43
" Miss Mackintosh waved her arms wildly." Oh, please stop, and let me guess," she cried. " I shall go crazy with joy if I'm right. It was an old Peerage, and so she found that Lady Deal was Helena Herman--" " Whom she had seen ten years ago at a music hall as a male impersonator," cried Diva." And didn't want to know her," interrupted Miss Mackintosh." Yes, that's it, but that is not all. I hope you won't mind, but it's too rich. She saw you this morning coming out of your house in your bath-chair, and was quite sure that you were that Lady Deal." The three ladies rocked with laughter. Sometimes one recovered, and sometimes two, but they were re-infected by the third, and so they went on, solo and chorus, and duet and chorus, till exhaustion set in." But there's still a mystery," said Diva at length, wiping her eyes. " Why did the Peerage say that Lady Deal was Helena Herman?" " Oh, that's the last Lady Deal," said Miss Mackintosh. " Helena Herman's Lord Deal died without children and Florence's Lord Deal, my Lady Deal, succeeded. Cousins." " If that isn't a lesson for Elizabeth Mapp," said Diva. " Better go to the expense of a new Peerage than make such a muddle. But what a long call we've made. We must go." " Florence shall hear every word of it to-morrow night," said Miss Mackintosh. " I promise not to tell her till then. We'll all tell her." " Oh, that is kind of you," said Diva." It's only fair. And what about Miss Mapp being told?" " She'll find it out by degrees," said the ruthless Diva. " It will hurt more in bits." " Oh, but she mustn't be hurt," said Miss Mackintosh. " She's too precious, I adore her." " So do we," said Diva. " But we like her to be found out occasionally. You will, too, when you know her. "
46
" …He rocked against her, his body shuddering against hers again and again, until he collapsed on top of her and buried his face in her hair.
Brooke felt his heart beating against her chest as they lay there, boneless. For two people who preferred to speak in quips and sarcasm, that had been unexpectedly…intense.
She wasn’t quite sure how to feel about that.
Then Cade spoke.
“I think this is the first time I’ve ever used this table,” he said, against her neck.
Brooke began to laugh. My God, he was still inside her and she was already giggling. “I take it you don’t do a lot of formal entertaining.”
He pulled back, his dark hair falling across his forehead. “Were you not entertained, Ms. Parker? "
― Julie James , Love Irresistibly (FBI/US Attorney, #4)
53
" She had been the source of all his wealth; she had peopled his plantation with slaves; she had become a great grandmother in his service. She had rocked him in infancy, attended him in childhood, served him through life, and at his death wiped from his icy brow the cold death-sweat, and closed his eyes forever. She was nevertheless left a slave—a slave for life—a slave in the hands of strangers; and in their hands she saw her children, her grandchildren, and her great-grandchildren, divided, like so many sheep, without being gratified with the small privilege of a single word, as to their or her own destiny. "
― Frederick Douglass , Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave / Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl