Eloisa James Quotes

All the buildings lining rue de Conservatoire are constructed of cream marble or limestone. When I went outside today, the sky was pale and fierce, on the very cusp of rain. From the top of the church and the conservatory, the contrast was almost imperceptible, as if marble and air danced cheek to cheek.

Eloisa James

She still remembered sitting for hours as a little girl and pretending to be a hassock. A foot stool. Because if she could just stay very small, and very quiet, her mother would forget she was there, and then she wouldn't scream about people and places and things that had gone wrong.

Eloisa James

Mr. Cope...' Povy began.Jem narrowed his eyes.'The lad has a remarkably innocent face.''Innocence is a time of life, not an irrevocable blot.

Eloisa James

She'd always thought that a broken heart sounded rather romantic. But in truth it was physical. Her whole chest ached, as if she'd been struck with a knife. With all her witless calculations about how to make a man desire her, she'd never realized that the most important thing was to make him like her. Or even love her. What a fool she was.

Eloisa James

Here, drink your liqueur," Henry said, tossing back her drink. "I carry it with me everywhere because it's the only kind of drink that Leo doesn't like, so there's a chance I'll still have some tomorrow.

Eloisa James

He rarely saw a doorway without advancing through it as if he owned it. Since he owned a good many doorways, he would have pointed out that this was a reasonable assumption.

Eloisa James

They continued on to London, and she's there, safe and sound, waiting for you.''You can't know for sure.' Piers swung up into the carriage.'You will never know for sure if she's dead or alive unless you keep her near you all the time,' Sebastian said with perfect, if maddening, accuracy.

Eloisa James

I don't want to have to earn love by giving up my ability to make decisions that determine how I live.

Eloisa James

She loathed her profile almost as much as she loathed the dress. If she didn't have to worry about people mistaking her for a boy--- not that they really did, but they couldn't stop remarking on the resemblance; at any rate, if she didn't have to worry about that--- she would never again wear pink. Or pearls. There was something dreadfully banal about the way the pearls shimmered.For a moment she distracted herself by mentally ripping her dress apart, stripping it of its ruffles and pearls and tiny sleeves. Given a choice, she would dress in plum-colored silk and sleek her hair away from her face without a single flyaway curl. Her only hair adornment would be an enormous feather--- a black one--- arching backward so it brushed her shoulder. If her sleeves were elbow-length, she could trim them with a narrow edging of black fur. Or perhaps swansdown, with the same at the neck. Or she could put a feather trim at the neck; the white would look shocking against the plum velvet.That led to the idea that she could put a ruff at the neck and trim that with a narrow strip of swansdown,. It would be even better if the sleeves weren't opaque fabric but nearly transparent, like that new Indian silk her friend Lucinda had been wearing the previous night, and she would have them quite wide, so they billowed and gathered tight at the elbow. Or perhaps the wrist would be more dramatic....

Eloisa James

Theo shook out the half square of heavy silk. "It will make all the difference to this insipid gown." With one sharp wrench she pulled out the lace fichu tucked into her bodice and replaced it with the scarf. It flashed raspberry red against the almond-colored muslin of her gown.

Eloisa James

She sent Amelie to inform Maydrop that she donned an evening dress made of a heavy, supple olive green silk that gleamed under candlelight. It fell from the bodice, but rather than belling out, the silk was cut on the bias and hugged every curve of her body.The bodice was gathered under her breasts and trimmed with dark copper lace that glimmered with shiny black beads. and widened into short sleeves. Her hair was pulled straight back from her forehead without even a wisp floating at her ears, and she waved away the ruby necklace Amelie offered. She wanted no distraction from her face.She did, however, slide a sparkling ruby onto her right hand, a present she had given to herself when Ryburn Weavers made its first thousand guineas in profit.How better to remember that milestone than to wear a sizable percentage it on one's finger?Finally, Amelie drew out a small brush and skillfully applied a few strategic dabs of face paint. The last thing Theo wanted was to try to look conventionally feminine, but she'd discovered that a thin line of kohl made her eyes look deep and mysterious.

Eloisa James

Beauty had just squatted under one of the chairs lining the hallway. A small trickle was creeping across the marble floor.'She's too intelligent to pay mind to me,' Lady Sylvia said blandly. 'All three dogs are French, and they behave just like Frenchmen. Decorative but peevish.

Eloisa James

I don't want Christmas season to end, because it's the only time I can legitimately indulge in on particular addiction: glitter.

Eloisa James

Toward evening, Harriet found herself thinking the oddest thoughts: that twilight is not really dark. It's gray. The sun gone, the world turns gray, without emotion, without color. It seemed a fitting time for a little girl to slip free of all this pain, to let go.

Eloisa James

She's elegant," Olivia stated. "I would kill to have her figure.""Really?""Of course. I have always wished to look precisely like her. Though obviously, not enough to avoid food," she added."That's madness. You have everything she doesn't."Olivia opened her mouth, ready to argue. "Everything she hasn't."She frowned at him."Including me.

Eloisa James

I'm fat," she blurted out. "You are not fat. You're the most beautiful, voluptuous woman I know." His eyes moved down her body, deliberately, slowly, then back up to her face. What she saw in them sent fire squirming through her stomach and lower."I want every inch of you," he said, growling it. "I want to fall on my knees and worship at your hips." He reach out, shaped her curves from breast to hips with a burning sweep of his hand that a man was allowed to give only his wife.

Eloisa James

Quin reached out, spun her back to him, and pulled her into his arms, held her tight, so tight that she could hardly breathe. "I need you," he said, low and fierce, into her hair. "Oh, G-d, Olivia, how did I ever live without you?"She reached up, pulled his face down to hers. "I'm yours, for good or ill."There was a little click as the door to the ballroom closed, but Olivia paid no mind. "You're the missing piece of me," Quin said. "You make me feel.

Eloisa James

You are absolutely beautiful," Anne said. "But if you see yourself, you'll want to pin your hair back like a shepherdess in a bad play."(Eleanor) "Are you saying that I normally look as if I'm tending sheep? With straw in my hair? As if I might yodel?

Eloisa James

It was awful, this love.

Eloisa James

Life without a phone is riskier, lonelier, more vivid.

Eloisa James

Marry me, Esme. Please. Honor me. I will honor you as your husband never did. Our marriage would be a remedy against sin, if anyone could ever call it a sin to love you.”Sebastian Bonnington to Esme Rawlings

Eloisa James

I need to work on developing a new, less irritable personality. though I suspect that an empty nest would be at least a partial cure, today I resorted to substance abuse.

Eloisa James

If you don't mind a word of advice, one never asks a lady to set her own price. If you have to ask, the answer will always be more than you can afford.

Eloisa James

She was everything he'd ever wanted in a woman, and nothing he'd ever thought to find in a lady.

Eloisa James

By all accounts Rafe's life had been shattered by the loss of his brother Peter. But whereas she turned away from drink when Draven died, Rafe had simply upended a barrel of brandy on his head and hadn't taken that hat off since.

Eloisa James

Oh, I have felt lust. And I've indulged lust. But no other woman has turned me into another person.

Eloisa James

They were partners. She would always make impulsive decisions and he would make slow, reasoned ones. He would always be a little terrified that she would look at him with the scorn he saw in his mother's eyes. And she would always be a little terrified that he would look at her and not love her enough.In short, they were made for each other.

Eloisa James

A fit encomium for marital bliss," Beaumont said, putting down his knife and fork. "Dancing to a tune one neither likes nor understands, with a partner who thinks you a cadaver.

Eloisa James

Neythen looked perplexed. 'My mum always said I'm named after a saint, not an illness.''Which one?''Well he had his head chopped off, see? And then he picked it up and carried it down the road a time. All the way back home, I think.''Messy,' Piers said. 'Not to mention unlikely, though one has to think of chickens and their post-mortal abilities. Did she think that you would inherit the same gift?'Neythen blinked. 'No, my lord.''Perhaps she was just hopeful. It behooves mothers to look ahead to this sort of possibility, after all. I'm tempted to behead you just to see if she was right.Sometimes the most unlikely superstitions turn out to have a basis in fact.

Eloisa James

Piers looked up at him. 'You're new. What's your name?' 'Neythen, my lord.''Sounds like a terrible illness. No, more like a bowel problem. I'm sorry, Lord Sandys, your son has contracted neythen and won't live a month. No, no, there's nothing I can do. Sandys would have preferred hearing that to syphilis.

Eloisa James

I love you," he said, his voice catching. "When I thought you were going to die, I wanted to die.

Eloisa James