“Will watched her go with regret. His attraction to the dark-haired lady with her execrable embroidery had taken him by surprise. She'd been laughing at his brothers - that was what had done it. Her eyes had sparkled with humor, her smiling lips just begging for a kiss.”

“That had been an odd meeting, but reassuring. She need no longer fear the earl-at lest not for his hostility to her father. What danger he might be to her heart was another matter entirely.”

“But there was something so admirable about her innocence that he would not insult her by tarnishing it.”

“Ella knew she should be horrified. Zane had killed someone for just touching her. But, and she might burn in hell for thinking this, she thought it was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for her. In a perverted way, she also found it romantic. She finally had someone who wanted to protect her. My very own vampire in dark armor.”

“She didn't love him and he didn't love her; she was like an addiction, and what they were doing had a darkness to it, a weight.”

“I will only be offended if you refuse to kiss me again, as then I'll be convinced I'm a failure at it.”

“He had handed his daughter to Caroline Gill and that act had led him here, years later, to this girl in motion of her own, this girl who had decided yes, a brief moment of release in the back of a car, in the room of a silent house, this girl who had stood up later, adjusting her clothes, with now knowledge of how that moment was already shaping her life.”