Piers looked up at him. 'You're new. What's your name?' 'Neythen, my lord.' 'Sounds like a terrible illness. No, more like a bowel problem. I'm sorry, Lord Sandys, your son has contracted neythen and won't live a month. No, no, there's nothing I can do. Sandys would have preferred hearing that to syphilis.

Oh, I have felt lust. And I've indulged lust. But no other woman has turned me into another person.

My duchess,” James stated, his eyes sweeping the crowd with the air of a man who has ruled the waves. “She is not a swan, because that would imply she had once been an ugly duckling.

Dogs come when they're called; cats take a message and get back to you later.

I have six illegitimate children," Villiers informed her, not kindly. She visibly paled. :My daughter is marrying a duke," the duchess said between clenched teeth. "True, he apparently has the morals of a squirrel, but that's my cross to bear.

It’s better to live like a flame, to know a man and love him even if he can’t be yours, then never to love at all.

I love you," he said, his voice catching. "When I thought you were going to die, I wanted to die.