Home > Work > Trial by Desire (Carhart, #2)
1 " Our marriage lasted a few months. Once you left, what remained faded faster than the ink on the license. And what's left..well, it could blow away in one tiny puff of wind.""Well,then." he spoke with an air of certainty. "I'll try not to exhale.""Don't bother. I stopped holding my breath years before. "
― Courtney Milan , Trial by Desire (Carhart, #2)
2 " It was a good thing she was wearing her mother's pearls. With those clasping her neck, she felt as if she could conquer anything. Harcroft would mock her, no doubt, if he knew her thoughts. He'd dismiss her attire as frills and furbelows-a women's only armor. Idiocy on his part.There were a great many problems that could be solved with a visit to the mantua-maker. and fine gowns or no, this meeting promised to be a war, however politely and subtly it was joined. "
3 " Kate had dressed for battle, donning her finest pink muslin morning dress. With lace at her wrists and mother-of-pearl buttons at her throat, instead of that itchy servant's cloak, she felt capable of matching wits with anyone. "
4 " The physician said some women don't take to childbirth. Something about too much excitement laid upon the female sensibility. She wasn't herself afterward. The female mind is delicate as it is, you know. She changed during her confinement. She was less biddable, more excitable. More given to hysterics."Harcroft shrugged. The gesture conveyed helplessness, and Kate's lip curled. Helpless, Harcroft was not. Kate suppressed the urge to lift the nearby oil lamp with her delicate, female hands. She felt excited and unbiddable right now;why, she might slip and use her own delicate, female sensibility to bash all that heavy brass into his head. "
5 " He swallowed. "That wager. Did anyone succeed?"She stiffened slightly, and then her shoulders lowered in defeat. Now she did turn around. "Oh, Mr. Carhart." It was the first time she had spoken his name since he'd returned, and she imbued those few syllables with all the starch of sad formality. "As I recall, I vowed to forsake all others, keeping only unto you, for as long as we both should live."He winced. "I wasn't questioning your honor.""No." She put her hands on her waist and then looked up at him. "I merely wish to remind you that it was not I who forgot our wedding vows. "
6 " Some servent with no sense of the symbolic had kept the hinges well-oiled during the years of his absence,as if their marital life had merely been cast into temporary abeyance. "
7 " Ned knew what it was like to feel useless. He had been the expendable grandchild, the non-heir. He'd been the fool, the idiot, the one who could be counted on to muck up anything worth doing. His grandfather had expected nothing of Ned, and Ned, young idiot that he had been, had delivered spectacularly. "
8 " Ned waved him off and studied the map in front of him. That sense of unease remained even after Harcroft had taken himself off. In the dim light, the pencil marks seemed child's sketches, failing to capture some basic truth of reality. The numbers still didn't cast up into a proper sum in his head. Two and two came together, but they only managed to whisper dark intimations amongst themselves, hinting at the possibility of a distant four. "
