“And one battle looks much like another when you survey the corpses after.”

“She had conquered them, as she would conquer so many in the years to come, by goodness rather than strength. It is a sorrowfully rare strategem.”

“Scott stood by the bedside, looking down at her. Then he spread his hands, revealing the fine tremors there.‘Look what you do to me. You make me weak.’ Grace reached out a hand and touched his ridged stomach. ‘You’re the strongest man I know,’ she said softly, feeling the shift and clench of muscle under her fingers as she stroked them down to his belt. She tugged at it. ‘I want you.”

“In 1843, after annexing the Indian province of Sind, British General Sir Charles Napier sent home a one word telegram, "Peccavi" implying "I have Sind..." (Napier was under explicit instructions that:1. He was not to attack Hyderabad.2. If provoked to fighting, he was under no conditions take Hyderabad's capital -- Sind.He then (according to the story) send the one word message Peccavi to London and of course all the recipients understood that he had violated his order and taken the city - the old British boy school Latin training...”

“Finally, when she was shaking so much that he staggered with the violence of her pleasure, he drove her back against the wall and took her as she stood, careless of the clothes that bunched between them, oblivious to everything but the primitive, driving force that had conquered him far more devastatingly than he had conquered her.”

“She wasn’t aware of the rip he made in the back of her dress when his shaking hands wrenched the zip down, only of the molten sensuality of his gaze as he steered her into a shaft of light near the window and studied her breasts, nestled in their cups of pure white lace. ’Sweet…pretty…did you wear this for me?’ he asked thickly, roughly tracing the outline of the lace across the curving swells. ‘Did you want me to take off your dress tonight, Grace? To admire you like this?’ ’I…’ His arousal was so flatteringly intense that she couldn’t deny him the truth. ‘Yes…’ She closed her eyes, gasping as she felt the stroke of his thumbs across the seams, finding the rigid tips that were evidence of her own desire.”

“Mmm, being irresistibly likeable is such a trial,' she drawled in an impeccable aristocratic whine. 'One is constantly in demand, but one must do one's duty, mustn't one, dear chap? Noblesse oblige and all that...”