He put his fist against his chest. “Burn, Maddygirl,” he said. Then he turned and left her in the flickering gloom and thunder.

A transient wish crossed his mind; that he could have stayed around and introduced her to the innocent pleasures of...
But the devil with innocent pleasures. He dropped his head back against the wooden settle, closing his eyes. His feelings about Princess Field Mouse were as guilty as sin. He wasted a few moments in imagining a warm bed and his head pillowed on her delightfully plump breasts.
His lust for her was the most peculiar emotion, unlike anything a female had ever before inspired in him: a sort of passion for peace, a ferocious itch to have her and the bizarre impression that he'd somehow gain serenity from the act, that he could lose himself in her as if she were some primal element: a pathless forest or an endless plain instead of a chubby girl.

You must take this. I hadn't wanted to seem forward and press it upon you without knowing you truly wished to help me. Can you sell it? And I'll bring the rest of my personal jewelry along to provide for us on the way. This is only one of the smaller pieces."
The gold chain and setting flowed into Sheridan's palm. He glanced down at it, turned it over once and managed not to break into ecstatic smiles. He closed his fingers over the stone. "Princess," he said softly, taking her hand and pressing it against his fist, as if he could not bring himself to let her part with the jewel. "Are you quite sure?"
She bit her lip, hesitating, and for one awful moment he thought he had gone too far. Then she looked up and nodded.
He lifted her hand to his lips. "You are a brave and gallant lady.

He lifted his eyes. They were the color of the deepest heart of hurricane clouds, deeper blue than the sky behind him.

Its been six weeks," he murmured. "Six weeks I've wanted you. I know how you move, and how the sunlight makes a shadow on the curve of your cheek, and the shape of your ear." He chucked harshly then turned his head on the pillow to look at her. "I'm dying," he said. He dropped his fist against his chest. "Right here, you're killing me.

He wasn't at all what she had imagined.
Tall, yes- but not plain, not dependable, not kind. Not by any stretch of fancy.
The gray eyes that regarded her were as deep and subtle and light-tricked as smoke from a wildfire. The face belonged to an archangel from the shadows: a cool, sulky mouth and an aquiline profile, and Satan's own intelligence in the assessing look he gave her. The candles behind him lit a smoldering halo of reddish gold around his black hair and turned each faint, frosted breath to a brief glow.
He was not homely. He was utterly and appallingly beautiful, in the way the gleaming steel blossoms of murder and mayhem adorning the walls of the great hall were beautiful.