back his own words to him.
"And the most feigning is the most true. "
― Lauren Willig , The Seduction of the Crimson Rose (Pink Carnation, #4)
118
" What is love?
Jane had asked Nicolas, when he had professed that emotion, unasked. It hadn’t been coyness. It had been a genuine question.
She knew what the poets said of love; she knew what great men and women had sacrificed in the name of that elusive emotion. Towers had toppled; fleets had been launched. But Jane had always wondered if they had all felt a bit sheepish about it afterwards, if what they had lauded as love was merely, in fact, the grip of a strong infatuation, lust fueled by inaccessibility. The prize, when won, lost its luster; infatuation turned to indifference. The famous beauty had a shrill voice; the great lover stinted his servants. Love was a chimera, an ideal.
Maybe you just aren’t capable of feeling it
, Nicolas had tossed back at her, one of those golden barbs that cut deeper than she had ever allowed herself to acknowledge.
But he had been wrong. And so had she. Love wasn’t an ideal; it was messy and muddy and fraught with inconsistencies. It was a hard arm around her shoulders when she slipped and might have fallen, a reluctant nod in the middle of an argument. It was the slouch of Jack’s shoulders and the crooked line of his smile. It was knowing that whatever hardships befell them, they would stumble through it together. "
― Lauren Willig , The Lure of the Moonflower (Pink Carnation, #12)
119
" Crossing my arms over my chest, I said, a little too heartily, “So this is the library.” There certainly couldn’t be any doubt on that score; never had a room so resembled popular preconception. The walls were paneled in rich, dark wood, although the finish had worn off the edges in spots, where books had scraped against the wood in passing one too many times. A whimsical iron staircase curved to the balcony, the steps narrowing into pie-shaped wedges that promised a broken neck to the unwary. I tilted my head back, dizzied by the sheer number of books, row upon row, more than the most devoted bibliophile could hope to consume in a lifetime of reading.
In one corner, a pile of crumbling paperbacks—James Bond, I noticed, squinting sideways, in splashy seventies covers—struck a slightly incongruous note. I spotted a moldering pile of Country Life cheek by jowl with a complete set of Trevelyan’s History of England in the original Victorian bindings. The air was rich with the smell of decaying paper and old leather bindings. Downstairs, where I stood with Colin, the shelves made way for four tall windows, two to the east and two to the north, all hung with rich red draperies checked with blue, in the obverse of the red-flecked blue carpet. On the west wall, the bookshelves surrendered pride of place to a massive fireplace, topped with a carved hood to make Ivanhoe proud, and large enough to roast a serf. In short, the library was a Gothic fantasy. "
― Lauren Willig , The Masque of the Black Tulip (Pink Carnation, #2)
