4
" Aunt Dove stepped behind her and looked at her reflection in the cheval glass. “You haven’t been to India, pet, but in the Nilgiri Hills, there’s a flower called a kurinji flower. It doesn’t bloom often. In fact, you can go a dozen years or more without seeing a single blossom. But then, just when you’ve given up hope of ever seeing one, they burst into flower, whole mountainsides at the same time, carpeted in the most astonishing shades of purple. It’s as if God himself shook out a rug of petals and spread it at your feet. It’s unexpected and magnificent, and very much worth the wait. "
― Deanna Raybourn , Whisper of Jasmine (City of Jasmine, #0.5)
5
" I can bear anything as long as I can have a bit of a laugh,” she told herself as she hurried down the street. She walked on, drawing in great deep breaths of the crisp, damp air. She walked all the way to Kensington Gardens and turned in to walk beside the Long Water. She hadn’t intended to go there, but whenever she needed to think, she found herself on the west side of the Serpentine in the leafy glade that sheltered the statue of Peter Pan. It had appeared overnight on May Day morning of 1912.
...
Evie had hurried along to the park that May Day morning, as delighted as any child. Peter Pan was her dearest childhood friend, and watching him fly from the stage of the Duke of York’s theatre was her last truly happy memory, the only one unencumbered by the loss of her parents, the endless moving from place to place, from relation to relation as she was passed around like a hand-me-down garment that was nice enough but didn’t quite fit. Peter Pan was the last time she had fit, and whenever she felt low, her steps always carried her back to the little glade in Kensington Gardens where the boy who wouldn’t grow up waited. "
― Deanna Raybourn , Whisper of Jasmine (City of Jasmine, #0.5)
9
" Do you know what the word fey means?”
He shrugged. “It’s a Scots word, isn’t it? Something to do with fairies?”
“It means a sort of grand happiness, a joy so indescribable that it must be followed by a terrible calamity.”
He began to understand, and he enfolded her in his arms. “I see, pet. You’re worried it’s all too wonderful, is that it? That we should have found each other like this, on this night?”
She tipped back her head to look from his silvered face to the moon. “It’s like something in a romantic novel. There’s a war on and it’s New Year’s Eve, and I’m wearing my first Worth gown in the moonlight. And there’s you. I shouldn’t tell you because it isn’t modest or proper, but I think you’re marvelous. You’re handsome and debonair and you’ve the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen on a man. Actually, you’ve the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen anywhere. And for you to...” she hesitated then plunged on, “for you to want me, too, it’s just too unbelievable. It’s all too perfect. You’re too perfect.”
Again he suppressed the urge to laugh. “My darling girl, I wouldn’t tread on your feelings for all the world, but someday, when we’re both more than forty, I’m going to remind you of this night when we found each other for the first time and you thought I must be perfect.”
“Aren’t you?” she demanded.
“Not a bit. In fact, I’ll tell you everything that’s wrong with me. "
― Deanna Raybourn , Whisper of Jasmine (City of Jasmine, #0.5)
10
" God, you smell intoxicating.”
“It’s jasmine,” she said dreamily.
“It reminds me of Damascus,” he told her, brushing the tip of his nose against her skin as he inhaled her. “Oh, I definitely think an elopement is in order,” he muttered. “The sooner I get you all to myself, the better.”
She gazed up at him adoringly. “If we eloped, would we be doing many more things like that?”
“Many, many more,” he promised, and she sighed in response. "
― Deanna Raybourn , Whisper of Jasmine (City of Jasmine, #0.5)
