Graeme And Joie Quotes

“Three years later he had another opportunity to see the little girl.
Helmert had been tearing through the keep, bellowing like a mad bull as he searched for his sister. “Josephine , I swear I’ll rip yer head off when I find ye!”
’Twas eerily similar to Graeme’s first visit.
Remembering his first encounter with the tree sprite, Graeme went in search of Josephine. The first place he looked was the auld oak tree, but she was not there. After a careful search out of doors, he went inside. She was not in the larder or the kitchen. It took more than half an hour before he finally located her in her father’s study, hiding under the large desk.
Graeme crouched low so he could see her better. It didn’t appear she had grown much in three years, though she had lost the cherubic face. This time she wore a dark green dress and matching slippers.
The last time he’d seen her, she’d been quite terrified of her brother. Now, she looked quite angry.
“I’ll nae tell, Josephine,” he whispered, offering her a kind smile.
A scrunched brow said she didn’t believe him.
“Pray tell, what did ye hide this time?” he asked, hoping his amused tone would help lighten the mood.
Reluctantly, she finally confessed. “His strop.”
Graeme raised a confused brow. “Why would ye hide his strop?”
The little girl looked at him as though he were quite daft. “So he will not beat me with it.”
― Suzan Tisdale, Isle of the Blessed

“Reaching into his sporran, he pulled out a small bundle wrapped in fine linen. “I want to give ye somethin’, somethin’I want ye to wear this day.”Carefully, he unfolded the linen and held his hand out to her.
Josephine’s eyes widened with curiosity and joy. “’Tis beautiful, Graeme!”
“It be a brooch that each MacAulay lad receives when he turns six and ten. I want ye to have it.”
Josephine carefully took it and studied it closely. Made of pewter, in the center of the brooch were two hands, one decidedly masculine, the other feminine. The masculine hand held the feminine hand in his palm. In the center of her palm was a tiny ruby. To one side, the circle had been engraved to look like stars twinkling near a crescent moon. On the other were the words aeterna devotione. Eternal devotion.
Tears filled her eyes as she looked into his. “Ye want me to have this?”
“Aye, I do, Joie,”he said as he placed a kiss on her forehead. “Me great-great-great grandfather presented a brooch just like this to his wife, me great-great-great grandmum. But no’until the first anniversary of their weddin’day. ’Twas a symbol of the great love they had found with one another. ’Tis tradition for the MacAulay men to only give their brooch to a woman who has stolen their heart, a woman they love and trust above all else.”
Tears trailed down her cheeks, her heart beating so rapidly she was certain it would burst through her breastbone at any moment.
“I do no’quite understand how it happened, or how it happened so quickly, Joie, but it has. Amorem in corde meo ut arctius coccino colloeandus arctius ideo astra,”Graeme said first in Latin and then again in Gaelic, “Toisc go bhfuil do ghrá eitseáilte isteach i mo chroí i corcairdhearg, mar sin tá sé eitseáilte amonst na réaltaí.”He placed a tender kiss on her cheek. “As yer love be etched into me heart in crimson, so it be etched amongst the stars,”he told her. “As me grandda said those words to me grandmum all those many years ago, I say them to ye.”
― Suzan Tisdale, Isle of the Blessed

“Josephine, please wait,” he said. Even he could hear his voice catch in his throat.
She turned to face him and wiped away a tear with the sleeve of her cloak.
When he had been searching frantically for her, he had thought of what he’d say, of how he would apologize and beg for her forgiveness. But now his mind was blank and he was beginning to feel quite foolish, the one feeling above all others he detested . He blurted out the first thing that came to his mind. “Ye’re beautiful.”
Josephine looked as though she either did not believe him or those were not the words she wanted to hear.
He cleared his throat once, then again. “I did no’ want to think that about ye. I did no’ want to find ye beautiful.”
“You mean you did not want to find me at all,” she told him. “I know you are against this marriage, Graeme. For what reasons, I do not know. I can only assume that you find me beneath you.”
This was the most they had spoken to one another in years. She certainly did not mince words. Her words stung, but they were nothing but truth. No vehemence, no anger, just simply put.
“That be true,” he said before quickly adding, “I mean, that was true.” He took a step toward her. “By now, I am certain me family has told ye that I can be a stubborn, hard-headed fool.”
“I was able to glean that on my own,” she told him.”
― Suzan Tisdale, Isle of the Blessed

“She stood before him in a pale green dress, her hair unbound and tumbling down her back, her smile –the one he should have seen days ago –was enough to light up the darkest night.
His mouth had suddenly become dry and paralyzed, as if he’d been born without the ability to speak. Or swallow. Or think any coherent thought. Graeme felt all at once foolish, immature and unworthy.
He was about to turn and run away like a boy, when Josephine all but flung herself into his embrace, twining her slender arms around his waist and resting her head against his chest.
“Graeme,”she said, a note of glee in her voice. “I’ve waited a very long time for you.”
The sensation of feeling foolish, immature and unworthy fell away as he wrapped his own arms around her. Why did I resist this for all these years?
She pushed away slightly to look up at him. He studied every inch of her lovely face. Josephine was quite beautiful, with her creamy skin and oval shaped face. Her green eyes reminded him at once of the summer grass that lined a French countryside. Dark lashes surrounded those eyes –eyes that were sparkling with joy and excitement as they looked into his. A pert, little nose and deliciously looking full, pink lips, which he was quite certain would feel as soft as a whisper against his own.
He wondered then if anyone would object if he married her now. This very day. This very moment.
“Ye’re beautiful,”he said.
Those cream colored cheeks turned a lovely shade of pink when he gave her the compliment.
“Jose—”he stopped himself. “Joie, I ken I am wholly unworthy of ye, but would ye do me the distinct honor of marryin’me?”
Josephine had already agreed to such, more than four years ago. She had learned, however, through his letters, that it had been quite important to Graeme that he be able to marry a woman of his own choosing.
Her heart felt close to bursting from her chest.
He was choosing her of his own free will.
A joy-filled smile curved on her face and she flung her arms around his neck. “Aye, Graeme MacAulay, I will marry you.”
― Suzan Tisdale, Isle of the Blessed

“Their long overdue kiss was interrupted far too soon for either of their likings.
“Well, it be about time!”
Nothing on God’s earth can douse a man’s ardor like the sound of his mother’s voice.”
― Suzan Tisdale, Isle of the Blessed