Note: Dorian's journal is written in his untidy script. Not all excerpts are dated. He can sometimes be seen writing in it, but it's anyone's guess where he hides it. It's never left idly about. He has a lock of Dinah's hair in there!
Divine
Indelible
Numinous
And
Heavenly
***
She is most beautiful, pure and divine, a perfect being. Cleverer than I, wiser, and the only vision I hold fast for the future. I do not wish to dishonor my sire, but he sees not the truth that she is the dearest treasure of all he possesses. I like not the scales of commodity and potential gain reflected in his countenance when he lays his eyes upon her. Like Penelope she kept them at bay while I was abroad, earning my stripes for king and country. And gaining what small measure of regard father has for me who shall never rise to Drystan's stature, despite my long odyssey. It is enough that she waited for me though it seems many of my letters never found their way to her.
She always has been, ever shall be the better part of me. It is my time now to see her suitors to some other path away from hers and mine own. I will not walk this world without her. I shall not be torn from her again. I would sooner go back to my Janissary jailers.
****
My lady is possessed of a spirit unbound
with wit that burns ceaseless as a star.
Her voice: the sweetest song of all sound,
a mindful music magnificent, unmarred.
***
Diamond eyes keen and
Iridescent of sheen.
Nose: a dainty delight
Akin to lace spun from ivory rose petals.
Her hair is as honey in morning's new light.
***
May 3, 1737
I will not let anyone else have her. Never. No boon, no price, nothing is more valuable than she is. The last one was scared off to the continent, under threat of mortal peril. Few are the men who would argue when they feel the cold bitter bite of steel threatening to unman them, I reckon. He never even knew it was me. I know this because when I set him loose in the wood, which I know minutely as the back of mine own hand, I circled around and put my unmasked self in his path and he begged me for aid. Without question the vicar's bastard allowed me to accompany him to safety, to the docks. It required no lies from me to assure him safe passage, to wish him well on other shores. We need not the money nor ties to the church. Not as much as I need her.
This one will not go so easily. His pride and overweening certainty of his own sheer entitlement to Dinah's hand, his proximity to the crown and Bourbon blood make him blind. And full of more bluster than father with a belly full of spirits. They got on rather well, the pair of them. It would have been a sickening twist of the blade to my vitals if I had what little agency father affords to imagine I possess. This evening, after dining the Duke, le Duc rather, will go to gamble. I have haunted his path for five weeks now. I know just where to lie in wait. Riding flat out rather than in a carriage, I shall be able to get myself into bed again before anyone rises to break their fast, even among the servants. By then Bailey's pigs will have had their fill of Frenchman. I should spare the creatures having to pass his jewels, but leave them in the alms box. In death he shall do more for anyone other than himself than I wager he ever has.
What makes this endeavor sweetest of all is that she granted me this quest. “When do you intend to go hunting again, brother dearest? Father has been rather insistent about this one.” I never told her that it was me who disposed of the others, freeing her for her own pursuits and mine, but I did not need to. She knew. Of course she did. She always has. I would never give her up. She is mine as I am hers.
***
Do you know a lady lovelier than the one that
I have seen?
Never another sultry nor supple of leg
And lively of look has there been.
Happiest man: me, dearer and nearer than hart or lea.