Katharine Ashe Quotes

Damn you, Cam." Bedwyr leaned against the sideboard negligently. "I don't suppose you recall damning me when you were shedding your life's force in the sand. Really, Lucien, you are repeating yourself tiresomely." "You deserve every moment of damnation you are wished." "Probably, but that is hardly to the point."

-Luc & Cam

Is that all I am to have?" She followed him. "I suppose you consider an apology beneath you."
Rather, he was considering her beneath him, how good she'd felt there, and how he would like that again. He halted. "Madam, I offer my profoundest apology. It shan't happen again." As though his feet moved of their own will, he found himself stepping toward her. "Unless you wish it to."
She backed up. "Not in this life." But her eyes were wary.
Good. He did not wish to frighten her. But keeping her wary could work. And yet the most powerful need to be near her would not leave him. Of course it wouldn't. After two long years he wanted a woman. Among his brother's potential brides was not, however, the place to go searching for one. "That must be to my advantage, then," he said.
She screwed up her brow. "Must it?"
"You wield an impressive pitchfork."

-Ravenna & Vitor

I cared for you when I believed you dead." Her voice quivered. "You were more interesting then.

The priest set the flask down on the step and folded his hands. "For the sin of lust you have confessed, mon fils," he said in an easy tone, "you are contrite, n'est-ce-pas?"
Vitor closed his eyes and saw hers before him, sparkling like stars. "Yes."
"For your penance I give you a novena to our Blessed Mother and the task of seeing your brother well matched to a woman who will bring him to heel."
"Only that?" Vitor lifted a brow. "Father, you are too lenient."
The priest drew a cross in the air above his brow. "Ego te absolve a peccatis tuis in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti."
"Amen."

-Denis & Vitor

Miss Caulfield, I beg your forgiveness." His voice was low and his gaze seemed to seek hers quite closely. "I intended you no harm, in truth. Still, I was unpardonably dishonorable to assail you and then tease you and then rescue you and then tease you yet again. Can you forgive me, or will those eyes like stars stare with accusation at me throughout the remaining weeks of this fete?"

-Vitor

I am not in the habit of deflowering governesses." "I am not in the habit of being deflowered by pirates. Shall we consider it a draw?"

-Luc & Arabella

Fancy yourself a noblesse, my dear?" Petti said. "About as much as I fancy myself a princess." She went toward the door. "Now that all the potential brides are here, when does this party begin in earnest? And do you think there is yet time for me to have the carriage readied for an escape before the snow?"

-Petti & Ravenna

In your poem, did a prince rescue the princess?"
"No, in fact," he said, his gaze quite fixed in hers, like on that rainy day in the corridor. "Not yet, at least."

-Jacqueline & Cam

The earl looked down at him. "Will he die, Gavin?" "You..." The barest whisper. "...wish."

-Cam & Luc

A beautiful woman needs no embellishments. But a prideful man may give them to her nevertheless.

Most sailors weren't observant in that fashion. Pity she wasn't most sailors. Jinan Seton was a fine specimen of masculinity.

What are you staring at, sailor?'
His ice eyes did not flicker. 'My captain, ma'am.'
'Get back to work, Seton.'
He bowed.

You smell good to me," he said, his voice deeper than before, like a warm autumn night, the vowels especially round. Not French. Italian? Spanish? He must have come with one of the other guests-one of the other guests who had wretched judgment when hiring stable hands. "I-" "And, por Deus," he said upon a catch in his throat, his eyes hard upon her mouth, "you are lovely." The rutting urge must have overcome him. The only male creature that had ever considered her lovely was Beast, and that was because she sometimes smelled like bacon. She must distract him. "I can help with that bruise on your brow," she said, struggling against panic. "Can you?" He seemed bemused. Jars to the head could scramble the brain. "It's starting to swell. It will leave a painful wound that could fester. Let me up and I'll ask the housekeeper for-" His mouth came down on hers without further warning. Not hard or violently or forcefully. But fully, with complete contact.

-Vitor & Ravenna

What happened to your lip?" Ravenna said to him. "It looks sore."
Miss Feather's fingers darted to her mouth.
"Thank you for your kind concern, Miss Caulfield." His eyes were very dark blue and still rimmed with the longest lashed Ravenna had ever seen on a man. Beauty and virility and confidence and sheer privileged arrogance combined to remarkable effect. No wonder these silly girls stared. "It was bitten," he said.
"Oh, dear." Lady Penelope pouted sweetly. "That must have been alarming."
"Not terribly. I have been bitten by cats before." The corner of his mouth twitched. "This one," he said, turning his dark, laughing gaze upon Ravenna, "was otherwise charming."

-Ravenna, Vitor, & Lady Penelope

Are you happy?' he repeated quietly.
...
'Wouldn't you like to know?'
...
'Yes, or I would not ask. But apparently the child has returned and I shan't have my answer.' He moved away.
She wanted to shout that she was not a child but a woman, and the woman hurt.

You did the right thing." "Yes, I did." He stroked her cheek with his thumb. "But with you, Arabella Anne Westfall, I have done everything wrong, from the moment we met, at nearly every turn. I have been arrogant and overly confident and short-tempered and deeply, insatiably lustful"-a bystander gasped-"and afraid of this between us. I was everything that must have been abhorrent to you when all you wished was to find your prince charming. Instead you ended up with a blind, surly, autocratic fool. If I could turn back time, if I could so what I should have done-" "Before I fell in love with you?" "-b-before I stole your virtue." His brow cut down. "By God, woman, you will always say what I least expect, won't you?"

-Arabella & Luc

Are you drunk?" she whispered. "Only on you, duchess. Only ever on you."

-Arabella & Luc

Suspicion prickled at Ravenna. "Who is to say you are not the murderer, and now that you know I have useful information you won't dispatch me too?"
"None but me."
She glanced into the darkness where the butler had disappeared, then back at the tall, dark man who had subdued her quite effectively in a stable the previous night. "This is the part where you pull out the bloodstained dagger, isn't it?"
"Why wouldn't I have done it earlier, before Monsieur Brazil knew of your involvement?"
"No doubt you only thought of it at this moment."
"It seems I am carelessly shortsighted."
"It does."
"Miss Caulfield?"
"You are not the murderer?"
"Go to bed."

-Ravenna & Vitor

So, this is what it feels like," she said a bit wonderingly.
"That - " He kissed her neck as she squeezed him gently and he saw stars. "Is what it feels like."
Hesitantly, she stroked her hand along the length of him. "Why does touching you here make me feel liquid and hot?"
"Because your body wants it."
"I know," she whispered. "At least, I suspected."
She had suspected him into a frenzy several mornings while reading her diary. And now she was putting her suspicions to expert use.
Tentatively her hand explored and his cock jerked beneath the caress. He pressed into her palm, needing her to touch him harder. He could not endure another moment of this teasing. He hadn't sufficient self-control. He never had, but he'd never before put himself to the test.
Grasping her hand gently he removed it from him. But he could not tear himself away. Not just yet.
"I can give your body what it wants without assailing your virginity."
"I know that too," she admitted.
He knew she knew it, but he was not certain to what extent. "You know quite a lot for an unmarried girl."
"I read."
"I'd like to borrow your books."

-Jacqueline & Cam

How would you respond, I wonder, if I cajoled with gentle words of encouragement, assuring you that all will be well in your absence from the party and that your health and welfare are of the utmost importance to us all?"
"I would probably doze off in the middle of your speech."

-Vitor & Ravenna

He moved a half step closer. "What have ye got in that bonnie head o' yers, lass, that makes ye believe ye've got leave to make demands as ye do?"
Dreams. Hopes. The desperate wish for somebody to understand her.

The animal inside him could wear a diadem and ermine and he would still be nothing more than an animal.

Whatever it requires.
Whatever it requires to accomplish what?
Whatever it requires to wipe the care from those pretty eyes forever.

Don't you see?" she cried. "I cannot have been wrong that you don't have a heart."
He came toward her swiftly, grasped her wrist, and flattened her hand to his chest. Through his ribs, his heartbeats beneath her palm were fast and hard. "You are denying me this?" he said close to her brow, the depth of his voice coating her rawness. "Because it has been like this since you walked through the door of that inn four days ago. It was like this when you stood across your parlor in London refusing me. And in Edinburgh in April. And each time I have seen you for longer than I can say."
"Stop. Do not say this."
"I don't need to kiss you to feel this," he said. "You have been turning me inside out for years.

There was such emotion in his eyes now, she felt as though her insides were pressing on her ribcage and twisting in her middle. For years she had thought him a stranger. Now, here, on this road by uncertain light she saw again such acute feeling in the beautiful eyes of the boy she had once adored. She let herself look at his arm so firmly about the little girl, a child he barely knew yet felt the responsibility to protect, and something hard and encrusted inside her shattered.

Marriage is good for no woman, Clarice. It binds her as securely to a master as chains, and silences her voice as surely as if she had a gag stuffed between her lips. Why should I want that? I have been blessed with an affectionate, negligent father and am free to do mostly as I wish, with the resources to do it. I have no desire to subject myself to a potentially harsher overlord.

I want you now. Always. Everywhere and as my everything-my lover, my friend, my sharp-tongued beauty, my drinking companion, my children's mother, my courage in the face of certain defeat. My sactuary." He captured her lips. "My duchess." He kissed her. She returned his kiss with great enthusiasm. "But at this specific moment," he said between kisses, "I just really want you in my bed." With eager compliance, she accepted his kisses on her throat. "I can oblige you in that, your grace." "Or your bed. Whichever we come to first." "You are all that is wise and efficient." "Or the carriage." She grabbed his hand. "Let's be off then, shall we?" Laughter bubbling from her, she dragged him toward the carriage. He snatched her back to him and with his hands around her face said, "Arabella, I love you."

-Luc & Arabella

I am lost without you, duchess." "Then you are found. Because you will not be without me ever again." She dipped her brow to his chest. "I will never leave you."

-Luc & Arabella

Fate is a comfortable mistress, Wes, if you accept her demands." Fate, the mistress that four years ago had put him the hands of mercenaries who turned him over to the British to be tortured.
"Listen to the monk teaching me about mistresses." Wesley chuckled.

-Vitor & Wesley