“I would like, just once, for a woman to see me as other than a person with a coronet. Simply as a man, no different than other men.”

“There's nothing I like more than meeting velvet clad peers while wrapped in a towel.”

“I did it,” Gabriel said, conversationally. “I met the woman, the only woman for me. I met her, and now . . . I’m going to meet my wife.”

“My duchess,” James stated, his eyes sweeping the crowd with the air of a man who has ruled the waves. “She is not a swan, because that would imply she had once been an ugly duckling.”

“They were partners. She would always make impulsive decisions and he would make slow, reasoned ones. He would always be a little terrified that she would look at him with the scorn he saw in his mother's eyes. And she would always be a little terrified that he would look at her and not love her enough.In short, they were made for each other.”

“I do believe that his given name is something odd. Peregrine, Penrose- Piers, that's it.""He sounds like a dock." Lord Sundron put in."Mrs. Hutchins called me a light frigate this morning," Linnet said "a dock might be just the thing for me.”

“I shouldn't think I'll have the slightest problem playing a man," she said. "I shall merely remember to rearrange my breeches in front at least once an hour, thereby drawing attention to the padding I carefully placed there in the morning, and I'll blend in perfectly.”