Gwenn Wright

I came from across the ocean and through the wilderness and landed here and found you hiding behind a tapestry. My fate was sealed at the sight of your stockinged feet.~Viktor von Strassenberg

I can see how your mother would have a point. Having a debate with a politically minded woman can be intriguing and even entertaining but to share a house with her and have her always campaigning and protesting at the dinner table,_ he slanted his gaze down toward me. __hat could be very tiring indeed.

And Mother, I love her dearly, but she flies into a panic whenever I mention women__ rights. As she sees it, it will be so much more difficult to marry me off if I am not only of a weak constitution but of a progressive mind as well.

My dear lady, you have no idea just how scandalous I can be. ~Peter Viktor von Strassenberg, 1905

I can also speak to small woodland creatures,_ he grins at me.

They had pulled me from the hemorrhaging, dying body of my mother and turned me over to the care of the man who was not my father. He had taken me home to their tiny apartment above the old hardware store and done what little he knew to take care of me. It took less than six weeks for him to realize his mistake. Maybe even less than six hours, but he never abandoned me. He clung to me as though I was the last remnant of some great and powerful love. And that gave me hope that maybe my mother was really something else and not just some girl who got knocked up by a guy whose name she didn__ even know. She was something special, someone worthy of a man__ loyalty and devotion.--Rocky Evans

It seemed to me that Mr. Forrester would approve of a woman who could follow him in conversation and not be baffled by ledgers and currency conversions. I had grossly overestimated him.

Another tug and a yank at my chestnut curls and she snarls at me, __ou are so much like her.__his is something my mother often says and never explains. Though it is a great mystery to me it is also a blessing, for she always hurries from the room after saying it.

She says it is a school for bluestockings which, according to her, is really only a fashionable way of saying it is a school for ugly girls who cannot find suitable husbands. To tease her, for I believe it is one of his greatest pleasures in this life, my father bought a pair of blue silk stockings for me the day we received my letter of acceptance. That evening and the next, father and I dined alone.

Oil and Water, Daddy calls us. At four years younger than me, Katie is only fourteen and she already has half the boys in town eating from her pretty little hand. She tells me I am too tall and too wicked looking to capture the heart of any sensible young man.

Are you all right,_ he whispered, his lips brushing the tips of my spiky hair. Granted, I knew he was only being discreet so as to save poor Hillary from being reamed again, but my knees didn__ know the difference. They betrayed me, buckling under his hot breath on my ear and the deep whisper that tickled my senses.

A glance would not be enough to tell you this was the daughter of Katherine Raquel Demure. Even a lingering gaze would not suffice. No. Only careful study of the original and a comparative inspection of her only child would even hint at a relation between the two. Viktor could see it and knew, beyond doubt, that Henrietta not only saw it but was also vexed by it on a daily basis.

These were not the belongings of the past prisoner he had imagined. These were a lady__ things__airpins and stockings and a glove. There were more clues waiting but William no longer felt certain he wanted to know the dark secrets of this cell.

And you were always nothing but slime, Henry Wallace. Fancy trash

Don__ you believe any man who makes you feel like you were just a one-time thing._ His arms tighten around me and his words tickle my ear, __ou could never be any man__ forgettable moment._ He holds me away from him and I feel ridiculously like I could melt in the dark pools of his eyes. __ou are a force to be remembered, Dacie Mae.

A smile is hidden beneath the mustache, it crinkles the corners of his hooded eyes. __ didn__. I have other business in town and I told my friend I would attend to the matter of his son, as he could not do so himself._ __ery kind of you._ __es. I have been looking forward to it for quite some time._ Daddy__ lemonade is almost gone, he sips it carefully, turning his eyes back to the water. __ooking forward to seeing the lad or to conducting your business?_ Daddy is toying with him. __oth. You see, I had never actually met his son._ The glass rests against Daddy__ lips, unmoving. Mr. Geyer watches him closely. __ut now I have, so I can get on with my,_ he fixes his own gaze on the water, as though trying to see whatever it is that has transfixed my father, __usiness.

Wicked eyes are not a good prospect for seminary boys. They want a gentle, soft sort of wife, not a wife who looks as though she may sprout wings and carry off the young children of the village. ~Maria "Smythe

The image of him shifted with the violent frenzy of leaves. He was there and he wasn__, as the leaves whipped and the lightning fell away in a slow strobe effect across the expanse of sky. How he had gotten up there, I had no idea, but he had been there. Crouched in the tree in the middle of the courtyard, he watched me intently through the open window.