Becky of Becky's Bookshelves

“It's all right," he murmured gruffly. "You're all right." His thumbs moved over her cheeks in an achingly gentle caress. "I've found you.”
― Mimi Matthews, Rules for Ruin

“For all Miss Corvus's progressive views, for all her insistence on looking to the future, this was a chamber firmly enshrouded in the past. A veiled room, all stale darkness and decay.
Miss Corvus had been similarly veiled the first time Effie had seen her that fateful day eighteen years ago in the London slum of St. Giles.
But Miss Corvus wasn't veiled now.
She sat in a green damask-upholstered armchair by the window, her uncovered face as white as wax. She was clad in stark black, just as Effie was-a plain, but impeccably tailored, silk dress worn over an abundance of petticoats and a formidable wire crinoline. A jet brooch gleamed at her throat, and an embroidered lace handkerchief was clutched in her pale hand.”
― Mimi Matthews, Rules for Ruin

“Effie's brow lifted. Miss Corvus never received any of the girls in her private rooms. Not even the teachers. At least, she hadn't during Effie's tenure. Miss Corvus's rooms had always been sealed off, as impenetrable as a tomb, behind an impassable set of tall, iron-banded wooden doors. Not even the canniest members of the Academy had dared attempt entry.”
― Mimi Matthews, Rules for Ruin

“Strong, intelligent women had always been his weakness. He blamed it on the example set by Miles’s mother, Rose. She’d been something of a bluestocking, too, with her forward-thinking ways, and her determination to better herself and her son despite all the odds against her. The granite wall of Gabriel’s already weakened defenses began to crumble.”
― Mimi Matthews, Rules for Ruin