Eloisa James

“Life without a phone is riskier, lonelier, more vivid.”

“You’re the only one for me. I came back from the dead for you, Daisy. Twice.”

“No one had ever taught him - and he had never imagined the necessity of learning - how to betray the one person whom you truly cared for in life. The only person who genuinely loved you. How to break that person's heart, whether it be tomorrow, or five years or ten years in the future.”

“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.”

“So our chess game begins tonight, Duchess. At eleven o’clock. I will give you one hour to try to win, blindfolded or no.” His teeth showed very white when he smiled. “And then I shall win.” Jemma sniffed and turned up her nose. “Pride goeth before a fall, Duke.” “You will fall before me,” he said, his smile a blatant challenge. “Backwards.”

“One child out of wedlock is an error. Two suggests carelessness. Three—and six—is simply wrong. Wrong.”

“At least you pay for them.”“I could support a foundling hospital, and you would applaud my virtue.”“I didn’t expect you to populate your own orphanage,” she said.”

“When you fall in love, your heart will pound so much you won't be able to throw a mouse let alone a cow pat.I don't think I could throw a mouse now. I dislike the idea of scrabbling little feet in my palm, unless they are yours, of course.”

“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.”

“He wanted to grow old with her, or not grow old at all.”

“He thinks that there's no reason to eat breakfast unless Eleanor is there to give him that silly wide grin of hers. He wants to have an argument with her just so he can kiss her into a good mood again. He wants to sleep with her every night, see her holding a baby with brandy-colored hair like hers... He wants her forever... He can't bear the idea that she might ever love another man.”

“Yes, it's quite amazing how I continue to shock my mother even after all these years together”

“The books weren't exactly Linnet's general reading fare, but a desperate woman will read anything.”

“I have come to the conclusion that silence and time are the most precious commodities.”

“It's so beautiful here. You must come before you die.”

“I never did learn how to live in the moment, but I did learn that moments could be wasted and the world would continue to spin on its axis.”

“Life does not always gives us the choices that we want”

“I would prefer not to throw myself on a funeral pyre. Please come back to me.”

“Give me one last time,” he begged. “Please, please. I beg you.” “I—” She stopped and started again. “I’m afraid, Gabriel. You’ll break my heart.” “Mine is already broken.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I woke up this morning,” Gabriel said, “thinking of nothing more than rolling over and pulling you into my arms and kissing you again. Kissing: only kissing. As if I were a green boy of fourteen. In case you don’t realize it, Kate, kissing is not a man’s usual inclination in the morning.”

“He rarely saw a doorway without advancing through it as if he owned it. Since he owned a good many doorways, he would have pointed out that this was a reasonable assumption.”

“Discretion is a synonym for intelligence.”

“Life should not be measured by time. The only thing that counts is how one uses the time one has.”

“He's male. I've noticed that sometimes the brains simply get left out of the package.”

“There was something aggressively masculine about Toloose . . . perhaps it was the look in his eye. Or the way he was holding his billiard cue. It was amazing the way a man in an embroidered coat could take on the air of a dockworker.”

“If you don't mind a word of advice, one never asks a lady to set her own price. If you have to ask, the answer will always be more than you can afford.”

“She was his heart, his other half. She filled all the empty places in his soul that he had desperately tried to paper over with pirate escapades and merry women. -The Ugly Duchess”

“In fact, you should take a nap this afternoon, because there won't be much sleep tonight. Imean to have you every way I can. I mean to intoxicate you and torment you so that you know preciselyhow I feel about you." His finger trailed down her cheek and tipped up her chin."Don't mistake what is going to happen tonight." His voice was sinful, dark and hoarse. "You will neverforget the imprint of my skin after tonight, Esme. Waste your life chitchatting with ladies in lace caps.Raise your child with the help of your precious Sewing Circle. But in the middle of all those lonely nights,you will never, ever, forget the night that lies ahead of us.”

“That sleepy, sensual smile of hers ought to be outlawed. It saideverything, without saying anything.”

“The only thing I regret about age are the wrinkles. But I have high hopesfor this new almond cream! Do you know, that Italian apothecary promises the cream will make one'sskin as soft as a baby's cheek? Once your child arrives, we'll have a viable comparison. Not having seena baby in years, how would I know what its skin looks like?""I'm glad my condition will prove to be of use," Esme said rather tartly.”

“It was a stupid thing to hold onto, but when one doesn't have much to celebrate in the way of physical attributes, ankles matter.”

“Gabriel looked up at her from under thick eyelashes. “Will you please grope me under the table, Kate mine?”“I’m not your Kate,” she said, feeling her lips curve. Her treacherous heart was no match for a flirtatious prince on a summer’s day.“That’s the odd thing,” he said, lying on his back again and shading his eyes with an arm. “You are, you are, you are.”

“It was also bitterly true that a person who doesn’t want you is twice as desirable.”

“Virginity, like many things connected to men, was obviously vastly over-rated. And frankly, so was sexual intimacy. No wonder Villiers didn’t care if she’d had previous experiences. It was all a matter of a minute at most.”

“The last person Jemma expected to welcome into her bedchamber that night was her husband. Though of course she would have to invite him in at some point if they were to embark on their heir-making activities.”

“She gave a sigh and turned to meet Rafe's sardonic glance."He's not for you," Rafe said, leaning close to her."I can't think what you mean," Imogen said loftily, accepting a glass of lemonade from Brinkley."You know precisely what I mean, you little witch," Rafe said, and there wasn't even a gleam of amusement in his eyes. "You mean to have him, don't you? I've seen that look in your eyes before. That look has had you in trouble before.”

“They were talking about things that didn’t matter a fig, not with the huge yawning grief burning a hole in his chest because of what had happened to her. To Josie. His Josie, now.”

“At some point Ewan had taken off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. His forearms were bulging with muscle, and his shoulders appeared likely to rip through the thin linen of his shirt. Annabelle swallowed, thinking of Ewan without his shirt at their picnic. He wasn't even breathing hard."Where do you get all these muscles?" she asked."Lifting damsels in distress." He grinned at her, and there was a slight lurch as he leaped off the carriage and landed with a splash in the ditch.”

“Neythen looked perplexed. 'My mum always said I'm named after a saint, not an illness.''Which one?''Well he had his head chopped off, see? And then he picked it up and carried it down the road a time. All the way back home, I think.''Messy,' Piers said. 'Not to mention unlikely, though one has to think of chickens and their post-mortal abilities. Did she think that you would inherit the same gift?'Neythen blinked. 'No, my lord.''Perhaps she was just hopeful. It behooves mothers to look ahead to this sort of possibility, after all. I'm tempted to behead you just to see if she was right.Sometimes the most unlikely superstitions turn out to have a basis in fact.”

“Piers looked up at him. 'You're new. What's your name?' 'Neythen, my lord.''Sounds like a terrible illness. No, more like a bowel problem. I'm sorry, Lord Sandys, your son has contracted neythen and won't live a month. No, no, there's nothing I can do. Sandys would have preferred hearing that to syphilis.”

“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 don't want to have to earn love by giving up my ability to make decisions that determine how I live.”

“I have six illegitimate children," Villiers informed her, not kindly. She visibly paled. :My daughter is marrying a duke," the duchess said between clenched teeth. "True, he apparently has the morals of a squirrel, but that's my cross to bear.”

“In case there is any question in your mind," he said, cupping her face with his hands. "What I want, what I most desire, the loveliest sight on this dark earth, is you.”

“Here, drink your liqueur," Henry said, tossing back her drink. "I carry it with me everywhere because it's the only kind of drink that Leo doesn't like, so there's a chance I'll still have some tomorrow.”

“You are absolutely beautiful," Anne said. "But if you see yourself, you'll want to pin your hair back like a shepherdess in a bad play."(Eleanor) "Are you saying that I normally look as if I'm tending sheep? With straw in my hair? As if I might yodel?”

“One more time, she promised herself. That wasn't too trollopy. She wouldn't be too trollopy.But when they actually got to the guardhouse?Trollopy.”

“If you throw me out of this house, I shall sleep on the path outside. If you return to the Continent without me, I shall follow you. I will build a willow hut at your gate; I will sleep under your window; I will be waiting for you at your own front door.”