Amelie Rives

Shadows of Flames: a Novel (Classic Reprint) Amelie Rives

Publisher Marketing: Excerpt from Shadows of Flames: A Novel Sophy smiled at her image in the mirror, and her grey eyes smiled back at her. The shadows under them - warm, golden stains like those on a bruised magnolia leaf - gave them a mysterious, impassioned look. She felt that she was going to have a happy evening. In those days, in the early '90s, electric light was not much used in the houses in Regent's Park. Candles in brass sconces lighted her dressing-table. They brought out flickering shimmers from her gown of white brocade. Sleeves were full that year. The transparent masses of azalea pink, drooping on either side of her slender body, made it look slenderer. These sleeves were like huge orchids, and from them her arms drooped stamenlike in the soft, gold wash from the candles. Matilda, her little Kentish maid, could not keep her eyes away from her. As she hooked the long, tightly wound sash of azalea pink she kept peering at her lady's image in the glass. There, Sophy's eyes met hers. She smiled again - at Tilda this time. "Will you wear anything on your hair, m'm?" asked the girl, smiling shyly in return. Sophy considered, looking at the curve of her head from different angles in a little hand-glass. "No," she said, at last; "just the pearls to-night." Her hair, dark and richly shaded like a breadth of veined mahogany, was drawn loosely back into a big, shining knot low on her neck. Her eyebrows were darker than her hair, long, slender, and straight. When she laughed or smiled her eyes too grew long and slender. She glanced at the pearls that the girl was now clasping about her throat. They had been a wedding-gift from her brother-in-law, Lord Wycheote. Poor Gerald! She was fond of him. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.