Juliana?” the words were low and far—too calm for her husband, who had found that he rather enjoyed the full spectrum of emotion now that he had experienced it. “Yes?” “What are you doing twenty feet in the air?” “Looking for a book.” “Would you mind very much returning to the earth?” “What are you thinking, climbing to the rafters in your condition?” “I am not an invalid, Simon, I still have use of all my extremes.” “You do indeed—particularly your extreme ability to try my patience—I believe, however, that you mean extremities.
Sarah MacLeanShe winced, knowing what was to come, "Calpurnia." She closed her eyes again, embarrassed by the extravagant name - a name with which no one but a helplessly romantic mother with an unhealthy obsession with Shakespeare would have considered saddling a child.
Sarah MacLeanYou must be mistaken," Isabel said, unconcerned by the insult that the words carried. "I assure you i am not. Voluptas is nearly always portrayed wrapped in roses. If that were not enough, her faces confirms her identity." "You cannot tell a goddess from a face carved in marble," she scoffed. "You can tell Voluptas by her face." "I've never even heard of this goddess, and you know what she looks like?" "She is the goddess of sensual pleasure." Isabel's mouth fell open at the words. She could not think of a single thing to say in response. "Oh
Sarah MacLeanYou are beautiful and brilliant and bold and so very passionate about life and love and those things that you believe in. And you taught me that everything I believed, everything I thought I wanted, everything I had spent my life espousing--all of it...it is wrong. I want your version of life...vivid and emotional and messy and wonderful and filled with happiness. But I cannot have it without you.
Sarah MacLeanNick spoke again. "Her legitimacy will be questioned." Gabriel thought for several moments. "If our mother married her father, it means that the marchioness must have converted to Catholicism upon arriving in Italy. The Catholic Church would never have acknowledged her marriage in the Church of England." "Ah, so it is we who are illegitimate." Nick's words were punctuated with a wry smile. "To Italians, at least," Gabriel said. "Luckily, we are English." "Excellent. That works out well for us.
Sarah MacLean