Minerva Highwood Quotes

“I'm here to present my findings at the symposium. I'm an esteemed member of the Society, with an impressive record of scholarship, and I have something of value to contribute to these proceedings. I also happen to be female. I'm a woman who knows a great deal about rocks. I suggest you find the stones to deal with it.”
― Tessa Dare, A Week to be Wicked

“As he watched her, Colin was visited by the strangest feeling, unfurling warm and buttery inside him. It was a sense of privilege and mute wonder, as though he'd witnessed one of those small, everyday miracles of spring. Like a licked-clean foal taking its first steps on wobbly legs. Or a new butterfly pushing scrunched, damp wings from a chrysalis.
Before his eyes, she'd transformed into a new creature. Still a bit awkward and uncertain, but undaunted. And well on her way to being beautiful.
Colin scratched his neck. He wished there were someone nearby he could turn to and say, 'Would you look at that?”
― Tessa Dare, A Week to be Wicked

“Today, all her mother's judgements had been proved false. She wasn't plain, but pretty. She wasn't distracted and awkward, but confident and a crack shot.
Most of all, Minerva was not hopeless. She had twenty pounds. She had an important scientific discovery.
And she had Colin, the most handsome, charming devil in England, coming fast on her heels. Save for the ransom-minded highwaymen and angry magistrate's son chasing after them...
Life had never been so good.”
― Tessa Dare, A Week to be Wicked

“She wasn't without her peculiar brand of allure. Her dark hair, when unbound and spilling in heavy waves to her waist, was seduction itself. And her mouth truly did fascinate him. For a sharp-tongued bluestocking, she had the most full, ripe, sultry lips he'd ever seen. Lips copied from some Renaissance master's Aphrodite. Dark red at the edges, and a paler hue toward the center- like two slices of a ripe plum. Sometimes she caught her lower lip beneath her teeth and worried it, as though savoring some hidden sweetness.”
― Tessa Dare, A Week to be Wicked

“Why would you do that with me? A simple kiss was enough. What could you be thinking?"
"What indeed." He pushed a hand through his hair, more than a little offended at her accusatory tone. "I'm male. You rubbed your... femaleness all over me. I didn't think. I reacted."
"You reacted."
"Yes."
"To..." She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. "To me."
"It is a natural response. Aren't you a scientist? Then you should understand. Any red-blooded man would react to such stimulus."
She stepped back. She dipped her chin and peered at him over her spectacles. "So you find me stimulating."
"That's not what I-" He bit off the rest of that sentence. The only way to end a nonsensical conversation was to simply cease talking.
Colin drew a deep breath and squared his shoulders. He closed his eyes briefly. And then he opened them and looked at her. Really looked at her, as though for the first time. He saw thick, dark hair a man could gather by the fistful. Prim spectacles, perched on a gently sloped nose. Behind the lenses, wide-set eyes- dark and intelligent. And that mouth. That ripe, pouting, sensual mouth.
He let his gaze drift down her form. There was a wicked thrill to knowing lushness smoldered beneath that modest sprigged muslin gown. To having felt her shape, scouting and chartering her body with all the nerve endings of his own.
Their bodies had met. More than that. They'd grown acquainted.
Nothing more would come from it, of course. Colin had rules for himself, and as for her... she didn't even liked him, or pretend to. But she showed up in the middle of the night, hatching schemes that skirted the line between academic logic and reckless adventure. She started kisses she had no notion how to continue.
Taken all together, she was simply...
A surprise. A fresh, bracing gust of the unexpected, for good or ill.
"Perhaps," he said cautiously, "I do find you stimulating.”
― Tessa Dare, A Week to be Wicked

“She spoke in a calm, soothing voice. Likely the same tone she employed to soothe her sister through a breathing crisis. Colin's pride bristled. He didn't need coddling. But he quite enjoyed the smoky, entrancing quality of her voice and her tender touch against his cheek. His pounding heart began to slow.
Eventually the white specks overhead diffused to a faint, milky glow that illuminated her features. Soft, dark calf eyes with inky lashes. Rounded cheeks and pale skin. Those lips, wet with seawater.”
― Tessa Dare, A Week to be Wicked

“But didn't everyone have a shell? Hard, external armor protecting the soft, vulnerable creature beneath?
Perhaps, she thought, people were more like ammonites than one would suppose. Perhaps they too built shells on a consistent, unchanging factor- some quality or circumstance established in your youth. Each chamber in the shell just an enlargement of the previous. Growing year after year, until they spiraled around and locked themselves in place.”
― Tessa Dare, A Week to be Wicked

“Of the three Highwood sisters, she was the only dark-haired one, the only bespectacled one, the only one who preferred sturdy lace-up boots to silk slippers, and the only one who cared one whit about the difference between sedimentary and metamorphic rocks.
The only one with no prospects, no reputation to protect.”
― Tessa Dare, A Week to be Wicked