Charlotte Featherstone Quotes & Sayings

My dearest Lucy," he said, his gaze never wavering from hers, "I would die for you. — Charlotte Featherstone

I'm a hedonist, and you, Jane, my wife, should know that about me. You've shared my body and bed, you know things about me that no other soul on earth does. Who can I not be a sensualist with than, you, Jane? Who else to act out my wicked fantasies, than the woman who inspires them? There is no shame in fantasies, in pleasure. Who other than us needs to know what we've done, what brings the other pleasure? — Charlotte Featherstone

As he clutched her in his shaking hands and wept against her, he whispered into her ear, the words that made him believe. "Love bears all things. Endures all things," he said. "Ours has, hasn't it?" She nodded and held him tighter. "But can it endure this, Anais? This demon who holds me so mercilessly in its claws?"
She touched his face and kissed him. "My love can and will, Lindsay. I will be here when you open your eyes. I will give you whatever you need to make it more bearable. — Charlotte Featherstone

He knew how to touch her, how hard to thrust, when to roll his hips, when and how to angle himself so she could not only feel him inside her, but rubbing against her clitoris, brushing, sensitizing. The fiend knew how to make her agony last, how to suspend it until he would allow her to reach out for it and surrender. — Charlotte Featherstone

A friend. A companion. A beautiful, passionate lover to spend the days and nights with. A woman to carry my children, a partner to share the triumphs and failures. A woman I can share my dreams with, and who will share hers with me. A woman who I can comfort and hold in times of need, and who will hold me when I am weak , and sorrowful, and in need of the sort of succor only a wife can give her husband. A woman who I so desperately want to make love to. You, Lucy, you are that woman. — Charlotte Featherstone

He towered over her, dwarfing her with his height and the bulk of his body which was clothed in the way of a mortal gentleman. He felt and heard that voice tremble inside her, replaced the rational voice she allowed to go unchecked. 'He could break me, hurt me, dominate me'.
"Not break. Not hurt." he murmured as he raised a hand to her cheek and smoothed his fingers down its softness, "But dominate you? Yes. Master you? yes. Make you yield to what you want, make you surrender to who you truly are? Yes. — Charlotte Featherstone

The first time I met death, it was at a ball and we danced a waltz. — Charlotte Featherstone

Words are so very difficult to take back and forget. Memories fade with time, but words never do. They linger in our minds, our hearts, haunting us. — Charlotte Featherstone

I wasn't drunk," Alynwick grumbled. "I tchin' for a fight, aye, but no' drunk."
"Careful," Black said with some amusement, "your cultured English accent is giving way to your heathen Highland one. — Charlotte Featherstone

Christ, he was empty, just a shell of himself. He had nothing to give, not even his seed. — Charlotte Featherstone

You have a wild-eyed look, my Beth. What do you
see?"
"Don't look at me," she cried, now utterly unhinged.
"Don't look into my eyes when you can see everything in them, and I am not able to look into yours and see anything! — Charlotte Featherstone

I'll come back to you," he whispered, not meaning to say it out loud. "And I will ravish you over breakfast, and I will never leave you alone another night of my life. — Charlotte Featherstone

Am I to die?" I asked, and he stopped, raised our joined hands to his mouth and gently kissed my knuckles.
"You are, my love, and in your sleep, you will become Death's bride. — Charlotte Featherstone

I am Kian."
"Mercy " she replied. Swallowing hard she forced her gaze away from him. She was being too bold in her perusal but she could not stop looking at
him.
"Kindness " he whispered. Their eyes locked and Mercy felt a jolt of some foreign but not unwelcome sensation pierce her. "I could use some of you"
he said thoughtfully as his cool gaze devoured her. "Most definitely I could use you."
He rose and walked around the pond perusing her body as he came to stand beside her. "The milk of human kindness how sweet the taste."
He actually licked his lips and Mercy shivered her core heating and wetting. Then he lowered himself until they were eye to eye.
"I believe I could drink you dry. — Charlotte Featherstone

As I said, you have mistaken me for another. London is full of drab little peahens, sir. Now, then, I'm leaving," she said in a huff.
"To change?" he asked, unable to stop from goading her.
"To write a poem for my toast," she snapped. "And you may suffer, for I will not help you with yours."
"No need, darling," Matthew drawled, his words intending to push her away.
"I doubt you know a suitable word that will rhyme with fuck. "
"Stuck," she said, turning to face him. "For two days, my lord. We are stuck with one another. Let us make the best of it."
"And how do you propose we do that?"
"By giving each other wide berth. We will not stand together, we will not talk to one another and we will most certainly not look at one another."
"No problem from this quarter."
"Good. You may be assured that it will be no difficulty for me, either."
-Matthew and Jane — Charlotte Featherstone

She saw how he was staring at it, the bright red hue beneath her bonnet. She could not bear to see the way he was looking at her - right through her - without seeing her. He did not see a woman. He did not see Jane, the woman he had been so passionate with two days before. He saw ... Jane swallowed hard and looked
away, hating the weakness of her spirit. She was more than this, a wilting flower. She was stronger than this. But damn it, this hurt.
It hurt because he was the man responsible for making her burn. For making her feel like a woman. It hurt because it had been a trick. An illusion. And it hurt most of all because he did not see her, the woman she was behind the unfashionable spectacles and garish hair. — Charlotte Featherstone

I'm still scared, still wanting to run at times when I look into your eyes and wonder how I will ever be the sort of man you deserve. I want so much to deserve you. To be worthy of a woman like you. — Charlotte Featherstone

The crimson satin lining gleamed in the firelight, and so, too, did his eyes. When he looked up at her, there was a mist to them once again.
"Little magpie," he whispered as he looked at the black onyx ring. "You gave up everything for this, didn't you?"
She nodded. "That is how much I trust you. Everything I had hidden away in that biscuit jar went to this. All my worldly goods are in that ring, Jude."
"Then I will take it and hold it close, and never give you cause for regret." He put the ring on his index finger, and Isabella grinned. How perfect it looked - how utterly sensual. She wanted that ringed hand on her body, comforting her. Loving her. — Charlotte Featherstone

Tilting her face back, he looked into her eyes. They were unfocused, unable to settle on his face. And the same terrifying feeling stole over him once again. An acute fear - a final, painful realization - that her world was one of utter blackness. At last he realized the magnitude
of her blindness. He couldn't imagine never seeing her again.
It was like a death, the inevitable conclusion when someone was gone. Why it should hit him now, after all these years, he could not fathom, but it was there, and finally he understood her private hell. He'd told her he would die without sight. Selfish, arrogant bastard, concerned
with his own needs, his own perversions to watch
himself pleasure her, to study her as she accepted him, to watch their bodies joined. How carelessly he had said that, not thinking of Elizabeth and what she would die for. What she wanted in this life. — Charlotte Featherstone

She brought a finger to her mouth, licked it. Salt. A clean scent. Not male sweat rich with the scent of musk and masculine flesh, but something else. Something purer. Tears.
"Iain?"
He trembled and she could have sworn she heard his tears run down his cheeks and plop onto the pillow.
"My God, Beth. I've seen you. I've seen you in my heart and in my soul." And then he stiffened, pressed his fingers into her hips, squeezing. "Can I, Beth? Can I come inside you?"
"Yes," she murmured, holding him close, feeling his
body shudder beneath hers. "And stay forever. — Charlotte Featherstone

I vow I am, and always will be, constant and faithful in my love for you, Anais. Nothing you or anyone else does shall alter these feelings. I am forever loving, forever waiting, forever yearning ... forever yours. — Charlotte Featherstone

She had his dark hair, his lashes, and from the glimpse he had, she bore his eyes, as well. But the shape of her face, a perfect oval, was her mother's. She had Anais's cheeks. Anais's lovely mouth and proud chin. He kissed her chin, feeling the softest of fluttering against his cheek - baby's breath. There was nothing sweeter than the feel of an innocent child's breath against one's cheek - nothing more wondrous than knowing that the baby was your own flesh and blood.
Mina stretched against him, yawning widely and throwing her arms up wide alongside her head. He laughed through his tears and reached for her little fist and brought it to his mouth, kissing her with such love he thought he would die of it. "You will consume me, little Mina, just as your mother has."
-Linsay to his infant daughter. — Charlotte Featherstone

Why?" She asked in a confused whisper. "Out of all the women in the world, why did you choose this mortal?"
"Because fate drove me to you. — Charlotte Featherstone

Clasping her to him, he hugged her for a long while and she felt his guilt and fear subside. "Do you want to see something very special - something magical?"
Giggling she whispered, "You already showed me that this morning."
He swatted her bottom. "Minx! Not that! — Charlotte Featherstone

Beth ... Beth ... He whispered her name in his mind, unwilling to break the spell that surrounded them with any sound. He did not want to hear his voice; the only sounds he desired were the soft inhalations of Beth's breath, her sighs of pleasure, the brush of his body and hers as he loved her.
She was beautiful, so perfect. He wanted to sit back and feast his eyes on her, sear her into his memory, lying like this, waiting for him. — Charlotte Featherstone

She followed the melting flakes, revelling in the thickness, the softness of his hair, which he wore long. She had loved to run her fingers through it before. Tug at it in mounting pleasure. Snuggle into it in the shared intimacy of their loving. — Charlotte Featherstone

He was drowning, he finally admitted. Drowning in the allure of Lady Jane Westbury. — Charlotte Featherstone

No, by God, you've accused me of coldness, but how
can you, when you can feel how hot my body is against
yours? You've said I have none of the red-blooded passion
of my sex, but you don't know. You," he gasped, pressing
against her with a hard thrust of his hips, "you will know it
the depth of my passion. But you will. — Charlotte Featherstone

Jude," she whispered as she touched his face. "I'm so frightened of this. This bind that links us. It whispers to me to take what you're offering, but I fear the consequences. I have lived the consequences."
His fingertips traced the column of her throat down over the swells of her breasts where they lingered until her breath caught. "I am not your father, Isabella, and you are not your mother."
"I know, but - "
"There are no certainties in life," he murmured as he lowered his head and kissed the apex of her breast where her heart hammered so hard. "But I can give you this certainty. I love you. And I want you. I have wanted you for so long, and that feeling has only grown. There must be trust between us, Isabella. Passion is not enough for me. I want more from you."
"You ask for so much," she said, then trailed off.
"Not any more than I am offering you. — Charlotte Featherstone

BEYOND THE MIST, the darkness and shadow, he waits, reaching out through a veil of gossamer threads - 'your
future,' he whispers, 'your destiny'. — Charlotte Featherstone

Oh, God, I would give anything to change the past," he gasped. "To make it so that the last thing you saw was not me walking away from you. In your memories I am forever one and twenty, and cocky, and sneering, and looking self-righteous. And I've changed, Beth," he gasped, choking on a sob he could not hide. "I want so damn much for you to see how I've changed. To see me now. There are no lies in my eyes. No motives other than to show you that I am not the callous man I was. And that I love you ... . I love you so damn much."
He was crying. The tears trickled unchecked down his cheeks, dripping onto his lips. She touched them, wiped them away, which only caused them to spill faster and harder. — Charlotte Featherstone

His hands may have been the one to heal you, but it will be mine that awaken you. — Charlotte Featherstone

I have waited for this, Beth, this moment," he whispered as he took her hands in his and brought her fingertips to his mouth, kissing each fingertip before placing her palms on either side of his face. "When Sussex, Black and I returned from the East, I watched you as you did this - touched Sussex, then Black. And I waited, holding my breath, barely able to control my feelings, waiting to feel your touch on my face. But you did not. You made a polite enquiry after my health and left me standing alone by the hearth. And, then, the other afternoon with Sheldon, you touched him, and I was alone, and apart again. Remembering what it was like to await your touch, and then never to feel it. Beth," he whispered as he moved closer to her, "won't you touch me? See me? — Charlotte Featherstone

I won't say it's going to be easy for me, Madeline. I've lived too long in darkness and shadows, but if you're willing to stick by me, to give me a chance, I'll give you whatever you wish."
"My wish has already come true," she said, smiling into his upturned face. "It was
you, after all."
-Blaine and Madeline — Charlotte Featherstone

The power of a kiss is a heady pleasure, one that teases the mind, warms the heart, lifts the soul and tempts the body. — Charlotte Featherstone

As he looked around the huge ducal bed,
he saw everything that meant the world to him.
Outside the sky was darkening and the snow was falling. Through misty
eyes, Matthew looked up, saw the moon glowing brilliantly and whispered,
"thank you."
It was simple, but heartfelt. Never had a man been more grateful than that
very moment when everything was utter perfection. With his family and his wife
pressed up against him. — Charlotte Featherstone

I'm," he swallowed thickly, unsure of why he wanted-no needed to explain his
behavior to her. "I am not comfortable amongst the ton. I'm a solitary person, I keep my own counsel, and prefer to do so."
"You're lonely."
He stopped then, shocked by her words, by her perception of him. He'd made
himself vulnerable, let himself weaken as her soft body melded with his. She saw too much, knew too much.
"This," he said, his voice cracking with desire, with the pain of what he knew he must do. "I can't ... ."
"Just let me in," she whispered.
"I'm afraid you would not like what you see."
"Trust me," she said, her tempting mouth only inches away from his.
-Blaine and Madeline. — Charlotte Featherstone

I love your taste, my shundori," he murmured, and she felt his body tense beneath her. "I can't get enough of it. I can't get enough of you. — Charlotte Featherstone

Matty," Jane whispered, "what are you thinking?"
He smiled, kissed her navel before glancing up at her. "Barbaric thoughts."
"You're very pleased with yourself, aren't you?"
He laughed and slid up the length of her body. "I am. It's such a powerful
visual to know that my seed is responsible for the life within you and the
incredibly arousing changes in your body.
"And, I, of course, have nothing to do with it?"
"Jane," he whispered, "let me have my moment of male glory. — Charlotte Featherstone

This was the scene she saw in her mind. What he needed
or at least wanted. Submission.
Stepping around the chair, she stood before him. Dropping the sheet she had used to wrap around herself, she stood before him, naked, listening to his sharp inhalation of breath.
Then, she lay at his feet, just as she saw in his mind.
"No," he whispered, but she knew this was what he wanted. Her to come to him willingly. To accept him as he was. — Charlotte Featherstone

Good evening, Miss Fairmont."
She saw Black sprawled out in a wingback chair, jacketless, the white shirt he wore unbuttoned to the waist, revealing an enticing view of his chest and the fine black hair that was hidden beneath. "I was beginning to wonder if you would come tonight. It is midnight after all."
On cue the large pendulum clock in the hall began to chime out the hour. Isabella met his gaze, marveled at the dark layers in his eyes. He appeared at once indolent, yet supremely masculine, and in his state of dishabille he was utterly breathtaking. — Charlotte Featherstone

Tis not your time, my love," he whispered. "You will not die tonight."
"Never," I said to him, "for I have been blessed by Death's Eternal Kiss. — Charlotte Featherstone

You kissed me, and I opened my eyes and thought you were Death. You were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and I clung to the memory of you because it gave me comfort - the only bit of happiness I had ever had. You were my secret fantasy, my lover. My story ... Lord Death is you, and the woman he stalks ... is me."
"Why have you come," he asked, "when you now know the truth?"
"Because when you saved me, you forged a link between us. I don't believe it will ever break."
"Bella," he whispered, "I couldn't allow you to take your life. Couldn't bear the thought of existing in a world that you did not. — Charlotte Featherstone

What did you discover about the shooter?" Jude asked as he struggled to sit upright.
"Once I spotted him on the rooftop, I ran up the back stairs to follow him. He was long gone, but he left something behind," Sussex said.
"Oh?"
"Yes, I'll take it upon myself to investigate it."
Jude opened his eyes, his stare focused on the duke. "Do you need my help?"
Alynwick snorted. "A soiled dove with a broken wing," he drawled. "What use would you be?"
Jude grumbled, "I'll be fine by the morning. — Charlotte Featherstone

The man was an enigma. One minute he was looking at her as though he would
kiss her senseless, the next he refused to even talk to her, much less look at her. — Charlotte Featherstone

Jane," he whispered as the streaks of dawn broke through their bedroom window. "Once more. In the daylight, so I can see you with the sun upon your skin."
And she rolled over, smiled, and held open her arms to him, welcoming him home at last. — Charlotte Featherstone

She reached for his wrist, clutched it. "How do I look?"
"Hurt. Pained. Destroyed."
"If I could look into your eyes, what would I see in them, Iain?"
"Devastation. Shame for what I was. Hatred for the vanity and arrogance of my youth. A love for you that has never, ever died, but has only grown and matured, and become all-consuming. Tears," he said, and pressed his face to hers so she could "see" them. "Because I know it is truly over now that the truth is out, and I don't know how I'm going to live without you. Forgive me," he whispered, then stole a kiss from her lips. "Forgive me, and the boy I was, and the man I turned out to be. — Charlotte Featherstone

Does he lay with you in the grass? Does he stare up at the stars, speaking of his dreams, wishing he could roll over and kiss you and run his fingers along the breasts that tease him beneath the shirt
the shirt he knows he will carry home with him and smell and, God help him, sleep in, just so that he could be close to you? — Charlotte Featherstone

It hurts to breathe. It hurts to live. I hate her, yet I do not think I can exist without her. — Charlotte Featherstone

Pearls, because your skin is as smooth and luminescent as one, and because the first time my lips caressed your throat I thought your flesh as opulent and lush
as one. Gold," he whispered, moving closer, "because it reminded me of how your hair looked in the dying
candlelight, how it burned and glistened, and how badly I want to lie in bed, in our chamber, and watch you at your dressing table, unpinning it for me. I will have that, Lucy, the
rights of a husband to enter his wife's room, to see her at her toilette, to watch what no other man will ever be
granted. You do understand that? That I won't settle for less?"
"You have made your line in the sand very clear."
He grinned. "You can cross it anytime you wish, you know. You might even like it on my side. — Charlotte Featherstone

She was breathtaking in her beauty and her human spirit, he thought, unable to speak as he gazed upon her. Hers was the sort that would not fade or grow jaded with time and years, but flourish, grow more radiant with life and its experience. Hers was a beauty that no other possessed. A beauty he longed to keep, to hide away, to bask in, himself alone. She had become his. He didn't know when, whether it had been the moment her fingertips had touched him when he was hurt, or if it had grown, like a seed, slowing spreading until Jane had become the root anchoring the shattered pieces of his heart, pulling them tight together until it resembled the organ it should. — Charlotte Featherstone

She glared at him through tear-filled eyes. "You talk of your pain? You cannot even begin to understand the sacrifice I have made. I gave away a piece of myself, my soul! But I did it out of love, never think otherwise. I made the choice to live my life without her because I knew in my heart she would be better off without me and I could not bear to know that a life created out of such perfect love would be forced to live with the ugly truth of her birth. I thought," she sobbed, breaking down before him. "I thought ... I did the right thing. — Charlotte Featherstone

Pressing his forehead to the cool glass, he held her gaze, her palm, his eyes pleading with her. Don't go. Don't leave me. — Charlotte Featherstone

Why?" he screamed, letting the noise bellow out loud and ferocious. "Why can I not have some measure of peace?" he questioned. — Charlotte Featherstone

I'm going to cut you," Georgiana murmured. "I'm going to mark that face of yours and show him what I'm capable of."
"He'd still love me," Elizabeth whispered. "It's a concept you could never understand, Georgiana. — Charlotte Featherstone

Slave. Minion. Fiend. The others who have come before me have been called such things, but I prefer to think of myself as a disciple; a devout follower of my voluptuous mistress. — Charlotte Featherstone

She saw him as a boy, standing in the kitchen, his clothes tattered and torn, his dark hair in need of a cut and taming. In his dirty hands he held out the bed to her, his only words,
For you. — Charlotte Featherstone

I do not know what to say, how to tempt you. If you had a price, I would pay it. If you desired particular words, I would say them. I would be anything you want, Jane. Just come back. Please come back.
- Matthew in a letter to Jane. — Charlotte Featherstone

But he was incapable of shame.He had no conscience or soul.No heart, either.That has broken and died years ago.The leftover pieces had petrified in his chest, leaving stone shrapnel in a black, empty place that felt nothing.Just a yawning void of nothing.And he liked it that way ... — Charlotte Featherstone

Black would trust her with his secrets. He would protect hers. But did she trust him with her heart? Could she?
She thought of Wendell, and no longer felt any remorse for her feelings. She did not love him. Her heart had been taken two years ago, by a stranger she thought she had conjured up in the atmosphere of her imagination.
He had asked her to trust him - and there was only one way she knew how. She reached into the wardrobe and pulled out the crimson gown.
No regrets. No seduction. No scandal. Only love. — Charlotte Featherstone

It's always only ever been you. And it always will be, Beth. You have my heart. My love. And my regret that I am not the man you deserve. — Charlotte Featherstone

Jane, you are my confidante, my helpmate, my friend. My lover. You are everything the word wife means to me. In my heart, we are wed. In my soul, you are mine. — Charlotte Featherstone

Everywhere you are, I will be. Everywhere you go, I will
go. I will follow you into your dreams, stay while you sleep,
watch while you eat."
That sinful bottom lip touched hers, then played with it,
brushing it, tugging on it, parting her mouth as if he had all
the time in the world to play and coax. "I will be the very air
you breathe. — Charlotte Featherstone

I despise the morning ... I am a creature of darkness, whose elements is night and shadow.I belong in the dark with the other sinful creatures. — Charlotte Featherstone

Oh my God!" Lindsay cried. "I swear I shall practice celibacy every day for the rest of my life! I swear it, Anais. — Charlotte Featherstone

How will I accomplish such a thing?" he said, and her
lashes fluttered closed as his bottom lip scraped gently up
the curve of her chin. "I'll be everywhere you are. Your very
shadow. — Charlotte Featherstone

Matthew," she murmured, her voice breaking. "How can I save you? — Charlotte Featherstone

Go to hell," she snapped, hating how he made her lose her cool elegance.
"Already been, my dear. The service was not up to my standards."
Elizabeth and Iain. — Charlotte Featherstone

I can say that I have fallen deeper in love with you today, knowing the sort of man you are. — Charlotte Featherstone