The Housekeeper's Secret Quotes

“Dropping Goddard’s narrow black oxford, he wiped his hands on a cloth and ran nervous fingers through his hair. The others were leaving London this morning; by teatime the basement would be full of people and noise and activity. He had to talk to her, now. He just wasn’t sure what to say. Not the truth, obviously. He’d thought she might be useful in his search for answers, with her keys and her authority to move through the house. He’d seen her as a chess piece. And now he’d discovered that she was warm flesh and soft lips: a woman with a battered heart and bruised past and more courage than he could properly comprehend. A girl who had been hungry for life and eager for love, who had been manipulated by a man who had only thought of how useful she could be to him too. The shaving mirror on the bench showed a face that was grey tinged with fatigue. The bruising around his eye was a jaundiced yellow; he looked as seedy as he felt. He’d known he wasn’t worthy of her. He just hadn’t appreciated how much.”
― Iona Grey, The Housekeeper's Secret: A Novel

“Afterwards she would go over it in her mind, replaying the moment when he had put his hand to her waist to steady her, then gently taken her face between his palms and stroked his thumbs across her cheeks. ‘I’m glad you told me. You’ve carried it all yourself, all this time. You don’t have to do that anymore.’ A hesitation. A breath. A heartbeat. And then his lips on hers, warm and full of tenderness, kissing her in a way she had only been kissed in her most secret imaginings. He pulled away almost immediately, shaking his head. ‘Oh, God, Kate, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t—’ But it was too late. It had been too late when she’d circled her arms around his chest in the servants’ hall the other morning. When she’d touched his cheek on his first night at Coldwell, when she’d seen him washing in the kitchen yard. It had been too late from the moment their eyes had met as he’d stood at the top of the hill. She couldn’t be sure if her unravelling had been sudden, or slow and gradual; if it had happened in an instant, or in increments. She just knew that it had happened, and she couldn’t go back to how she had been before. As she raised her chin to kiss him back, she didn’t want to.”
― Iona Grey, The Housekeeper's Secret: A Novel

“It was the last thing he needed too. It took enough effort not to notice her when she was dressed in her housekeeper’s armour, with the silver chatelaine at her waist like a crucifix to a vampire. He spent a lot of energy not noticing, and wasn’t always successful.”
― Iona Grey, The Housekeeper's Secret: A Novel