1
" All right, then,” she snapped, “do as you please! Perhaps afterward we could manage a coherent discussion.” Twisting beneath him, she flopped onto her stomach.
Christopher went still. After a long hesitation, she heard him ask in a far more normal voice, “What are you doing?”
“I’m making it easier for you,” came her defiant reply. “Go on, start ravishing.”
Another silence. Then, “Why are you facing downward?”
“Because that’s how it’s done.” Beatrix twisted to look at him over her shoulder. A twinge of uncertainty caused her to ask, “Isn’t it?”
His face was blank. “Has no one ever told you?”
“No, but I’ve read about it.”
Christopher rolled off her, relieving her of his weight. He wore an odd expression as he asked, “From what books?”
“Veterinary manuals. And of course, I’ve observed the squirrels in springtime, and farm animals and-”
She was interrupted as Christopher cleared his throat loudly, and again. Darting a confused glance at him, she realized that he was trying to choke back amusement.
Beatrix began to feel indignant. Her first time in a bed with a man, and he was laughing.
“Look here,” she said in a businesslike manner, “I’ve read about the mating habits of over two dozen species, and with the exception of snails, whose genitalia is on their necks, they all—” She broke off and frowned. “Why are you laughing at me?
Christopher had collapsed, overcome with hilarity. As he lifted his head and saw her affronted expression, he struggled manfully with another outburst. “Beatrix. I’m . . . I’m not laughing at you.”
“You are!”
“No I’m not. It’s just . . .” He swiped a tear from the corner of his eye, and a few more chuckles escaped. “Squirrels . . .”
“Well, it may be humorous to you, but it’s a very serious matter to the squirrels. "
― Lisa Kleypas , Love in the Afternoon (The Hathaways, #5)
3
" Poppy took a deep, appreciative breath. “How bracing,” she said. “I wonder what makes the country air smell so different?”
“It could be the pig farm we just passed,” Leo muttered.
Beatrix, who had been reading from a pamphlet describing the south of England, said cheerfully, “Hampshire is known for its exceptional pigs. They’re fed on acorns and beechnut mast from the forest, and it makes the bacon quite lovely. And there’s an annual sausage competition!”
He gave her a sour look. “Splendid. I certainly hope we haven’t missed it.”
Win, who had been reading from a thick tome about Hampshire and its environs, volunteered, “The history of Ramsay House is impressive.”
“Our house is in a history book?” Beatrix asked in delight.
“It’s only a small paragraph,” Win said from behind the book, “but yes, Ramsay House is mentioned. Of course, it’s nothing compared to our neighbor, the Earl of Westcliff, whose estate features one of the finest country homes in England. It dwarfs ours by comparison. And the earl’s family has been in residence for nearly five hundred years.”
“He must be awfully old, then,” Poppy commented, straight-faced.
Beatrix snickered. “Go on, Win.”
“‘Ramsay House,’” Win read aloud, “‘stands in a small park populated with stately oaks and beeches, coverts of bracken, and surrounds of deer-cropped turf. Originally an Elizabethan manor house completed in 1594, the building boasts of many long galleries representative of the period. Alterations and additions to the house have resulted in the grafting of a Jacobean ballroom and a Georgian wing.’”
“We have a ballroom!” Poppy exclaimed.
“We have deer!” Beatrix said gleefully.
Leo settled deeper into his corner. “God, I hope we have a privy. "
― Lisa Kleypas , Mine Till Midnight (The Hathaways, #1)
5
" Beyond all of that, I could see the wall I had seen from inside the train, the wall that runs along the train line. I assumed that there, behind it, was the west, and I was right. I could have been wrong, but I was right.' If she had any future it was over there, and she needed to get to it.
I sit in the chair exploring the meaning of dumbstruck, rolling the word around in my mind. I laugh with Miriam as she laughs at herself, and at the boldness of being sixteen. At sixteen you are invulnerable. I laugh with her about rummaging around for a ladder in other people's sheds, and I laugh harder when she finds one. We laugh at the improbability of it, of someone barely more than a child poking around in Beatrix Potter's garden by the Wall, watching out for Mr McGregor and his blunderbuss, and looking for a step-ladder to scale one of the most fortified barriers on earth. We both like the girl she was, and I like the woman she has become.
She says suddenly, 'I still have the scars on my hands from climbing the barbed wire, but you can't see them so well now.' She holds out her hands. The soft parts of her palms are crazed with definite white scares, each about a centimeter long.
The first fence was wire mesh with a roll of barbed wire along the top. "
― Anna Funder , Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall
12
" Snuggling comfortably in her corner, Beatrix gave her older sister a perplexed glance. “Win? You have the oddest look on your face. Is something the matter?”
Win had frozen in the act of lifting a teacup to her lips, her blue eyes round with alarm.
Following her sister’s gaze, Amelia saw a small reptilian creature slithering up Beatrix’s shoulder. A sharp cry escaped her lips, and she moved forward with her hands raised.
Beatrix glanced at her shoulder. “Oh, drat. You’re supposed to stay in my pocket.” She plucked the wriggling object from her shoulder and stroked him gently. “A spotted sand lizard,” she said. “Isn’t he adorable? I found him in my room last night.”
Amelia lowered her hands and stared dumbly at her youngest sister.
“You’ve made a pet of him?” Win asked weakly. “Beatrix, dear, don’t you think he would be happier in the forest where he belongs?”
Beatrix looked indignant. “With all those predators? Spot wouldn’t last a minute.”
Amelia found her voice. “He won’t last a minute with me, either. Get rid of him, Bea, or I’m going to flatten him with the nearest heavy object I can find.”
“You would murder my pet?”
“One doesn’t murder lizards, Bea. One exterminates them.” Exasperated, Amelia turned to Merripen. “Find some cleaning women in the village, Merripen. God knows how many other unwanted creatures are lurking in the house. Not counting Leo.”
Merripen disappeared at once.
“Spot is the perfect pet,” Beatrix argued. “He doesn’t bite, and he’s already house-trained.”
“I draw the line at pets with scales.”
Beatrix stared at her mutinously. “The sand lizard is a native species of Hampshire—which means Spot has more right to be here than we do.”
“Nevertheless, we will not be cohabiting. "
― Lisa Kleypas , Mine Till Midnight (The Hathaways, #1)
13
" What happened?” she asked, dropping to the damp ground beside Win. “Has Merripen been burned?”
“Yes, on his back.” Win ripped a makeshift bandage from the hem of her own gown. “Beatrix, would you take this, please, and soak it in water?”
Without a word, Beatrix scampered to the trough at the handpump.
Win stroked Merripen’s thick black hair as he rested his head on his forearms. His breath hissed unevenly through his teeth.
“Does it hurt, or is it numb?” Amelia asked.
“Hurts like the devil,” he choked out.
“That’s a good sign. A burn is much more serious if it’s numb.”
He turned his head to give her a speaking glance. "
― Lisa Kleypas , Mine Till Midnight (The Hathaways, #1)
14
" Americanism in all its forms seemed to be trashy and wasteful and crude, even brutal. There was a metaphor ready to hand in my native Hampshire. Until some time after the war, the squirrels of England had been red. I can still vaguely remember these sweet Beatrix Potter–type creatures, smaller and prettier and more agile and lacking the rat-like features that disclose themselves when you get close to a gray squirrel. These latter riffraff, once imported from America by some kind of regrettable accident, had escaped from captivity and gradually massacred and driven out the more demure and refined English breed. It was said that the gray squirrels didn't fight fair and would with a raking motion of their back paws castrate the luckless red ones. Whatever the truth of that, the sighting of a native English squirrel was soon to be a rarity, confined to the north of Scotland and the Isle of Wight, and this seemed to be emblematic, for the anxious lower middle class, of a more general massification and de-gentrification and, well, Americanization of everything. "
― Christopher Hitchens , Hitch 22: A Memoir
