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

“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.”

“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.”

“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 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.”

“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.”

“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.”