A Sinister Revenge Quotes

“A lady had no business going around not murdering people when she had excellent motive, plausible means, and the correct temperament. Elspeth was decisive, physically strong, and by her own admission capable of coaxing along a seedling of a grudge until it flowered.

"How dare she be innocent." I muttered. "It is most inconsiderate.”
― Deanna Raybourn, A Sinister Revenge

“If there is one thing I have learnt in my years of Good Works, it is that thinking of others can be a blessed respite from thinking of oneself.”
― Deanna Raybourn, A Sinister Revenge

“I rolled my eyes. “You have all the subtlety of a melodrama heroine,” I informed him. “And the endurance of a particularly tiny sea slug. Where is your spirit, sir? Where is your grit?” “In my other trousers,” he said, his jaws clenched.”
― Deanna Raybourn, A Sinister Revenge

“I loved you when the world was new. I love you now. And I will love you until the Earth is burnt away and the stars themselves turn to dust. For we are two souls with but a single thought, two hearts that beat as one.”
― Deanna Raybourn, A Sinister Revenge

“Be brave. You have everything you need,” I murmured to no one in particular. “Everything indeed.” Excelsior!”
― Deanna Raybourn, A Sinister Revenge

“Was Beatrice capable of such machinations? I could not say. Our acquaintance was of a brief duration, but she was American and, in my experience, Americans are capable of anything.”
― Deanna Raybourn, A Sinister Revenge

“Children know nothing beyond the upbringing they have. It is only adults who regret what they lacked.”
― Deanna Raybourn, A Sinister Revenge

“Now and then, so fleeting I could almost believe it my own fancy, each of them had looked at Stoker with something akin to jealousy. I was not surprised. It was the same expression frequently aimed in my direction, usually by women with too many children and too much time spent embroidering tea cloths. To make one’s own money, to direct one’s own destiny, these were heady gifts indeed.”
― Deanna Raybourn, A Sinister Revenge

“One often fails to consider the female can be deadlier than the male.”
― Deanna Raybourn, A Sinister Revenge

“in such investigations secret. It was enough to know that justice was satisfied by our efforts. Justice—but not always the law. We had little faith in the established systems that governed our island. We had, both of us, fallen afoul of what was strictly legal, and we were thoroughly convinced that justice was the superior aim.”
― Deanna Raybourn, A Sinister Revenge

“St. Frideswide’s seat before her intended, she will be master in her own house.” “And if a woman does not wish to marry?” I asked archly. He grinned. “Then I believe she does not need St. Frideswide’s help in the first place.”
― Deanna Raybourn, A Sinister Revenge

“You must not go into the forest at night,” the innkeeper warned, his voice trembling with fear. “Something dangerous walks there in the darkness.”
― Deanna Raybourn, A Sinister Revenge

“germ theory had been a far-fetched notion until it was proven. The most outlandish ideas might have merit, even if science occasionally proved laggard in confirming them.”
― Deanna Raybourn, A Sinister Revenge

“fixed upon the stones at her feet. “Yes, I see it. We will be happy to take her into our care. I will write within the week to let you know how we get on. She looks young and healthy enough. I am certain she will respond well to treatment.” Stoker started forward, clearly about to protest, but J. J. flashed him a warning look as I put a hand to restrain him.”
― Deanna Raybourn, A Sinister Revenge

“James turned anguished eyes to Pietro. “Please, man.” His voice broke as he pleaded. “I do not ask it for her. But for my boys. It is the only way they may have a hope of escaping this. And she will pay. I promise you that.” Pietro drew in a deep breath, letting it out slowly. The weight he had been manfully shouldering seemed to drop away. “Beatrice believed vengeance was the only way. But I am a modern man. And I believe justice which harms the innocent is no justice at all. I will agree, James. For the sake of your sons.” James gave a broken exclamation of gratitude as Pietro held up a hand to stop him. “But I will have a confession from her hand, and witnessed by those in this room. I will keep it as my insurance that she will never be permitted to go free.”
― Deanna Raybourn, A Sinister Revenge

“James turned anguished eyes to Pietro. “Please, man.” His voice broke as he pleaded. “I do not ask it for her. But for my boys. It is the only way they may have a hope of escaping this. And she will pay. I promise you that.” Pietro drew in a deep breath, letting it out slowly. The weight he had been manfully shouldering seemed to drop away. “Beatrice believed vengeance was the only way. But I am a modern man. And I believe justice which harms the innocent is no justice at all. I will agree, James. For the sake of your sons.”
― Deanna Raybourn, A Sinister Revenge

“It was entirely possible that Lorenzo’s companion that dreadful night was still at large, killing Beatrice to protect himself, eliminating her before she could eliminate him. Or her, I realised with a start. I turned feverishly through the pages again until I came to the sketches of the missing bones from Lorenzo’s fossil. And I knew precisely where I had seen them before.”
― Deanna Raybourn, A Sinister Revenge

“No justice that imperiled the innocent could ever be true, and Beatrice’s recklessness spoke volumes as to her rage.”
― Deanna Raybourn, A Sinister Revenge

“Do you see that little cloud in the corner?” she asked, pointing upwards with a graceful hand. “The one with the cherub peeking out?” “That was Elspeth. Always watching, never doing.”
― Deanna Raybourn, A Sinister Revenge

“The house itself bore the same attention to detail that made the garden so charming; the doorstep had been neatly scrubbed and the brass knocker polished to a high sheen. The knocker was a charming little dormouse, and my hand went instinctively to the tiny velvet mouse in my pocket. Chester had been my most constant companion, much loved and carried around the world and back. The fact that he had been mended once or twice with Stoker’s painstaking stitching only made him the more valuable. I stroked his back with a fingertip while Augusta rapped at the cottage door.”
― Deanna Raybourn, A Sinister Revenge

“He was a kind fellow, though, Lorenzo. Old Lord Templeton-Vane held a country dance here in our honour. Lorenzo was the only one of us besides Tiberius to ask Elspeth Gresham to stand up with him.” He looked around as if to make certain we were not overheard. “I don’t like to say it, but that woman scares the life out of me, and there’s no two ways about it.”
― Deanna Raybourn, A Sinister Revenge

“An Italian fellow—I don’t remember much of that time. I was very young, you understand. But I remember Lorenzo.” “Do you indeed? Why?” He paused as if groping for words. “He was kind to me. He had a sort of toy he used to carry in his pocket—a bit of card tied between two pieces of string. One side of the card had an illustration of a bird, the other a cage. When he spun it between his fingers, it looked as if the bird were actually inside the cage. I thought it magic,” he said with a nostalgic smile. “A thaumatrope!” I exclaimed. “I had one as a child. Only mine had a butterfly on one side and a net on the other.”
― Deanna Raybourn, A Sinister Revenge

“how could mere lines upon a page encompass the grandeur of Cherboys? From battlements to towers, from galleried pillars to lavish parapets, it embraced every possible embellishment. Not a single enhancement had been overlooked.”
― Deanna Raybourn, A Sinister Revenge

“John Tradescant the Younger in 1638 were improved upon by Lancelot “Capability” Brown in 1753 with the addition of an artificial lake featuring an island. Brown is also responsible for constructing the hill at the edge of the garden which is crowned with the famous Pineapple Pavilion folly.’ ”
― Deanna Raybourn, A Sinister Revenge

“survivors,” Tiberius said with a mocking smile. “Pietro Salviati, now a count, having succeeded to his father’s title, resides in New York with his American contessa, Beatrice. James MacIver—Sir James now, fourteenth baronet of that line—is a prominent MP and divides his time between London and his family seat in Glen Lyon in Scotland. His wife, the redoubtable Augusta,”
― Deanna Raybourn, A Sinister Revenge

“wolpertinger?” “A mythological invention of German fantasy,” I replied. “We don’t yet know that,” Stoker riposted, clearly annoyed. “We most certainly do. It is a singularly ludicrous creature,” I explained to Tiberius, “with the body of a hare, the wings of a hawk, and a tiny set of antlers. Like a miniature deer.”
― Deanna Raybourn, A Sinister Revenge

“ghillie suit. It affords me perfect camouflage in the forest.” “I think I saw something moving within it,” Tiberius told him. “It does have a tendency to attract fleas,”
― Deanna Raybourn, A Sinister Revenge

“Through his perambulations, he had lost the thread of connection with his family, and by the time I had met him, some three years previous to these events, there was almost no communication between Stoker and his three brothers, their father having died the year before I came into his life.”
― Deanna Raybourn, A Sinister Revenge

“I need him.” • • • The fact that Tiberius Templeton-Vane, ninth viscount of the same, expressed any emotion as lowering as need of another person was mildly terrifying.”
― Deanna Raybourn, A Sinister Revenge

“Bavaria, September 1889 You must not go into the forest at night,” the innkeeper warned, his voice trembling with fear. “Something dangerous walks there in the darkness.” He carried on in this vein for some time as I applied myself to a stein of Weissbier”
― Deanna Raybourn, A Sinister Revenge