“Love needs no reason. It just is. – Lady Eleanor Raven (heroine)”

“Love is not nonsense. It is everything. For without love what is a man? Just an empty shell. – Sir Lindsay Crawford (fellow knight/friend of hero, Troye de Valois)”

“Everything you do seduces me. All you need to do is breathe and I would do anything for you.”

“You’re very handsome tonight, my lord.”“What’s this? A compliment from the lovely widow?”“A mere observation.”“Why do I suspect that you had too much to drink at dinner?”

“It’s not just your beauty—you’ve always had that. It’s the way you believe in yourself, the way you make everyone around you believe there is no better place on earth than wherever you are. In the park, in a carriage, at the suppertable, next to you.”

“In the first place, good people are rarely suspicious; they cannot imagine others doing the things they themselves are incapable of doing; usually they accept the undramatic conclusion as the correct one, and let matters rest there. Then, too, the normal are inclined to view the multiple killer as the as the one who’s as monstrous in appearance as he is in mind, which is about as far from the truth as one could well get. He paused and then said that these monsters of real life usually looked and behaved in a more normal manner than their actually normal brothers and sisters: they presented a more convincing picture of virtue than virtue presented of itself—just as the wax rosebud or the plastic peach seemed more perfect to the eye, more what the mind thought a rosebud or a peach should be than the imperfect original from which it had been modeled.”

“Slowly, Joaquin leaned in, drawn closer to her against his will. Pursing his lips, he breathed warm air across her cheeks, like animals do when they learn each other’s scent, learn to trust. “Easy now,” he whispered in between the soft puffs of air. “Let go of the fear.”“I can’t,” she said, in a little broken voice that clenched at his heart.“Yes you can.” Joaquin let his lips touch her skin, the merest hint of a contact. She made a tiny sound of alarm, a cross between a sob and a cry. He brushed his mouth against hers. A shudder shook her body, but she pressed into him, seeking his shelter. Keeping his hands braced to the timber, he deepened the kiss. His mouth slanted over hers, bolder now.Her hands rose between them and fisted into his shirt.”