James started to laugh. His chin hurt where she’d smacked him twice, his foot throbbed where she’d stepped on it, and his entire body felt as if he’d swum through a rosebush, which wasn’t as far off the truth as it sounded. Yet still he started to laugh.
Elizabeth, you resemble nothing so much as a hen trying to hatch a book.
And for the rest of the night, he couldn’t quite forget the smell of her perfume. Or maybe it was the soft sound of her chuckle. Or maybe it was neither of those things. Maybe it was just her.
There were rules among friends, commandments, really, and the most important one was Thou Shalt Not Lust After Thy Friend’s Sister.
Don’t tell me your name. It’s likely to awaken my conscience, and that’s the last thing we want.
If he was planning to attack and ravish, he gave no indication of being in a hurry to do so.
She could not bear the thought. She simply could not bear the thought that she might somehow prove to her grandfather that her mother had indeed been a fool and her father had been a damned fool and that she was the damnedest fool of them all.
She tried to remind herself that beauty was only skin deep, but that didn’t offer any helpful excuses when she was berating herself for never knowing what to say to people. There was nothing more depressing than an ugly girl with no personality.
Weakness never got anyone anywhere.
In her heart she longed for this man, dreamed of a life that could never be.
There was a huge difference between dislike and disregard.
When the dead body said, “Good evening,” Annabel had to face the grim conclusion that it wasn’t as dead as she’d hoped.
And I hope you will not think me foolish when I also extend my thanks. Thank you, Michael, for letting my son love her first. – from Janet Stirling, dowager Countess of Kilmartin, to Michael Stirling, Earl of Kilmartin.
She needed him to be him. Even if he could not be hers.
His brows rose. “And how is it that you have come to be such an expert on scrapes and bruises?” “I’m a governess,” she said. Because really, that ought to be explanation enough.
It was the one dream he’d never permitted himself to consider.
I was told once that the most important part of a fight is making sure your opponent looks worse than you do when you’re through.
If one didn’t have love, was it better, then, to be alone?
Just be quiet and accept the praise.
Happy endings are all I can do. I wouldn’t know how to write anything else.