Highland Papers Quotes

As she lifted the glittering strand of diamonds from the box, a small slip of paper fell out. She caught it as it wafted toward the floor. Four words in ancient script, an arrogantly slanted scrawl. Accept these, accept me. Well, she thought, blinking, that was certainly direct and to the point. -Adam's note to Gabrielle

Jack looked at the paper. Devonsgate had listed all twelve footmen: John, Mark, Luke, Thomas…Bloody hell, his butler had hired the entire New Testament.

why did he have a small army of kilted Highlanders? Where on earth did a person acquire such an army? Did he place an ad in the paper—Wanted: small army of kilted Highlanders?

While early print ads were straightforward product announcements (“EATON’S HIGHLAND LINEN: THE FRESHEST AND CLEANEST WRITING PAPER”), the new personality-driven ads cast consumers as performers with stage fright from which only the advertiser’s product might rescue them.

She untucked the flap and withdrew a single sheet of paper. Chloe-lass: If I’m not here with you now, I’m beyond this life, for ’tis the only way I’ll ever let you go. She flinched, her whole body jerking. Several long moments passed before she managed to force herself to keep reading. I hoped I loved you well, sweet, for I know even now that you are my brightest shining star. I knew it the moment I saw you. Ah, lass, you so adore your artifacts. This thief covets but one priceless treasure: You. Dageus

assortment of knives he’d lined up on the glossy Victorian dressing table, gone.  A folded piece of paper was placed in the middle of the dresser, leaning against a tarnished silver candle stick. Her name was written on it in untidy script, scratchy and blotchy from Lachlan not knowing how to deal with a ballpoint pen. With a catch in her throat, she picked up the paper but didn’t unfold it. She just couldn’t, not right now. She had to find him. This letter was not goodbye. Instead she folded it over again and put it into her front pocket, brushing the wrapped book stuffed into

Have you found what you seek, Lisa?” Circenn Brodie asked quietly. Lisa dropped the papers back into the chest, closed her eyes, and sighed. With a gazillion rooms in this castle, everyone seemed hell-bent on joining her in this one. “I was getting a blanket out of the chest”—she snatched up a plaid that had been folded near the top—“when one of my earring backs came off,” she lied splendidly. “You are not wearing ear rings, lass,” he said, breaking it into two distinct words, eyeing her ears. “On either ear,” he said impassively. Lisa clutched at her ears, then nearly assaulted the chest in a frenzied search. “Oh heavens, they both fell off,” she cried. “Can you believe that?” She flinched when his strong hands settled upon her waist as she bent over the chest. “No,” he said quietly. “I cannot. Why doona you simply tell me what are you looking for, lass? Perhaps I can help you. I know the castle well. It is mine, after all.

We will be stronger for this, But only if it forces us To reach out. Corona Barry Marks “…normally only visible during a solar eclipse” Of course I’m crazy there are no sharks in swimming pools, just like there were none in freshwater lakes and rivers all those years when boys and dogs and a horse or two disappeared and everyone knew it was a haint, not some biological U-Boat stalking Little Bear Creek for 400 million years. Yes, I watch for periscopes, dorsal fins, Indian signs whispering something is down there, beneath the surface tension: angle of reflection, angle of refraction, invisible geometry making you squint and not see, making you not see. Go ahead, tell me I’m crazy with my stock of masks and toilet paper, bottled water and ammo; I know this immigrant air is from Mexico, maybe Wuhan before that, and the things I can’t see are the ones trying to pry my ribs open to let the ghost-you-can’t-see out of its cage. I know things under the air, behind the darkness, within the water are real because so am I and I believe the myth of electricity and the fable of fluoridation, that the sun can be lethal and meds can mend a Stockholm Syndrome childhood. I believe my vote and my opinion count. I believe in germs and viruses, and not going out with a wet head, and the new normal and the old one, too. I believe it is the unseen things that kill us, the small things: a moment’s distraction, the hole a virus shoots through a body. I cannot believe the dead will forgive us for being too slow to believe in what we did not want to see.

Bagpipes is a gey droll kind o' utensil; ye canna jist begin to play them the wye ye can a melodeon; they hae to be taken aside and argued wi', and half-throttled afore they'll dae onything wyse-like. They're awfu dour things, but they never hairmed onybody that never hairmed them. See, yonder's a chap that's got his pipes fine and tame noo; he's gaun on the platform to play something."' The piper in question went on the platform and proceeded remorselessly to play a pibroch. Two very fat judges in kilts and a third in tartan knickerbockers sat on chairs beside the platform and took notes on sheets of paper as the pibroch unwound itself. "What are they chaps daein'?" asked Duffy. "They're judgin'" says Erchie. "I've seen Heilan' games afore. A' the prizes for bagpipe playin' gangs by points - ten points for the natest kilt; ten points for the richt wye o' cockin' yer bonnet; five points for no' gaun aff a'e tune on to anither; five points for the best pair o' leg for the kilt; five points for yer name bein' Campbell and the judges kennin' yer faither - thats the judges addin' up the points and wishin' they kent the tune he's playin'.

I suppose you must feel some bitterness against the historians," Roger ventured. "All the writers who got it wrong--made him out to be a hero. I mean, you can't go anywhere in the Highlands without seeing the Bonnie Prince on toffee tins and souvenir tourist mugs." Claire shook her head, gazing off in the distance. The evening mist was growing heavier, the bushes beginning to drip again from the tips of their leaves. "Not the historians. No, not them. Their greatest crime is that they presume to know what happened, how things come about, when they only have what the past chose to leave them behind--for the most part, they think what they were meant to think, and it's a rare one that sees what really happened, behind the smokescreen of artifacts and paper." There was a faint rumble in the distance. The evening passenger train from London, Roger knew. You could hear the whistle from the manse on clear nights. "No, the fault lies with the artists," Claire went on. The writers, the singers, the tellers of tales. It's them that take the past and re-create it to their liking. Them that could take a fool and give you back a hero, take a sot and make him a king." "Are they all liars, then?" Roger asked. Claire shrugged. In spite of the chilly air, she had taken off the jacket to her suit; the damp molded the cotton shirt to show the fineness of collarbone and shoulder blades. "Liars?" she asked. "Or sorcerers? Do they see the bones in the dust of the earth, see the essence of a thing that was, and clothe it in new flesh, so the plodding beast reemerges as a fabulous monster?

She had seen Brianna’s face for a moment in the light; white as paper and hard as bone, with the eyes black holes. Her gentle, kindly mistress had vanished like smoke, taken over by a deamhan, a she-devil. Lizzie was a town lass, born long after Culloden. She had never seen the wild clansmen of the glens, or a Highlander in the grip of blood fury—but she’d heard the auld stories, and now she knew them true. A person who looked like that might do anything at all. She

I see ye’ve told her what it means for a Keith to claim a woman,” he said to Darcy. Looking at her across the desk, he said, “Dinna be hard on the lad. If he hadna done it, I would have, and me with three daughters for you to become second mother to. I would ha’ been good to ye, lass, but Darcy, he will worship you.” He winked at Darcy, then spread some papers on the desk and reached for the black-feathered quill. “I have the contract ready, Steafan. Begin when ye wish.” Steafan smirked at her. “What’ll it be, lass, the stocks tonight, or a wedding?” “The stocks,” she said without hesitation, relieved she seemed to have some choice in the matter. What was a night of discomfort compared to the stripping away of one’s choice? Darcy surged around the desk and shook her by the shoulders. His eyes blazed with desperation. “Dinna do this,” he said close by her ear, his voice urgent and low, private from all but perhaps Aodhan, who stood near the desk. “A person in the stocks must be stripped to their skin and placed in the courtyard for the entire clan to laugh at and spit on. I’d sooner defy my uncle and be banished from Ackergill than see you dishonored so. Dinna make me do that, I beg you.” Fear kicked her heart into her throat at Darcy’s manhandling. But as his words penetrated, she stopped fighting his hold. He was serious. He’d abandon his home, his mill, Edmund and Fran, everything he had, all to keep her from a night’s humiliation. He might be a manipulative, lying brute, but he seemed to care for her on some level. She looked hard in his eyes and saw vulnerability glowing behind a glaze of very real fear. Fear for her and for what her actions might cause him to suffer. She shoved away the sympathy he didn’t deserve. He projected an air of absolute honor, but honorable men didn’t trick women into marrying them. “You lied to me,” she seethed. “You told me you’d help me get home.” “And I will,” he said. “Do ye nay remember what I told you before Steafan came in?” She remembered the words verbatim. “Whatever happens tonight, Malina, ye need no’ fash that I’ll keep my word to you.” Malina. The mere memory of her name spoken that way softened her, damn her romantic heart. “Trust me,” he urged.

It was uncomfortable to think of her memories just…fading away, like old photographs. Ephemeral. Things always felt so real when you were there with your hands on them. But memory was as weak and fragile as paper, and as easily destroyed or manipulated.