“I cannot tell my heart what to feel.”

“Humanity, I’m sure I do not have to tell Your Grace, is a strange animal.”

“What am I?"She grinned. "A pain in my posterior."He smiled, too, crinkles forming around his eyes. "I like your posterior.""Yours isn't too shabby, either.""Answer the question.""I thought I had.”

“Who do you think keeps this country safe so you can sleep at night?”“I don’t sleep most nights. And to be honest, Your Grace, I don’t feel all that safe.”

“What I have is hardly a talent,” she replied. A curse, perhaps. More than likely a demon. What she needed was a good exorcism.”

“You didn’t discover a secret passage into someone’s palace and not tell them everything you knew about it.”

“I'm not going to be a distraction for you, or allow you to be one for me.""A distraction?" He folded his arms across his chest. "Is that what you think you are? What I am? Bloody hell, woman. I need something to distract me from you!”