3
" She looked up at him with those eyes, and Dougan experienced a pang of love so intense and ferocious it felt as though it didn't belong in this holy room.
He began the incantation he remembered from watching once from behind his mother's skirts when he was young.
'Ye are blood of my blood, and bone of my bone.
I give ye my body, that we two might be one.
I give ye my spirit, 'til our life shall be done.'
Farah needed a bit of prompting to remember all the words, but she said them with such fervency that Dougan was touched.
Slipping a ring of a willow herb vine onto her finger, he recited the sacred olde vows with perfect clarity, but translated them into English for her sake.
'I made ye my heart
At the rising of the moon.
To love and honor,
Through all our lives.
May we be reborn,
May our souls meet and know.
And love again.
And remember.'
She looked lost and mystified for a moment, then announced, "Me, too. "
― Kerrigan Byrne , The Highwayman (Victorian Rebels, #1)
4
" The Indian lamb curry centered the meal as the main entree, surrounded with fragrant flat breads. Partridge compote steamed next to a fried savory forcemeat pastry made of garlic, parsley, tarragon, chives and beef suet enclosed in a buttery crust. The appetizer included oysters cut from their shell, sautéed, and then returned to be arranged in a bath of butter and dill.
The footman reappeared, and while he set a second place, Farah counted the admittedly obscene amount of desserts. Perhaps they should have left out the cocoa sponge cake, or the little cream-and-fruit stuffed cornucopias with chocolate sauce. She absolutely couldn't have chosen between the almond cakes with the sherry reduction or the coriander Shrewsbury puffs or... the treacle and the vanilla creme brûlée. "
― Kerrigan Byrne , The Highwayman (Victorian Rebels, #1)
5
" I think this dress will stun the nobility, and leave them stupefied with envy and lust," Madame Sandrine announced with relish.
"I'm just glad it's not crimson, like everything else you drape," Farah said to her husband as she glanced at her transformation in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors across from the raised podium on which she stood. The creation of blue silk evoked the midnight sky, as it wrapped her bosom and waist in bejeweled gathers before cascading from her hips in a dark waterfall. The shamelessly cut bodice was lent a hint of respectability by folds of a shimmering diaphanous silver material draping from a choker of gems about her neck and flowing down her shoulders like moonbeams. To call them sleeves would have been a mistake, for all they concealed.
Madame Sandrine threw a teasing look over her shoulder at Blackwell. "How fitting that the color of blood is the one you prefer the most."
"Not for her," Dorian rumbled.
The seamstress lifted a winged eyebrow, but didn't comment. "Voila. I believe that is all I'll need from you today, Madame Blackwell. I can have these finished in the morning, and in the meantime I have a lovely soft gray frock hemmed with tiny pink blossoms that will bring out the color in your cheeks. "
― Kerrigan Byrne , The Highwayman (Victorian Rebels, #1)
11
" I was thinking,” he said some time later as she paused for a drowsy yawn. “Since ye doona have any family to love anymore, ye could love me …” Instead of meeting her gaze, he studied the way the pristine white of her petticoat bandage made his hand look that much grubbier. “That is, if ye wanted.”
Farah buried her face in his neck and sighed, her lashes brushing against his tender skin with every blink. “Of course I’ll love you, Dougan Mackenzie,” she said easily. “Who else is going to?”
“Nobody,” he said earnestly.
“Will you try to love me, too?” she asked in a small voice.
He considered it. “I’ll try, Fairy, but I havena done it before.”
“I’ll teach you that, as well,” she promised. "
― Kerrigan Byrne , The Highwayman (Victorian Rebels, #1)
15
" The rest of us, we'd lay down our lives for years, but Blackwell... he'd do that and more. He'd rip the beating heart from his chest. He'd give up his soul if ye'd only-"
"It is making a rather large and fallacious assumption that I have a heart to give... or a soul." Dorian Blackwell's smooth voice didn't echo through the washroom as theirs did. He slithered into their midst with a serpentine stealth, striking before Murdoch's words uncovered any of his secrets.
Gasping, Farah sank deep into the bath, thankful the water was now cloudy with soap, though she did draw her knees under her chin and anchor them with her arms, just in case. "Get out!" she insisted in an unsteady voice. "I'm indecent."
"That makes two of us."
He'd moved closer. So close, in fact, that Farah knew if she looked behind her, she'd find his mismatched eyes staring down at her from her towering height. Perhaps, despite the opaque water, he could see the flesh that quivered just below the surface. The thought sent bolts of heat and mortification through her.
"Leave," Farah ordered, unable to face him for fear she'd lost her nerve.
"Stand up and make me. "
― Kerrigan Byrne , The Highwayman (Victorian Rebels, #1)
