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.

The books weren't exactly Linnet's general reading fare, but a desperate woman will read anything.

Life should not be measured by time. The only thing that counts is how one uses the time one has.

I have come to the conclusion that silence and time are the most precious commodities.

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.

She still remembered sitting for hours as a little girl and pretending to be a hassock. A foot stool. Because if she could just stay very small, and very quiet, her mother would forget she was there, and then she wouldn't scream about people and places and things that had gone wrong.

Yes, it's quite amazing how I continue to shock my mother even after all these years together