Becky of Becky's Bookshelves

“Strong, intelligent women had always been his weakness. He blamed it on the example set by Miles’s mother, Rose. She’d been something of a bluestocking, too, with her forward-thinking ways, and her determination to better herself and her son despite all the odds against her. The granite wall of Gabriel’s already weakened defenses began to crumble.”
― Mimi Matthews, Rules for Ruin

“It's all right," he murmured gruffly. "You're all right." His thumbs moved over her cheeks in an achingly gentle caress. "I've found you.”
― Mimi Matthews, Rules for Ruin

“Just because a lady shared a deep, smoldering kiss with a gentleman didn’t mean that gentleman need be privy to all that lady’s business.”
― Mimi Matthews, Rules for Ruin

“For all Miss Corvus's progressive views, for all her insistence on looking to the future, this was a chamber firmly enshrouded in the past. A veiled room, all stale darkness and decay.
Miss Corvus had been similarly veiled the first time Effie had seen her that fateful day eighteen years ago in the London slum of St. Giles.
But Miss Corvus wasn't veiled now.
She sat in a green damask-upholstered armchair by the window, her uncovered face as white as wax. She was clad in stark black, just as Effie was-a plain, but impeccably tailored, silk dress worn over an abundance of petticoats and a formidable wire crinoline. A jet brooch gleamed at her throat, and an embroidered lace handkerchief was clutched in her pale hand.”
― Mimi Matthews, Rules for Ruin