“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.”

“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.”

“Where did you go to school?” Piers inquired. “Your all together too literate for a butler. Most bulters I know say things like as you wish, my lord, and leave it at that. Our conversations should be along these lines: Prufrock, bring me a wench and then you would say, as you wish.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“How many times would I damn myself for you? Ask me that.""How many?" she said faintly, her eyes searching his face. She stopped breathing to hear his answer."Till the gates of hell close," he said flatly.”