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Married by Morning

Book by Lisa Kleypas · 22 quotes · Catherine And Leo, Leo Hathaway, Catherine Marks

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Married by Morning Quotes

“Marks," he said, his voice uneven, "you are not a perfect woman." 'I'm aware of that," she said. "You have an evil temper, you're as blind as a mole, you're a deplorable poet, and frankly, your French accent could use some work." Supporting himself on his elbows, Leo took her face in his hands. "But when I put those things together with the rest of you, it makes you into the most perfectly imperfect woman I've ever known." Absurdly pleased, she smiled up into his face. "You are beautiful beyond words," Leo went on. "You are kind, amusing, and passionate. You also have a keen intellect, but I'm willing to overlook that.”

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Book:Married by Morning
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“Leo would never know that she had loved him. She thought of his eyes, all those colors of blue. Her mind was filled with a constellation of high summers, stars in a lion's shape. The brightest star marks his heart. He would grieve. If only she could spare him that. Oh, what they could have had. A life together, such a simple thing. To watch that handsome face weather with age. She had to admit now that she had never been happier than in the moments with him. Her heart beat faintly beneath her ribs. It was heavy, aching with contained feeling, a hard knot within the numbness. I didn't want to need you, Leo. I fought so hard to stay standing at the edge of my own life... when I should have had the courage to walk into yours.”

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“Why did you come back?" she asked weakly. He stared directly into her eyes. "You know why." Before Catherine could stop herself, her gaze dropped to the fine contours of his mouth. "Cat... we have to talk about what happened." "I don't know what you mean." He inclined his head slightly. "Would you like me to remind you?" "No, no..." She shook her head for emphasis. "No." His lips twitched. ""One 'no' is enough, darling." Darling? Filled with anxiety, Catherine fought to keep her voice steady. "I thought I made it clear that I wanted to ignore what happened." "And you expect that will make it go away?" "Yes, that's what one does with mistakes," she said with difficulty. "One sets them aside and moves on." "Really?" Leo asked innocently. "My mistakes are usually so enjoyable that I tend to repeat them." Catherine wondered what was wrong with her that she was tempted to smile. "This one will not be repeated." "Ah, there's the governess voice. All stern and disapproving. It makes me feel like a naughty schoolboy.”

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“When my mother fell ill, my father felt it as a great burden. He paid a woman to look after her until the end, and sent me away to live with my aunt and grandmother, and I never heard from him again. He may be dead, for all I know." "I'm sorry," Leo said. And he was. Genuinely sorry, wishing he could somehow have gone back in time to comfort a small girl in spectacles, who had been abandoned by the man who should have protected her. "Not all men are like that," he felt the need to point out. "I know. It would hardly be fair of me to blame the entire male population for my father's sins." Leo became uncomfortably aware that his own behavior hadn't been any better than her father's, that he had indulged in his own bitter grief to the point of abandoning his sisters. "No wonder you've always hated me," he said. "I must remind you of him, I deserted my sisters when they needed me." Catherine gave him a clear-eyed stare, not pitying, not censorious, just... appraising. "No," she said sincerely. "You're not at all like him. You came back to your family. You've worked for them, cared for them. And I've never hated you." Leo stared at her closely, more than a little surprised by the revelation. "You haven't?" "No. In fact-" She broke off abruptly. "In fact?" Leo prompted. "What were you going to say?" "Nothing." "You were. Something along the lines of liking me against your will." "Certainly not." Catherine said primly, but Leo saw the twitch of a smile at her lips. "Irresistibly attracted by my dashing good looks?" he suggested. "My fascinating conversation?" "No, and no." "Seduced by my brooding glances?" He accompanied this with a waggish swerving of his brows that finally reduced her to laughter. "Yes, it must have been those." Settling back against the pillows, Leo regarded her with satisfaction. What a wonderful laugh she had, light and throaty, as if she had been drinking champagne. And what a problem this could become, this madly inappropriate desire for her. She was becoming real to him, dimensional, vulnerable in ways he had never imagined.”

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“Did I hurt you?" she managed to ask, recalling how she had inadvertently pushed on his wounded shoulder. "Does it ache this morning?" Leo hesitated before replying, "No, it eventually eased after you left. But the devil knows it wouldn't take much to start up again." Catherine was overcome with remorse. "I'm so sorry. Should we put a poultice on it?" "A poultice?" he repeated blankly. "On my... oh. We're talking about my shoulder?" She blinked in confusion. "Of course we're talking about your shoulder. What else would we be discussing?" "Cat..." Leo looked away from her. To her surprise, there was a tremor of laughter in his voice. "When a man is aroused and left unsatisfied, he usually aches for a while afterward." "Where?" He gave her a speaking glance. "You mean..." A wild blush raced over her as she finally understood. "Well, I don't care if you ache there, I was only concerned about your wound!" "It's much better," Leo assured her, his eyes bright with amusement. "As for the other ache-" "This has nothing to do with me," she said hastily. "I beg to differ.”

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“Leo spoke before she could say a word. "I'd like to arrange a room for my wife and myself." His wife? Catherine twisted to give him an offended glance. "I want my own room. And I'm not-" "She doesn't, really." Leo smiled at the innkeeper, the rueful, commiserating smile of one put-upon man to another. "A marital squabble. She's cross because I won't let her mother visit us." "Ahhh..." The innkeeper made an ominous sound and bent to write in the registry book. "Don't give in, sir. They never leave when they say they will. When my mother-in-law visits, the mice throw themselves at the cat, begging to be eaten. Your name?" "Mr. and Mrs. Hathaway." "But-" Catherine began, nettled. She broke off as she felt the carpetbag quiver in her grasp. Dodger wanted to get out. She had to keep him hidden until they were safely upstairs. "All right," she said shortly. "Let's hurry." Leo smiled. "Eager to make up after our quarrel, darling?" She gave him a look that should have stayed him on the spot.”

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“Time for your bath," Leo said, coming to pull her chair back. Wondering if he intended to stay in the room, Catherine ventured, "Perhaps you might allow me some privacy." "I wouldn't dream of it," he said. "You may need assistance." "I can bathe myself. And I would prefer not to be watched." "My interest is purely aesthetic. I'll imagine you as Rembrandt's Hendrickje Bathina, wading in the waters of innocence." "Purely?" she asked doubtfully. "Oh, I have a very pure soul. It's only my private parts that have gotten me into trouble.”

Catherine And LeoLeo Hathaway
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“A gentleman shouldn't give personal items to a lady he's courting." He lowered his voice, mindful of being overheard by Poppy and the housekeeper, who were talking by the threshold of the Rutledge apartments. "But I can't take it back- no other woman could do it justice. And Marks, you have no idea of the self-restraint I exercised, I wanted to buy you a pair of embroidered stockings with little flowers running that run all the way up the insides of your-" "My lord," Catherine whispered, a light blush covering her face. "You forget yourself." "I haven't forgotten a thing, actually. Not one detail of your beautiful body. Soon I may start sketching you naked again. Every time I put a pencil to paper, the temptation nearly overwhelms me." She tried to look severe. "You promised not to do that again." "But my pencil has a will of its own," he said gravely.”

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“He slid a ring onto the fourth finger of her left hand. It was the most breathtaking ring she had ever seen, a flawless silver opal with flashes of blue and green fire hidden deep inside. With every movement of her hand, the opal glimmered with unearthly color. It was encircled by a rim of glittering small diamonds. "This reminded me of your eyes," he said. "Only not nearly as beautiful.”

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“As he had predicted, he loved Catherine like a madman. And as she had once claimed, she was entirely able to manage him. They were different in so many ways, and yet somehow it made them exactly right for each other. The result had been a remarkably harmonious marriage. They entertained each other with furious, funny bickering and long, thoughtful conversations. When they were alone, they often spoke in a kind of shorthand that no one else would have been able to interpret. They were a physical pair, passionate and affectionate. Playful. But the real surprise of the marriage was the kindness they showed each other... they, who had once fought so bitterly. Leo had never expected that the woman who had formerly brought out the worst in him would now bring out the best in him. And he had never dreamed that his love for her would deepen to such proportions that there was no hope of controlling or restraining it. In the face of a love this vast, a man could only surrender.”

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“Laura Dillard." It seemed impossible that he could share this with Catherine Marks, but she seemed to object he would. And somehow he was obliging her. "Beautiful girl. She loved to watercolor. Few people are good at that, they're too afraid of making mistakes. You can't lift the color or hide it, once it's put down. And water is unpredictable- an active partner in the painting- you have to let it behave as it will. Sometimes the color diffuses in ways you don't expect, or one shade backruns into another. That was fine with Laura. She liked the surprises of it. We had known each other all during childhood. I went away for two years to study architecture, and when I came back, we fell in love. So easily. We never argued- there was nothing to argue over. Nothing in our way.”

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“At least work keeps you from your vices," Win quipped one evening before supper, rubbing his hair affectionately as she joined him in the parlor. "I happen to like my vices," Leo told her. "That's why I went to the trouble of acquiring them." "What you need to acquire," Win said gently, "is a wife. And I'm not saying that out of self-interest, Leo." He smiled at her, this gentlest of sisters, who had fought so many personal battles for the sake of love. "You don't possess a molecule of self-interest, Win.”

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“Certain things have happened that can't be undone. Do you understand?" He saw from Harry's expression that only a few fragile constraints stood between him and certain death. "You seduced her deliberately," Harry managed to say. "Would you be happier if I claimed it was an accident?" "The only thing that would make me happy is to weight you with rocks and toss you into the Thames." "I understand. I even sympathize. I can't imagine what it would be like to face a man who's compromised your sisterhood, how difficult it would be to keep from murdering him on the spot. Oh, but wait..." Leo tapped a forefinger thoughtfully on his chin. "I can imagine. Because I went through it two bloody months ago.”

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“Marks was so self-contained and tenacious that it was often easy to forget she was still a young woman in her early twenties. When Leo had first met her, she had been the perfect embodiment of a dried-up spinster, with her spectacles and forbidding scowl and her stern hyphen of a mouth. Her spine was unbending as a fireplace poker, and her hair, the dull brown of apple moths, was always pinned back too tightly. The Grim Reaper, Leo had nicknamed her, despite the objections of the family. But the past year had wrought a remarkable change in Marks. She had filled out, her body slender but no longer matchstick thin, and her cheeks had gained color. A week and a half ago, when Leo had arrived from London, he had been absolutely astonished to see Marks with light golden locks. Apparently she had been dyeing her hair for years, but after an error on the part of the apothecary, she had been forced to abandon the disguise. And whereas the darker brown locks had been too severe for her delicate features and pale skin, her own natural blond was stunning. Which had left Leo to grapple with the fact that Catherine Marks, his mortal enemy, was a beauty. It wasn't really the altered hair color that made her look so different... it was more that Marks was so uncomfortable without it. She felt vulnerable, and it showed. As a result, Leo wanted to strip away more layers, literal and physical. He wanted to know her.”

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“As I understand, you need to marry and sire a child rather soon. If Cat doesn't succeed in bearing a son, the Hathaways will lose Ramsay House." "We've survived many things far worse than losing a bloody house. I'll marry Marks and take the risk." "Perhaps you're testing the waters," Harry said, his face expressionless. "Trying to determine if she's fertile before you marry her.”

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