Jean Philippe De Sabran Quotes

“Outside, the night was soft and fresh. There was a half-moon shining brightly in a field of stars, a glowing ring of light surrounding it, and it had made a trail across the bay that showed in places through the darker screen of trees.
They walked in silence, and she breathed the mingled scents of wildflowers sleeping in the shadows, and the salt air of the sea.
He had not let go of her hand. She did not want him to. They did not leave the clearing but at length they reached its edge, where rustling branches stretched above them and the light and noise and music of the barn seemed far away. One heart-shaped leaf fell from a nearby tree and landed on his shoulder and unthinkingly she lifted her free hand to brush it off before it marked the white coat she had worked so hard and long to clean.
She felt him looking down at her, and glancing up self-consciously she started to explain. And lost the words.
And then he bent his head and kissed her.
Everything around her seemed to stop, and still, and cease to matter. She could not have said how long it lasted. Not long, probably. It was a gentle kiss but at the same time fierce and sure and full of all the pent-up feelings she herself had fought these past months, and now she knew he had felt them just as she had, and had fought them, too. It was a great release to give up fighting. Give up everything, and float in the sensation.”
― Susanna Kearsley, Bellewether

“You love her."
Jean-Philippe did not- would not- deny it.
Pierre sighed. "You're like the sheep, Marine, so stupid. Always you look back at where you've come from, what you've been, what you believe you are, and so you do not see the path you should be taking."
"I'm a soldier. I don't get to choose my path." He'd meant for that to stop the argument.
It didn't. "You're a soldier, so you follow, yes? Then follow this." Pierre's hard finger jabbed him in the chest, above his heart. "God gave you this. He set it like a light within you, so that you could see it well and know the way to go. You follow this, Marine. Don't look behind.”
― Susanna Kearsley, Bellewether

“He had always liked to put a name to what he wanted.
It was not a name with which he was familiar. In fact he would have missed the times they'd spoken it before because it would have sounded as if they were saying l'idéal, a thought that made him smile faintly. Physically, at least, she was his own ideal. And even her dislike of him provided a distraction from his darker thoughts and troubles.”
― Susanna Kearsley, Bellewether

“Forgive me, I meant no offense." He moved toward the doorway.
Jean-Philippe frowned. "Captain?"
"Yes?"
Throughout their meeting, Jean-Philippe had taken care to keep his own gaze from too often drifting to the parlor window and the view it offered of the trees beside the barn, where for some time the younger brother had been climbing through the branches cutting clumps of berries to be tossed down to his sister. It was clearly an old game with them, and Jean-Philippe could not help but be jealous of the laughter she gave easily to someone else.
He'd purposely not watched them long, in case his face betrayed his interest in her to the captain. It was never wise to let your captor see a weakness he could use against you.
Even now he did not glance toward the parlor window, though he wanted to. "What you just said...'Forgive me, I meant no offense'..."
"Yes?"
"How," asked Jean-Philippe, "does one say that in English?”
― Susanna Kearsley, Bellewether

“And this morning while she'd harvested her beans for seed she'd glanced up from the garden and to her complete astonishment Mr. de Sabran had been smiling.
Not at her- he had been saying something to French Peter, his attention focused mainly on the cider press. But still, he had been smiling. And that simple act had made his face a thing she barely recognized.
His teeth were even. Very white and very straight although the smile itself was lopsided, so wide it carved deep lines in both his cheeks and made his eyes crease at their edges. He looked younger. He looked-
Then, as if he'd known that she was staring, he had turned his head and for the briefest, stomach-dropping instant, he had turned that smile on her. Her hand had itched to hold a pencil that would let her somehow capture it, but with one polite, quick nod he had looked away, returning to his conversation and his work.
Since that moment, she had found herself innumerable times now glancing up from her own work to see if she might catch him smiling in that way again. She hadn't, but she noticed he looked more relaxed today than she had seen him; more at ease with both their company and his surroundings, as though he were there by choice and not by force of circumstance.”
― Susanna Kearsley, Bellewether

“Acting from instinct he angled his body so it would shield Lydia's, sweeping her back into the recession of a doorway that, while closed, would give her shelter. Pressing close, he wrapped himself around her so the blows would strike him first.
They did. Repeatedly. A clump of mud and small stones that had missed its target struck and shattered on the doorframe and he felt her jump and start to tremble, so he bent his head and murmured words of reassurance, low and calm over the wailing of the injured man, and all the ugly shouts of his tormentors.
Fear, he knew, was mostly in the mind, and he would spare her that. He'd long since learned to channel his own fear to action, so it was surprising to him now to feel it twist within his chest- a fear not for himself, his safety, but for hers. It lingered even when the mob had passed them by, the angry tumult growing fainter down the street, and there was no more danger.
Stepping back, he gave them both the space to breathe. Her face was pale, and she appeared to still be shaking but she only drew her cloak a little tighter as though wanting him to think it was the cold, and he had seen enough cadets who did not wish to show him weakness that he recognized her brave attempt to seem more strong in front of him, and though he was not fooled by it he understood her need to make the effort. Having satisfied himself she was unharmed, he wanted for her to collect herself sufficiently to leave the sheltered doorway, then he offered her his arm again, and once again she took it, holding tighter to him this time, and they crossed the street in silence.
But the feeling, strange and new, stayed firmly lodged beneath his ribs, as though once having taken hold it was now part of him, and he had no idea what to do with it.
We always fear what we don't know, he'd told the young de Joncourt boy.
And walking now with Lydia's gloved hand upon his arm, her warmth beside him, Jean-Philippe admitted there was truth in what he'd said. Because in all his twenty-seven years, with all that life had dealt him, he had not known anything like this.”
― Susanna Kearsley, Bellewether

“Do you ever feel your mother?"
Lydia's pencil stilled. "Yes," she said, quietly. "Sometimes I do."
Later that evening, when supper was finished, she took up her mending and curled herself into her mother's old chair with its leather seat slung in the low X-shaped frame like a welcoming lap. She could almost imagine her mother's arms holding her, here in the room with the warmth of the fire and the light of the candles, the wind rising hard at the glass of the window.
The men were still sitting around the long table in cross conversations, her brother and Mr. Ramírez discussing the length of the Bellewether's deck, while her father and Mr. de Brassart debated the merits of some play by Shakespeare, and Mr. de Sabran sat back and observed.
All the voices ran into and over each other and blended like billowy waves folding into the sea, and she struggled to stay on the surface while all of those waves with the troubles they carried went by. "Feel them passing?" her mother asked, rocking her gently.
Except they weren't passing. They bore her relentlessly down like great weights on her shoulders until she was sinking.
And then in place of her mother's arms she felt the strong ones of Mr. de Sabran, protecting her as they had done in New York, and it suddenly wasn't so terrible, drowning. She held him and drifted down into the dark.”
― Susanna Kearsley, Bellewether

“He touched her shoulder. Shook it lightly. Said her name. She did not wake. And then, after considering his options, he reached down and gently lifted her and carried her upstairs.
Had he been able to stop time, he might have stopped it then. The weight of her within his arms, the warmth of her against his chest, the softness of her breath against his shirt- these were sensations that he wanted to remember. He climbed slowly, set his feet with care, and told himself it was because he did not wish to rouse the household, but he knew that was untrue, just as he knew he'd have to rouse at least one person.
Taking her into her room would risk her reputation and his own. He'd have to wake her father.
Monsieur Wilde, to his relief, slept lightly. Jean-Philippe had barely knocked upon his chamber door before it opened. Moonlight slanted through the window just behind and made the older man a silhouette in shadow while illuminating Lydia, and Jean-Philippe searched through the English words he'd learned to find the right ones to explain. "She sleeps," he said, "downstairs." And so there could be no misunderstanding, added, "In the chair."
The pause that followed made him wonder if he'd been mistaken in his phrasing, but at last Monsieur Wilde nodded and stepped out and motioned Jean-Philippe to follow him across the landing to the other bedchamber. The moonlight here, though not as strong, was still enough to show him where to lay her on the bed. But as he lowered her, she wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him more closely. Forced to bend, he did not mind the time it took to set her down and cautiously extract himself from her possessive hold, but when he drew the blankets over her and straightened he was glad he could not see her father's face, and that they neither of them knew the other's thoughts.”
― Susanna Kearsley, Bellewether

“She asked her father something and he answered her and although it was difficult for Jean-Philippe to follow what was said, he heard the word "exchanged" and realized, not knowing French, she and her father would not know he and de Brassart were not part of this cartel.
It would be hard for them to learn the truth, he thought.
She looked at him, and he could see her eyes were guarded. "I am sorry," he told her directly, "we are not exchanged."
Her eyebrows drew together faintly. "Not exchanged?"
He was not sure if "yes" or "no" was proper in this instance, so he simply said it over. "Not exchanged."
"Oh."
As he watched, incredibly, her eyes grew slightly happier. He held that knowledge even when she'd looked away.
And in that moment, when the wind rose up and struck him sharply, it seemed only half as cold as it had seemed before.”
― Susanna Kearsley, Bellewether