“You cheated!”He looked at her, wide-eyed with feigned outrage. “I beg your pardon. If you were a man, I would call you out for that accusation.”“And I assure you, my lord, that I would ride forth victoriously on behalf of truth, humility, and righteousness.”“Are you quoting the Bible to me?”“Indeed,” she said primly, the portrait of piousness.“While gambling.”“What better location to attempt to reform one such as you?”

“She looked up at him and said,"What did you say?""You have beautiful eyes.""You told my father that he has beautiful eyes?"He smiled. "No. You distracted me. I told your father that, while I was very grateful for the lesson, I doubt I would ever need of it again- because I was planning to court only one woman in my lifetime.”

“I forbid you from frequenting taverns, public houses, or other establishments of vice.”She snorted in amusement. “Establishments of vice? That’s a rather puritanical view of things, isn’t it? I assure you, I was quite safe.”“You were with Ralston!” he said, as though she were simpleminded.“He was perfectly respectable,” she said, the words coming out before she remembered that the carriage ride home was anything but respectable.“Imagine—my sister and the Marquess of Ralston together. And he turns out to be the respectable one,” Benedick said wryly, sending heat flaring on Callie’s cheeks, but not for the reason he thought. “No more taverns.”

“If I were anyone else…your opera singer…the woman across the hall…would you have apologized?”He looked confused. “No…but you are neither of those women. You deserve better.”“Better,” she repeated, frustrated. “That’s just my point! You and the rest of society believe that it’s better for me to be set upon a pedestal of primness and propriety—which might have been fine if a decade on that pedestal hadn’t simply landed me on the shelf. Perhaps unmarried young women like our sisters should be there. But what of me?” Her voice dropped as she looked down at the cards in her hands. “I’m never going to get a chance to experience life from up there. All that is up there is dust and unwanted apologies. The same cage as hers”—she indicated the woman outside—“merely a different gilt.”

“Juliana?” the words were low and far—too calm for her husband, who had found that he rather enjoyed the full spectrum of emotion now that he had experienced it.“Yes?”“What are you doing twenty feet in the air?”“Looking for a book.”“Would you mind very much returning to the earth?”“What are you thinking, climbing to the rafters in your condition?”“I am not an invalid, Simon, I still have use of all my extremes.”“You do indeed—particularly your extreme ability to try my patience—I believe, however, that you mean extremities.”

“Nick continued, unable to keep the smug smile form his lips. "Shall I tell you what I would do if I discovered I'd been a royal ass and had lost the only woman I'd ever really wanted?"Ralston's eyes narrowed on his brother. "I don't imagine I could stop you." Indeed not," Nick said, "I can tell you I wouldn't be standing in this godforsaken field in this godforsaken cold waiting for that idiot Oxford to shoot at me. I would walk away from this ridiculous, antiquated exercise, and I would find that womand tell her that I was a royal ass. And then I would do whatever it takes to convince her that she should take a chance on me despite my being a royal ass. And once that's done, I would get her, immediatley, to the nearest vicar and get the girl married. And with child.”

“Silly girl ... because chasing you makes for more of a challenge -- and more of a reward."Alex offered an amused snort. "I assure you, my lord. Considering my feelings about being 'caught,' I would provide little, if any, reward.”