Estara

“If she had been a normal female, she would have swooned. But she was not normal, never had been.

“Good grief, you are impossibly handsome,” she said breathlessly. “I vow, I have never experienced the like. For an instant, my brain stopped altogether. I must say, my lord, you do clean up well. But next time, I wish you would call out a warning before you come into view, and give me a chance to brace myself for the onslaught.”

Something dark flickered in his eyes. Then a corner of his hard mouth quirked up. “Miss Adams, you have an interesting — a unique — way with a compliment.”

The trace of a smile disoriented her further. “It is a unique experience,” she said. “I never knew my brain to shut off before, not while I was full awake. I wonder if the phenomenon has been scientifically documented and what physiological explanation has been proposed.”
― Loretta Chase, The Mad Earl's Bride

“Bellusdeo laughed. It was, for a moment, the only sound in the quiet of the fief’s night, and it was warmer and deeper than the lingering night chill. When her laughter faded, she glanced at Kaylin. “I was not like this before. I thought that the Shadows had not touched me.” She lowered her head a moment.
Kaylin understood this, as well. “It seems so unfair,” she finally said.
“Life is unfair. Which part of it pains you?”
“We suffer, and it breaks something. When we win free—by gaining our name, by crossing a bloody bridge—we still live in a cage of scars. If life were fair, we would never have suffered what we suffered at all; having suffered it and survived, we’re still reacting to things that don’t exist anymore.”
“But they did.”
“Yes. I hate that they still define me.” Voice lower, she said to Bellusdeo, “I want that to change. I don’t know how to change it. But I’m willing to spend the rest of my life trying.” Shaking her head, she forced herself to smile; it was surprisingly easy. There was something about Bellusdeo that she liked. “Home is a strange thing.”
“What do you mean?”
“We lose it, and we think it’s gone forever. That’s how I felt the first time I lost mine. It took me years to understand that I could find—and make—another. I couldn’t do it on my own, though; I don’t think—for me—home exists in isolation.”
― Michelle Sagara West, Cast in Ruin

“I see," agreed Rule. "You are going to be the Sacrifice."

She looked up at him rather shyly. "It c-can't signify to you, can it? Except that I know I'm not a Beauty, like L-Lizzie. But I have got the Nose, sir."

Rule surveyed the Nose. "Undoubtedly, you have the Nose," he said.

Horatia seemed determined to make a clean breast of her blemishes. "And p-perhaps you could become used to my eyebrows?"

The smile lurked at the back of Rule's eyes. "I think, quite easily."

She said sadly: "They won't arch, you know. And I ought to t-tell you that we have quite given up hope of my g-growing any taller."

"It would certainly be a pity if you did," said his lordship.

"D-do you think so?" Horatia was surprised. "It is a great trial to me, I can assure you." She took a breath, and added, with difficulty: "You m-may have n-noticed that I have a—a stammer."

"Yes, I had noticed," the Earl said gently.

"If you f-feel you c-can't bear it, sir, I shall quite understand," Horatia said in a small, anxious voice.

"I like it," said the Earl.

"It is very odd of you," marvelled Horatia. "But p-perhaps you said that to p-put me at my ease?"

"No," said the Earl. "I said it because it was true.”
― Georgette Heyer, The Convenient Marriage

“Listening to him, Beatrice experienced the afternoon all over again, but this time there was no real danger. There was a boy who'd had a terrific idea that went a little off the rails and a girl who was a good sport and just the kind of sidekick you'd like to have along. Beatrice heard herself laugh when Benedick described her shooting off a man's hat, but it hadn't seemed that funny when it actually happened.

There was a sunniness in his words that somehow even disguised his appearance, erasing the boy shaking with exhaustion, flattening all his mercurial layers into one outfit of razzle-dazzle. But the razzle-dazzle was also real. That was the most baffling part of all. He was this, too.

She let him do it, not only because she came out looking all right in his story, not a clock-throwing ruin of a girl, but also because Benedick's talking about her as if she were already one of them made her one of them.

Words.

What a tricky, tangled science.”
― McKelle George, Speak Easy, Speak Love