Home > Work > The Madman’s Daughter (The Madman’s Daughter, #1)
1 " Apparently profanity had a way of making men listen. "
― Megan Shepherd , The Madman’s Daughter (The Madman’s Daughter, #1)
2 " The ways of men and women are such a puzzle. And I could barely decipher my own feelings, let along anyone else's. "
3 " Believing in nothing except the truth of Montgomery, who for all his faults was as steady as the sea, as honest as the sun. My eyes watered with unexpected tears, and I kissed him harder, desperately. It wasn't a happy ending. "
4 " He pushed my back against the stall door, kissing me. Edward had tried kissing me, but I'd been so shocked I'd barely had time to explore how it felt. Lucy had told me stories of shady corners and sweaty palms. But this was passionate. Wild. Something I'd never known. "Have you kissed a girl before?" I whispered. He ran his thumb over my cheek. His eyes lingered on my lips. "Yes," he said. I thought of Alice, her pretty blonde hair, the split lip that made her so vulnerable. But it wasn't her name he said. "A woman at the docks in Brisbane. She didn't mean anything. I was lonely. It wasn't love." A prostitute, he meant. "
5 " The last thing the justice system is, is just. "
6 " My heartbeat faltered. He pulled away, taking a little piece of my heart with him. "
7 " Dead flesh and sharpened scalpels didn't bother me. I was my father's daughter, after all. My nightmares were made of darker things. "
8 " Analyzing, always analyzing— I couldn’t feel safe until I knew every aspect of what I was facing. "
9 " Paranoia had crept into that part of my brain usually reserved for reason. "
10 " I folded my arm. "You know, I suspect you and Edward would be friends if it weren't for this place."His eyes were on fire. "It's not this island keeping us from being friends."My pounding heart stole the words to reply to that. "
11 " Thwack. The nail drove deeper, as if Montgomery was driving it into my very heart. How hard was it to fix a loose nail? He hit it again and again, determined to set that bookshelf straight. Determined to do something right, after so much wrong. "
12 " Whether I'm right or wrong has nothing to do with gender. "
13 " I ran after him, but he was already back with the others. My footsteps echoed in the hollow space below the dock. I stopped. If he'd wanted me to catch him, he'd have let me. "
14 " I rested my forehead against the wall and closed my eyes. It wasn’t just my curiosity, or my fascination with anatomy, or how I could unhesitatingly chop a rabbit’s head off with an ax when a roomful of boys couldn’t. Those things were all symptoms of the same sickness - a kind of madness inherited from my father. It was a dangerous pull in my gut drawing me toward the dark possibilities of science, toward the thin line between life and death, toward the animal impulses hidden behind a corset and a smile. "
15 " The rising and falling cadence of words, carried on the wind, spoken in a language other than human. "
16 " We're going to die, aren't we?" I asked bitterly. He held me so tight I could hardly breathe. But I wanted tighter still. "Not here. I swear it. "
17 " A scream hurled up my throat, but I never heard it. I'd slipped into a welcoming darkness. "
18 " Oh, and Juliet," he said. I turned back. Half of his face was thrown in deep shadow, while the whites of his teeth gleamed in the distant lights from the salon. "I’ll be working in the laboratory late tonight. I’ve a good start on the new specimens. Don’t be alarmed if you’re awoken. The animals - they scream, you know. An unfortunate effect of vivisection. It keeps the whole household up."For a breath, the world seemed to freeze. And then the clouds rolled again, the wind howled again. I realized that he had charmed me, just like he charmed everyone. I’d thought I was so clever. I thought I could see past his manipulations. But I’d heard only what I wanted to.He’d never said the accusations were untrue. Just unfair. "
19 " But I couldn't get the image out of my head of the beast strapped to the table, Father humming while the candle wax slowly dripped, and Montgomery assisting. I felt betrayed, as though the boy I'd idolized was nothing more than a fantasy. "
20 " He left slowly, as if he had to pry himself away before he something improper. A growing part of me wished he'd stayed. "