Meredith Duran Quotes & Sayings

Well. You must admit, you do need a haircut." A faint smile ghosted over his mouth. His fingers loosened; they slipped over hers as they withdrew. "Is there anyone in this house whom I could trust to wield the scissors? I have given them all cause to aim for my throat." Was that a joke? Miracle of miracles! "Come now," she said hoarsely. "Be sensible. Dead men pay no salaries. — Meredith Duran

A women's college is a fine idea, and I hope it continues to flourish. Even if most of its students go on to dedicate themselves to hearth and home, their children will benefit for their mothers' educations. — Meredith Duran

She had a girlish fullness to her face, which made a provocative contrast to the self-possession of her bearing as she opened her eyes and smiled at him. She'd known he was looking at her. She'd let the moment draw out, for some private feminine reason. The knowledge brushed over him like fingertips - stealing away his breath. — Meredith Duran

Alex understood such discipline. He knew the rarity of it, and the cost. And on the rare occasions when he happened to touch her, he did wonder what else she might have been, if she had not been so determined to be typical. — Meredith Duran

And now I should kiss you again, I think. Isn't that how it's done?" Startled, she put her hand to her lips. But their rough, cracked surfaces made the very prospect seem ludicrous. "Yes, I suppose - in a gothic romance. But if you kissed me now, no doubt my lip would split open, and I'd bleed on you." His shout of laughter was quickly restrained. "Well, all right. Since you put it so romantically. Someplace else. Shall I be adventurous? — Meredith Duran

Surely this is what death would be like: nothingness, oblivion, as the world continued to turn, heedless of her absence. — Meredith Duran

Here, inside her rooms, as she stood naked before him, an enchanted silence enclosed them, profound and — Meredith Duran

It was needlepoint, Mr. Burke. Tapestries are woven, you see, and I find it far more satisfying to stab than to weave. — Meredith Duran

He heard the swishing of her skirts as she approached. God above! Could she not leave well enough alone? 'There is another thing I wished to ask you,' she said as she sat across from him - sat down in his presence without so much as a by-your-leave. Now, *this* deserved a sharp word. He opened his mouth, but she beat him to it, leaning across the chiffonier to whisper, 'By any chance, did you consume five pounds of truffles last week?'
What in God's name? 'No.'
'I thought not.' She plucked off her eyeglasses, revealing eyes a startling shade of light blue. He abruptly forgot what he'd been about to say. She was polishing the lenses with her sleeve as she continued to speak. The words might as well have been gibberish.
Her eyes were the precise shade of the sky over his garden this past summer ...
She replaced the spectacles on her nose, the glare of her lenses masking the miracles behind them. — Meredith Duran

She wished he could make her somehow indelibly his; that they were still children so they could cut their fingers and mingle their blood and know this meant something. She longed for some transformation more lasting than that wrought by the law and his name, some visceral change he might effect in her so that anyone on the street with one glance would know she was his. — Meredith Duran

And the smile that lingered on his mouth now! Slow to spread, it assumed a mocking edge that - to her amazement - made her breath catch. — Meredith Duran

If you bring out the worst in a man, that doesn't mean you're to blame for his sin. — Meredith Duran

She was not light, but she was not as heavy as she should be. Her bones should be made of iron, for what else was fit to support her bravado? It would shame generals. Emperors. Professional pirates. — Meredith Duran

Yours if you want it.
- Julian to Emma. — Meredith Duran

Well. I suppose . . . there are two shrews in this household, then." Had she just made a . . . joke? At her own expense? "Termagant," Lilah said tentatively, "is the term I prefer." The barest smile touched Miss Everleigh's mouth. "Why not harpy? Or vixen? There's a very long list to choose from, when one speaks of sharp-tongued women. All of them invented by men, I — Meredith Duran

While the darkness of the interior concealed her body, the streetlight behind them illuminated the pale oval of her face, gilding her cheeks in shades of amber and ghostly blue. The effect was . . . arresting. Vermeer had used natural light to paint women in this way, faces emerging from the shadows, forcing the viewer's eye to focus on what was most important: the look of grace. The mouth firmed in determination. The eyes poised to behold a revelation. — Meredith Duran

He smiled. How kind of you to confirm what I already know. Perhaps next you will introduce me to myself. I hear I am quite popular. — Meredith Duran

With so many willing, complex women in the world, he had little respect for men who fixated on girlishness. Innocence was, by definition, an absence of experience - character - knowledge. To desire that absence seemed rather deviant. — Meredith Duran

I think it a moral duty," she said. "If one inherits the privilege of wealth, or of education or good family, one must use that privilege wisely. Men speak of progress like a machine, an engine that rolls forward without human direction, pulling everyone with it. But that isn't true. If you read the newspapers" - the critical, adventurous, daring newspapers, not the conservative rags that her uncle favored - "it's easy to see that many get left behind. Many, in fact, get crushed. — Meredith Duran

How had he ever imagined that a petite frame was the key to feminine appeal? Miniatures might be compassed in a single glance. But such an abundance of perfection, long limbs and generous hips, nearly six feet of woman, made for an endless expanse of skin. Such a woman would demand hours to properly peruse. To taste. To penetrate. — Meredith Duran

His hand still rested on her breast, but his fingers had stilled. The touch that had been so agitating now felt comforting. As though he soothed her by it. — Meredith Duran

She knew his secret: for all his wandering, his independence and his unorthodox ways, he took his responsibilities very seriously. He even borrowed others' responsibilities, making them his own simply because he thought this sort of service was owed to those whom he loved. — Meredith Duran

He see's the world the way cynics do; Not looking for false Hope. — Meredith Duran

Is that what you want?" he asked very quietly. "Protection?" "Oh, who knows?" This man had shown her that she knew herself far less well than she'd imagined. "I thought what I wanted was simple - to be a lady." Her laughter felt false. "It was my sister's plan, actually. We would remake ourselves. Our accents, our deportment. For gentlemen never tell a lady - a proper lady, like Miss Everleigh - to take it on the chin. It's their duty to shelter her from harshness. And that seems quite pleasant, never to be expected to endure. To be free to pursue better things, like . . . beauty and honesty and honor. So we - I - set out to become that kind of woman. A woman whom men seek to protect." What — Meredith Duran

A small mole marked the corner of her right eye, as if the devil had pressed a dark kiss to the tender skin there, giving her his mark before unleashing her on humanity. — Meredith Duran

He was a bloody genius with these people, slicker than any confidence artist, more popular than whisky in a room full of Irishmen. — Meredith Duran

Six hours' uninterrupted sleep each night, correspondenceanswered promptly, tenants provided for, base temptations avoided,swearing curtailed, regular visits to church - this righteous routine kepthim on track, but he began to think it could not transform him. — Meredith Duran

Life will always give you a reason to look away from opportunities. But courage means grabbing them, no matter the circumstances. — Meredith Duran

But of course a man like Burke could not imagine what that was like. To live, day after day, as a shadow - to speak and be ignored, as though one's words made no sound. To protest and be patted on the head, as though one's concerns were a child's. Her uncle had not burned the embroidery in an outrage, Jane thought suddenly, but in the righteous grip of moral duty. His niece's role was to be used, not to think or speak or feel. And so, in the very act of communicating an opinion, she had committed the egregious offense of insisting on her humanity. — Meredith Duran

After a moment, he murmured, "Emmaline. I am sorry. I am...overwrought." His laughter was unsteady. "And there's a phrase I've never used before. At least not in reference to myself." An unwilling smile curved her mouth. "I hope you won't swoon. I don't carry smelling salts." "No," he said. "I wouldn't have imagined you did. — Meredith Duran

You said we must coexist peaceably,' he continued. 'I agree. Instruct me how.'
'That was a lie,' she said, her voice choked. 'I meant to trick you to my table. You know this!'
'Truths sometimes appear in unbidden forms. — Meredith Duran

Nobody belongs to that world ... Nobody feels as if they belong, at any rate. They're all watching each other
fearful of the laughter coming from across the room, wondering to themselves, are they the target? Are they the joke? — Meredith Duran

Mr. O'Shea," his wife said coolly. "Such language - " "One day you'll call me Nick." "One day I might call you Beelzebub. What of it? — Meredith Duran

No, thank you. I prefer my liquor cold.'
'Right. Or in a pipe, I suppose.'
Phin's brow lifted. 'What a clumsy way to drink liquor. Are you sure you're not concussed? — Meredith Duran

Was it her imagination, or did the townhouse loom? All the other mansions on this street looked polite and elegant, neatly confining themselves within rows of trimmed hedges. This house, on the other hand, sprawled. She spied a gargoyle lurking above one cornice, glowering at her. Of course the Duke of Marwick would have a gargoyle carved into his house! — Meredith Duran

She urged him on; he remained with her, focused, his lips now on her shoulder, now on her jaw; a courtship above, a steady invasion below - she could make any noise, do anything she liked, he would never go - — Meredith Duran

Let me be your villain — Meredith Duran

She had told the truth: she did not like to dance. Men assumed that a spinster wanted for excitement. Dried-up. They made a point of spinning her wildly across the floor. Once she had fallen, and thereafter she'd declined all invitations. — Meredith Duran

I'm here," he said into her ear, as the tears came faster. "Emma, I'm here with you now. Listen to me: I will always be here."Always, she thought. He said "always," but he had forgotten to say finally. Finally you are here. Thank God, finally at last. — Meredith Duran

English was so heavy, so desiccated and hardened by meaning, by pain and anger and even the jests and the petty quibbles, everything under the sun that obscured the basic truth. But the sound of his voice as he spoke to her now, she heard the wind in it, the stillness of the night. Stars above. The things that had kept her going. Always in her memory they had been there. — Meredith Duran

Might be a task as politically perilous to the former as the latter. — Meredith Duran

And he wondered, suddenly, what sort of divide it created between them, that he knew pieces of her that she had never shared with him - facts and stories and moments and memories to which she had no idea he was privy. He had collected them for so long, denying to himself that this acquisition was anything more than casual amusement, when in fact it was zealous, and jelaous besides; diwowning as accidental the fact that he never forgot a single remark she made, or that others made about her, and that he approved of these other people, or disdained them, according to their treatment of her. Such a lopsided intimacy existed between him and her. Inevitably, it created a chasm whose depth neither of them could know until they tried to chart it. Would this chasm prove impossible to bridge? — Meredith Duran

Words are not the only way we communicate, you and I. They never were. — Meredith Duran

Speak plainly, sir.'
'*Sir*? I say, Lyd. Are you always so formal with men you've made love with?'
The whip of her head caused the bird [on her hat] to saw wildly, like a famished woodpecker in range of a tree. — Meredith Duran

Your loyalty is not to me. Well do I know it, Nora ... You alone,' he whispered, 'among every creature in my knowledge, will never let go of what is yours, no matter how it pains you. And so I know I cannot ask for your glad cooperation ... I cannot demand your submission. I can only hold you, and pray I keep you safe, and spare you, by force if need be, from the consequences of what I admire in you most.'
[...]
To yield to his view of her was to accept that he tried to rule her from charitable and loving impulses. But she could not grant such motives to him without also accepting his rule. — Meredith Duran

He reached out to cup her elbow. Best to move slowly, to communicate that she could refuse him. The choice was hers. Her luminous eyes remained fixed on his. Her lips parted as he trailed his hand from the point of her elbow to her wrist. God. Her bare skin, that small, vulnerable patch exposed between cuff and glove, was indescribably soft. His thumb rubbed her pulse once, twice. A small noise came from her, the loosening of her breath, a sound as meaningful as the shushing of silk as a dress fell to the floor. This was how it began: how a woman came undone. — Meredith Duran

She did not feel anything so boring as beautiful. She felt fierce. — Meredith Duran

The sunny scene looked impossibly vivid, as though painted in primary colors by an artist who hadn't yet learned how to shade; it should trouble him, it really should, that he felt so goddamned alive. Was he never going to learn subtler pleasures?
Miss Masters seemed to feel it, too. She wrested free of his hold,skipping ahead a little, then spinning back to face him. Her eyes were as blue as the sky behind her, her hair as bright as the sun; she was not a subtle pleasure herself. — Meredith Duran

I deserve better - such a dangerous, mad thought for a woman to entertain. — Meredith Duran

Taller, but from — Meredith Duran

Good heavens, ogling was addictive. — Meredith Duran

How could any woman's skin be so soft? It was as if the world had never touched her. — Meredith Duran

He had worlds in his eyes; they were magnetic. He was a force of gravity, and his presence, even in this blackest moment, could not be confined to the small, dark space he had made here for himself. — Meredith Duran

Her face turned to the window, and he saw her swallow. She was not as calm as she appeared, but for some reason, it was important for her to seem so. He drew a breath and remembered the advice another woman had given him: Everyone is brave in his own way. You must not blame others if they don't fit your mold. — Meredith Duran

Kindness never cost me a penny," he said. "I see no need to hoard it." She — Meredith Duran

He might have mocked himself if he hadn't been tired of always mocking at what others took seriously. It was easier to mock, of course, but other people refrained, and not always because they lacked the imagination or sense of humor required to mock. Sometimes they refrained because they dared to long for something that was not easily grasped, something that might slip away if one did not pay it the proper respect - prayerful respect, the sort that moved one to remove one's hat by the side of a grave, or to bow one's head to soldiers marching off to war, even while damning the fat MPs that sent them to die. Life was not all for mockery. Nor was laughter. But it was harder to spot the prayerful moments when they called for laughter instead of tears. Tears spelled an end. Laughter could spell a beginning. — Meredith Duran

I'm so sorry. I read of it only yesterday. Otherwise, I would have come sooner.' And what good that reassurance was, he had no idea. I would not have come if her were alive, but I would have come at the very moment of his death, had I known of it. Yes, that must be very comforting to her. — Meredith Duran

No matter how far they traveled, they always had this house to welcome them home." "True. Did you ever wonder why they altered it so often?" "Miss Everleigh says they were innovators. Visionaries." He glanced at her, the firelight shadowing his face. "They kept knocking down the walls. Expanding them, making new routes for egress. Not much innovation in that. As visions go, it's the dream of claustrophobics." The notion unsettled her. "What do you mean to say?" "I mean, they traveled to escape this place." He reached for the bottle, splashed more liquor into his glass. Set down the bottle and stared at it. "Came back very reluctantly, already itching to leave again." She did not like that idea. "It was their home. They were a famously loving family - " "It's a house," he said. "That doesn't make it a home. And family - yes, family is important. But it can trap you more neatly than four walls and a locked door." Her — Meredith Duran

Nothing he had done to her last night had eroded that uncanny self-possession that she had no right to possess. A bastard, a servant, a girl who changed names as easily as a hat. He could not come to terms with her. Even now, as the train groaned to a stop, she sat glaring a challenge at him. How did she do it?

He understood the source of his own assurance: his power was his armor. But she, who had nothing, walked through the world with her chin held as high as his, and nothing seemed to shame her. How was it possible? — Meredith Duran

There had seemed no other way to view her, not until that moment when he'd fallen from the window. Rude shock: running down the lawn, the turf exploding from the bullets' impact, he had wondered, only once and without understanding his own feeling of loss, exactly what he was leaving behind. — Meredith Duran

Lord John: 'The court has suffered most sorely for your absence. We hardly know where to find our amusement now.'
Lady Nora: 'I am sorry to hear that, I suppose it takes some wit to produce one's own entertainment. Are you often bored? — Meredith Duran

Shocking you? No. But here's a promise: if I get you beneath me again, you'll enjoy it even more. It'll only get better, Kitty. Why, the fifth or sixth time, I expect I'll make you come just by kissing your sweet little nipples. I'll suck them slow and soft, and then hard. And when I use my teeth on you, the slightest scrape - " "Stop. — Meredith Duran

Miss Masters was not content with threatening to hire away his staff, oh no. First, she had to perfume it. — Meredith Duran

I've heard that sarcasm is no substitute for cleverness — Meredith Duran

For a woman's words to wound would require a man to listen first! — Meredith Duran

Her spine wasn't really made of steel, after all. That was a silly saying, made up by someone who had never felt what it meant to be broken. — Meredith Duran

Force persuades a person to speak, but it cannot guarantee his honesty. Quite the reverse: it will extract confessions from innocents and lies from simple sinners ... — Meredith Duran

Some people were like that; they could not escape criticism, because they never quite managed to convince themselves of the role everyone believed they should fill. — Meredith Duran

There. That is the answer to this riddle. The promises I can make, and the one I can't. Gwen. I will never leave you willingly. Life is a risk, and so love is, as well. But I swear to God, you will not regret the gamble. — Meredith Duran

Now there was the rustling of skirts, and it kicked up her smell, that distinctive blend of vanilla and violets, lavender and roses - an entire moving garden with a kitchen thrown in for good measure, and God save the allergic. — Meredith Duran

He was nature's cruel trick on the fairer sex, the perfect picture of dark, charming, masculine wickedness. Shining black hair, high cheekbones, lips as full as a woman's . . . That was surely a flaw. But then, he had that brutal jaw and chin to make up for it . . . and the slight bump to his high-bridged nose, suggestive of some violent fracture in his past. "Mr. — Meredith Duran

Olivia began the search feeling calm, numb even. She did not wish to break the chest unless she had to, and the quantity of papers had multiplied in her absence, appearing on the nightstand, taking up a new shelf on the bookcase. But as she searched, heedless of what she knocked over, or pages she ripped in her haste, her actions began to summon a different mood. She tore through the papers as though she were in the grip of some silent, unfolding hysteria. — Meredith Duran

You interest me,' he said, and his tone suggested this fact itself surprised him, meant something more to him than perhaps it should: a man surprised by being interested was living a piss-poor facsimile of life, in her view. — Meredith Duran

To be studious was to be the opposite of boring, she had believed; it was to be so interested, so madly curious, that one simply could not wait for the answers to arrive on their own: one had to go chase them in the only manner available. — Meredith Duran

It's very easy to resist men, isn't it? But managing to pick the right one
that is truly worthy of praise. — Meredith Duran

His slow smile might haved lured angels from heaven, flocking noisily, arms outstretched,happy to burn for him. — Meredith Duran

When he entered after her, she saw that he meant to come straight to her, and she raised a hand. "No," she said. "Wait."
His footsteps halted. He had always listened to her, hadn't he? Had always heard her."
-Emma and Julian — Meredith Duran

Spoken often enough, words become [became] nonsense. — Meredith Duran

You want money; I know that much. But what of power, Nell?" The word sent a frisson down her spine. Power: what he was exercising right now, holding her riveted with only his words and the light press of his wicked fingers. What a terrible power, too - what a terrible context in which to discover such a power existed. Better for her sake if he'd exercised the clumsier forms: raw strength, muscle, a shout. Brute force she knew well enough. — Meredith Duran

The cat's tail was straying into her face again; she was forced to expel air in a most unbecoming fashion to avoid a mouthful of hair. — Meredith Duran

The faint freckle on her throat sent another thrill through him. He wanted to touch it, to whisper against it, I've found you. For that matter, the slope of her neck begged to be brushed with a hand. His hand, before he cupped her nape and guided her gently backward onto a bed . — Meredith Duran

Wisdom told him that one did not share secrets until one was willing to hear them broadcasted. — Meredith Duran

It is not proper, you being closeted up here with him
"
"Delphinia, don't be absurd. I am so firmly on the shelf that the maids are tempted to dust me. — Meredith Duran

What a terrible thing it was to wish to be known, to be seen, when one's life depended on remaining unnoticed. — Meredith Duran

You will never forget?" He exhaled against her mouth. "I would wear you like a suit," he said hoarsely. "I would never let you go. — Meredith Duran

I trust only you and the dark always to look at me so honestly. — Meredith Duran

We simply can't drop everything and run away, can we?'
A warm wind kicked up, ruffling through his thick, dark hair. Very softly, he said, 'I see. Is this where you preach to me of how English civilization will save the savages?'
She hated this, *hated* the way he was suddenly looking at her - as though she were some unfamiliar specimen whose novelty was rapidly losing interest. 'Be fair, sir! All I meant was that we've created a society here. Laws, a justice system, a - postal service ... ' The argument sounded weak even to her own ears. 'I simply mean that to leave those things behind would hardly be simple. — Meredith Duran

She was not clumsy, precisely. He doubted Miss Boyce would ever do anything so disorderly as stumble. But even at their first meeting, he had been struck by the careless aggression of her movements. She inhabited her body as thoughtlessly as a coat. It was strangely charming, this disconnection between brain and flesh. Rather like a dare. It made a man wonder what it would take to lure her awareness out from the disciplined confines of her brain to the soft, expansive surface of her skin. — Meredith Duran

He knew himself well enough to know his own faults. Impatient and judgmental and stubborn and often too quick to act: he would try never to crush her, never to overwhelm her or bend her to his will, but if she did not demand only the best from him, it would happen. It might happen. Possibly. — Meredith Duran

Why charm anyone? What a futile exercise it seemed now! People blew away like dandelion thistles, carried off by death or indifference or sheer, inexplicable whim. Why bother to grasp at them? One would only be disappointed eventually. — Meredith Duran

She had wanted wings, and now she was drifting, held together only by the pulsing perimeters of her skin. Even the floor that dug into her shoulder blades seemed welcome to her, a hard, pleasurable contrast to her laxity, to the melting in her limbs; it mistranslated in her mind as another dimension of his touch. — Meredith Duran

"I love you," she whispered.
How horrifying, and how thrilling. It felt like a secret, a confession, a taunt: a dare to fate.
But he did not seem to think it remarkable or daring. "I know," he said, and his thumbs stroked her wrists, once. "We love each other. And look, darling: the world continues to turn." — Meredith Duran

You are ... beyond my imagination. It's a wonder you can be touched at all. — Meredith Duran

Boneless with relief, she let him pull her forward, into the open air, into his lap. And in this wild darkness, in the middle of an empty earth, she grieved for both of them - indeed, for every human in this wretched world, who must face the trials life offered, negotiate the changes wrought by time. There was so little joy to cling to, so few certainties. Yet humans continued to endure. Continued to hope. The undeniable compulsion to survive powered them onward, like Sisyphus on his mountain. — Meredith Duran

If a woman could win love with her body, the world would have no bastards. — Meredith Duran

Perfection was not always beautiful: sometimes, it was terrifying. — Meredith Duran

If you mean to be wicked, here's my first piece of advice: never fish for compliments by demeaning yourself. Assume there is no place I'd rather be than by your side."
"But I know that's not true."
"It doesn't matter what my truth is. Know your worth and assume others do, too. Modesty, if you consider it, is the most unforgivable sort of falsehood: it's a lie that does damage to no one but yourself."
She laughed. "Damage? I like that. Of course, you're a heretic by profession. Most gentlemen consider modesty very becoming to a lady."
"No doubt they do," he agreed. ... "The same gentlemen who liken ladies to flowers, no doubt." ... "Others of us," he said courteously as his hand dropped, "do not believe a woman's main aim is to decorate a room. — Meredith Duran

She had always loved him, after all. And perhaps he knew it. Perhaps he saw more than she had suspected. And despite it, he did not look away. — Meredith Duran

Better to say - we'll find you a man of discerning tastes, who knows brilliance when he sees it, and knows to treasure it, too." She hesitated. "Gentlemen don't want a lady who knows more than them." "Your mother told you that?" When she nodded, he pulled a face. "Well, that isn't quite true. Some men reckon it a very fine thing, to have a wife with a brain. — Meredith Duran

Who would guess that this woman beside him had routed the Commons? What a secret to keep. A man might live his entire life in greedy contentment, knowing such a secret. Crispin had grown up aware of such possibilities, of marriages in which great men drew their strength and brilliance from the women at their side. But he had thought it a distant myth for himself. — Meredith Duran