62
" How comfortable this was, she thought in wonder. How calm and safe she felt with him. "Why wasn't it like this before?" she asked dreamily. "If you'd been the way you are now, I would never have argued with you about anything."
"I tried being nice to you, once or twice. It didn't go well."
"Did you? I never noticed." Her skin, already pink from the bath, turned a deeper shade. "I was suspicious. Mistrustful. And you... were everything I feared."
Leo's arms tightened at the admission. He looked down at her with a pensive gaze, as if he were untangling something in his mind, approaching a new realization. The blue eyes were warmer than she had ever seen them. "Let's make a bargain, Marks. From now on, instead of assuming the worst of each other, we'll try to assume the best. Agreed?"
Catherine nodded, transfixed by his gentleness. Somehow those few simple sentences seemed to have wrought a greater change between them than everything that had gone before. "
― Lisa Kleypas , Married by Morning (The Hathaways, #4)
63
" A gentleman shouldn't give personal items to a lady he's courting." He lowered his voice, mindful of being overheard by Poppy and the housekeeper, who were talking by the threshold of the Rutledge apartments. "But I can't take it back- no other woman could do it justice. And Marks, you have no idea of the self-restraint I exercised, I wanted to buy you a pair of embroidered stockings with little flowers running that run all the way up the insides of your-"
"My lord," Catherine whispered, a light blush covering her face. "You forget yourself."
"I haven't forgotten a thing, actually. Not one detail of your beautiful body. Soon I may start sketching you naked again. Every time I put a pencil to paper, the temptation nearly overwhelms me."
She tried to look severe. "You promised not to do that again."
"But my pencil has a will of its own," he said gravely. "
― Lisa Kleypas , Married by Morning (The Hathaways, #4)
64
" As he had predicted, he loved Catherine like a madman. And as she had once claimed, she was entirely able to manage him. They were different in so many ways, and yet somehow it made them exactly right for each other.
The result had been a remarkably harmonious marriage. They entertained each other with furious, funny bickering and long, thoughtful conversations. When they were alone, they often spoke in a kind of shorthand that no one else would have been able to interpret. They were a physical pair, passionate and affectionate. Playful. But the real surprise of the marriage was the kindness they showed each other... they, who had once fought so bitterly.
Leo had never expected that the woman who had formerly brought out the worst in him would now bring out the best in him. And he had never dreamed that his love for her would deepen to such proportions that there was no hope of controlling or restraining it. In the face of a love this vast, a man could only surrender. "
― Lisa Kleypas , Married by Morning (The Hathaways, #4)
66
" Marks was so self-contained and tenacious that it was often easy to forget she was still a young woman in her early twenties. When Leo had first met her, she had been the perfect embodiment of a dried-up spinster, with her spectacles and forbidding scowl and her stern hyphen of a mouth. Her spine was unbending as a fireplace poker, and her hair, the dull brown of apple moths, was always pinned back too tightly. The Grim Reaper, Leo had nicknamed her, despite the objections of the family.
But the past year had wrought a remarkable change in Marks. She had filled out, her body slender but no longer matchstick thin, and her cheeks had gained color. A week and a half ago, when Leo had arrived from London, he had been absolutely astonished to see Marks with light golden locks. Apparently she had been dyeing her hair for years, but after an error on the part of the apothecary, she had been forced to abandon the disguise. And whereas the darker brown locks had been too severe for her delicate features and pale skin, her own natural blond was stunning.
Which had left Leo to grapple with the fact that Catherine Marks, his mortal enemy, was a beauty. It wasn't really the altered hair color that made her look so different... it was more that Marks was so uncomfortable without it. She felt vulnerable, and it showed. As a result, Leo wanted to strip away more layers, literal and physical. He wanted to know her. "
― Lisa Kleypas , Married by Morning (The Hathaways, #4)
69
" At least work keeps you from your vices," Win quipped one evening before supper, rubbing his hair affectionately as she joined him in the parlor.
"I happen to like my vices," Leo told her. "That's why I went to the trouble of acquiring them."
"What you need to acquire," Win said gently, "is a wife. And I'm not saying that out of self-interest, Leo."
He smiled at her, this gentlest of sisters, who had fought so many personal battles for the sake of love. "You don't possess a molecule of self-interest, Win. "
― Lisa Kleypas , Married by Morning (The Hathaways, #4)
76
" We didn't know whom to fear for more, Win with her weak lungs, or Leo, who was bent on destroying himself."
"But they came back well," Catherine said.
"Yes, both of them were finally well. But different."
"Because of France."
"That, and also the struggles they'd been through. Win told me that one isn't improved by being at the top of the mountain, one is improved by the climb."
Catherine smiled as she thought of Win, whose patient fortitude had carried her through years of illness. "That sounds exactly like her," she said. "Perceptive. And strong. "
― Lisa Kleypas , Married by Morning (The Hathaways, #4)
77
" We didn't know whom to fear for more, Win with her weak lungs, or Leo, who was bent on destroying himself."
"But they came back well," Catherine said.
"Yes, both of them were finally well. But different."
"Because of France?"
"That, and also the struggles they'd been through. Win told me that one isn't improved by being at the top of the mountain, one is improved by the climb."
Catherine smiled as she thought of Win, whose patient fortitude had carried her through years of illness. "That sounds exactly like her," she said. "Perceptive. And strong. "
― Lisa Kleypas , Married by Morning (The Hathaways, #4)
79
" Beatrix didn't walk, she explored. She liked to go deep into the forest, investigating flora, fungi, nests, webs, and holes in the ground. Nothing delighted the youngest Hathaway so much as the discovery of a black newt, a lizard's nest, or a rabbit warren, or the tracking of badgers' marks.
Injured creatures were caught, rehabilitated, and set free, or if they could not fend for themselves, they became part of the Hathaway household. And the family had become so accustomed to Beatrix's animals that no one so much as batted an eye when a hedgehog waddled through the parlor or a pair of rabbits hopped past the dinner table. "
― Lisa Kleypas , Married by Morning (The Hathaways, #4)
80
" Thunderbolts," Beatrix exclaimed, entering the library where Leo had been waiting, "I can't go with you to the ruins after all. I've just checked on Lucky, and she's about to have her babies. I can't leave her at such a time."
Leo smiled quizzically, replacing a book on a shelf. "Who's Lucky?"
"Oh, I forgot you hadn't met her. She's a three-legged cat who used to belong to the cheesemaker in the village. The poor thing got her paw caught in a rat trap, and it had to be amputated. And now that she's no longer a good mouser, the cheesemaker gave her to me. He never even named her, can you imagine?"
"Given what happened to her, the name 'Lucky' is something of a misnomer, isn't it?"
"I thought it might improve her fortunes."
"I'm sure it will," Leo said, amused. Beatrix's passion for helping vulnerable creatures had always worried and touched the Hathaways in equal measure. They all recognized that Beatrix was the most unconventional person in the family.
Beatrix was always sought after at London social events. She was a pretty girl, if not classically beautiful, with her blue eyes, dark hair, and tall, slender figure. Gentlemen were attracted by her freshness and charm, unaware that she showed the same patient interest to hedgehogs, field mice, and misbehaving spaniels. And when it came time for active courtship, men reluctantly left Beatrix's engaging company and turned to more conventional misses. With each successive season, her chances at marriage diminished.
Beatrix didn't seem to care. At the age of nineteen- nearly twenty- she had yet to fall in love. It was universally agreed among the Hathaways that few men would be able to understand or handle her. She was a force of nature, unhampered by conventional rules. "
― Lisa Kleypas , Married by Morning (The Hathaways, #4)
