How the Marquess Was Won

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.

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.

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.

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.

Your imagination has an impressive reach.” “Or my boredom an impressive scope.

Her voice was a thread, but still she managed to sound acerbic. “I believe it’s the devil’s job to tempt me. Not yours.” “And the difference between the devil and I would be . . . ?” “None that I can detect.

We all have foibles, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And the beholder oftentimes gets it wrong.

Oh, my goodness, Lord Dryden. You should have seen your face when you said the word work. It’s not counted among the deadly sins, you know.

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.

Because that’s what happened to fury when tenderness was applied. It dissolved.

And before he knew what he was doing, he reached out and with a thumb brushed away one teardrop glistening in that mauve crescent beneath her eyes. And then he looked down at his thumb, and rubbed the tear out of existence, right into his skin.

And I served as an officer in the army.” “Very impressive. I’ve been told that war is boredom interspersed with violence and terror.

Beautiful. Jules once thought he’d understood what the word meant. He now believed it overused. Some word needed to be kept in reserve for the rare, the arresting, the surprising . . . the magical. Or a new one invented.

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.

I’ve . . .” he began. He could have completed that any number of ways: “. . . botched everything.” “. . . loved you since I laid eyes on you.” “. . . been a complete idiot for you.” “. . . never deserved you.” “. . . been so wrong about everything that matters in life.” “I love you.” He hadn’t planned to say it. She went still. She kissed her fingers, and laid them on his lips, stopping him from saying anything more. “Thank you,” she said. “Don’t follow me.

The wrong man could have brought it all crashing down,” she told him. “A different man might have collapsed under the weight of the responsibility.

imagine the ton would leap from London Bridge if the marquess did it first. Mind you, he’d land on a cart carrying a feather mattress when he did it, whilst the rest of London would splatter.

Jules was frozen with incredulity. In truth, he could not speak. He was touched by the display of honor in two country squires, and by the humbling - in truth hilarious - definitive evidence that some things were beyond his control. And life knew what was best for him better than he did, and had brought it to him, not with graceful precision, but with magnificent, ridiculous poetry.

I took a fall,” he confirmed evenly. After a hesitation doubtless only Phoebe noticed. And Phoebe didn’t know whether it was the sort of fall Lucifer took, or the sort poets wrote about when love struck, or even if it was an innuendo at all, because she suspected everything was destined to sound like an innuendo from now on.

When Phoebe glanced back at the marquess he swiftly lifted that rogue lock of hair, pointed at his forehead and mouthed: Good aim. She clapped a hand over her mouth. Dear God, he was sporting a bruise! So that’s where she’d clocked him with his hat! And this explained the forelock.

Use it all you want. Marry him. He’ll never really be yours, and you’ll never know it. Or maybe you will.

Go ahead, then. He likes his back rubbed. And his head scratched." "The creature inflicts grievous wounds upon my person and expects me to forgive it?" "I expect a lot of creatures inflict grievous wounds and expect forgiveness.

Oh, God. She’d now have to invent a bawdy verse on the spot. She’d never had to improvise so much in her entire life as she had in the last five minutes. Improvise being another word for lie, of course.

Foolishness had never been an option in his life. He hadn’t acquired the knack for it. He should have known. Kisses, he’d learned through hard experience, complicated things, unless they were a means to a foregone conclusion or part of an ongoing sensual entanglement. He’d never had a kiss quite like that one. One he hadn’t planned. One that had seemed so . . . necessary. One that had nevertheless solved nothing. One that had led to him flattening himself behind a shrubbery and later, sneezing a tiny winged insect out of his nose on the walk back to the house. It had lodged there while he lay flat on his back, staring up at the crisp blue Autumn sky, contemplating his folly, listening to Miss Vale prevaricate wildly. He was almost sorry he hadn’t heard her invent a bawdy new verse to the Colin Eversea song.

vapidity was an excellent disguise for many qualities.

And much like a catapult, my dear, the lower you begin in life, the higher you can eventually fly. All it requires is the right person to, shall we say, effect the launch.” -Miss Endicott.

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

And good luck to you, Miss Vale, wherever you may go.

No one understood what his legend had cost him.

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.