Rania Melhem

“I would see him, Edward.'
It was no request; he knew it to be an ultimatum. He shook his head violently, not trusting his voice. Time passed. She was staring at him, saying nothing, and on her face was a look of stunned disbelief, of anguished accusation he knew would haunt him for the rest of his life. But when she spoke, her voice held no hint of tears. It was not a voice to offer either understanding or absolution, spoke of no quarter given, of a lifetime of love denied.
'God may forgive you for this,' she said, very slowly and distinctly, 'but I never shall.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour

“I’d not want to answer for the lives of other men; not at seventeen, by God’s Grace.”
― Sharon Kay Penman

“Twilight was laying claim to the cité, and the sky was a deepening shade of lavender, spangled with stars and fleecy clouds the colour of plums.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, Devil's Brood

“Edward was now expressing himself on the subject of the French King, drawing upon a vocabulary that a Southwark brothel-keeper might envy. Some of what he was saying was anatomically impossible, much of it was true and all of it envenomed.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, The Sunne in Splendour