He was still thoughtful. 'Do you think any of us ever really knows anyone?' 'Philosophy, Lord Dryden? And yet it's daylight and everyone is still sober.

He would ask nothing else from life if he would be allowed to protect and cherish her for the rest of his.

What happens next?" she whispered.Connor turned to her and smiled faintly. Always a question, that was Rebecca.There's more?" he said in mock wondermentRebecca dimpled.You know very well there is more."Tell me all about it," he encouraged.In Papa's book—"Tell me all about it without mentioning your papa.

I love you so much i can hardly tell my own heart from yours anymore, and I've never said it to another woman in my life as it's never until now been true.

I don't know,' he said irritably. 'Is it meant to improve you?'She swiveled toward him, eyes wide with shock.'Because nothing could,' he added. Her mouth dropped in astonishment. Blotchy scarlet rushed her complexion. One would have thought he'd shot her.Oh dear God!He realized belatedly how wrong it had sounded.'No! God... that is to say.. nothing is necessary to improve you. Nothing could possibly make you better... than you already are.

He leaned in for a sniff. 'Smells like a horse's arse! I've got Ian!' -'No sniffing allowed! We never discussed sniffing! I cry foul!' Ian was outraged. 'I'm not giving you a shilling!' -'Give him a shilling! It's not his fault you smell like a horse's arse!

Something was stirring in him, though; a bud of comprehension that could very well bloom into forgiveness if left unchecked.

Of course you're sorry. The first words out of the mouths of men who are caught doing something they're only too happy to continue until they're caught.

It isn't a weakness to accept kindness. It isn't a weakness to allow yourself to be cared for.

Magnanimous of you.'His mouth twitched. 'Mmm. Use more words like that, please. Schoolmistress words. Long, impressive ones.' He'd made the last three words sound like an innuendo.

He was close enough now to see that her profile was designed to do dramatic things to hearts: stop them, steal them, break them.

But she bravely kept her eyes open; she was both lost and found in the soft, burning depths of his eyes.

But now he understood why someone would write things like 'she walked in beauty like the night' and so forth. Because poetry was a barrier against raw emotions. It distilled them into bearable music, allowed one to accommodate them a little at a time.

The question remains... who takes care of you, Miss Vale?" "I might ask the same question of you, Lord Dryden.

Rebecca stared back at him, still dazed. She'd forgotten how to speak; it seemed an unimportant skill, anyhow, when such kisses were to be had, when a whole world could be made from a kiss.

Their faces were inches apart now, and he traced her lips with one finger, lightly, lightly, then placed his lips there as if he’d drawn them into being.

Jules could have sworn there was a devilish glint in the shopkeepers eye. 'I find today I am in need of a bonnet.'Mr. Postlethwaite was silent. And then his eyes crept toward the marquess's hairline.'It will be a gift for a woman, Mr. Postlethwaite.''Of course, sir.' The marquess wished the 'of course' sounded a bit more sincere. He'd scarcely been in the shop for more than three minutes and already his dignity was fraying.

I love you," she murmured. The words ... it was as though an entire sun had exploded in his chest.He'd been ridiculous. His thrashing thoughts, his grand confusion and torment and helplessness -- it was only love, had always been love, he supposed. It was no precipice he stood at, or rather precipices have little meaning when one finally acknowledges that one has wings. Connor stepped off."I love you, too."Such grave, inadequate words for what it was he felt.

Only two things kept her from loathing him.The expression on his face when he'd said, "France." And the expression on his face when he'd said, "home.

He wished for access to all the world's languages at once, for then he would have a better word for how he felt and what she was.

May I see your dance card?”“Don’t you believe me?” She presented it to him with a flourish.He ran his fingers down the list of names.“Hmm . . . Waterburn? Bastard. D’Andre. Definitely a worthless bastard. Lord Camber, a thoroughgoing bastard. Lord Michaelson? Bastard. Peter Cheswick? Bast—”She snatched it from him, laughing.“I wouldn’t dance a waltz with you, anyway, Lord Dryden.”“No?”“You might accidentally lock eyes with Lisbeth Redmond, stumble, and fling me across the room to avoid crushing my feet.

Her laugh was wonderful. It was mischief made musical.

For if light had a sound, it was that laugh.

The one thing she’d been able to count on her entire life was her cleverness. She was so often right. It was humbling and disorienting to realize that she in truth knew nothing at all. One only ever saw a fraction of someone, whatever it was they chose to show you, and extrapolated a whole person from that. And saw them through a prism of one’s own prejudices.

I will die, however,” he said quite seriously, “if you leave me again. Just watch me.

And this is the potency a first kiss should have: it should be earned. The moments leading up to it should be as tense as a crossbow drawn back. The reader should want it as badly as the hero and heroine, and feel as satisfied and transported and transformed as the hero and heroine in the wake of it. There are different ways to use kisses in a romance, but that first kiss is so meaningful, a pinnacle, and can be more intimate than sex.

I suppose we all tend to want the impossible. And sometimes in attempting it we achieve something near enough to the impossible to elicit satisfaction.

She charmed and sparkled and said witty things, but she knew very well she was being charming and sparkling and witty while she was doing it, which somehow felt wrong.