“Is your badness so varied that it is still delightful? I expect anything gets boring after a while.' He looked at her with interest. 'How perceptive you are. It takes a good deal of effort to keep badness from being boring. One must seek out new experiences and challenges. Our mutual friends may think I have an easy life, but being notorious is grueling work after a few years.”

“You will have to forgive me, Major Woodruffe. I am new to marriage, and perhaps more given to jealousy than some of the more experienced husbands that you know. It is possible that you seek only friendship with my wife. If, however, you entertain any other--"-Sebastian to Woodruffe"I assure you that such a thing is the furthest thing from my mind."-Woodruffe to Sebastian"Come now, Major. We are both men. Such ideas are never far from our minds at all. But if you do anything that causes me to think that your mind dwells long on that particular idea, I will thrash you, I will ruin you, and I will probably kill you.-Sebastian to Woodruffe”

“My incomparable beloved, Seven months you have been gone, and I fear you will never return. I await your brief, infrequent letters like a boy, desperate for any small indication that you remember I exist, hoping for evidence that you tire of that foreign land where you now live. I read your missives a hundred times for the slightest intimation that you will be coming home. The part of my mind that does nothing but wait grows daily, and soon nothing will be left to attend to life's duties. One word, my love, just one; that is all I seek. One word to let me know that you will not stay away forever, and that I will at least have your presence and friendship in my life, even if I can never have your passion and your love."--Julian Hampton to Penelope, Countess of Glasbury”

“Daphne, whatever you could think of in your wildest imagination, there is a game for it and probably has been for a thousand years.' He pulled off his shirt and advanced on her. 'For example, there is the lovely lady taken up against the wall game. I'll show you how it is played.”

“There will be another betrothal, another Mathilda. You speak of only a respite, and my heart can take just so many such partings before it breaks forever. You are proof enough that each of us lives several lives before we perish. There is wisdom in accepting when one ends and another begins. i love you, Addis. I always will. But there is no place for me in the life you have now.”

“If that is wisdom, then I will never be wise. I do not want a life that has no place for you in it. You will come back with me and take the place that is yours in my heart. No obligations to the past stand in the way. We will marry. ---Addis de Valence”

“All the same, we should excuse ourselves," Vergil said. "Although I am wondering if the meeting was already well concluded when we intruded." He gave Nathaniel a deep look on the last sentence that made Charlotte's caution prickle. She saw the big brother in him, thinking that a private chat with this man was in order.Bianca still had not picked up the cue. "You are making plans regarding the petitions?""I trust that a petition came up at some point in the visit," Vergil said dryly. "Correct, Knightridge?"Charlotte wanted to die. "Indeed one did," she said. "Mr. Knightridge is proving to be a great help in the cause."Bianca beamed. "I always knew that the two of you would find common ground in something.""Yes, we have discovered that we think alike in one small area," Nathaniel agreed.Charlotte wanted to hit him."Indeed," Vergil muttered.”