Biffy said, off the cuff, "Or we could find a replacement queen." "Volunteering for the position?" "Why, Professor, is that wittiness I detect?" "Only for you." "Charmer." Biffy tapped him on the arm playfully.

Ah, Lady Maccon, how lovely. I did wonder when you would track us down.” “I was unavoidably delayed by husbands and Ivys,” explained Alexia. “These things, regrettably, are bound to occur when one is married and befriended.

He was so very large and so very gruff that he rather terrified her, but he always behaved correctly in public, and there was a lot to be said for a man who sported such well-tailored jackets---even if he did change into a ferocious beast once a month.

I miss him, my lady.” “Well, he is now living adjacent. You can hardly miss him all that much.” “True. But we are no longer compatible—I am a werewolf; he is a vampire.” “So?” “So we cannot dance the same dance we used to.” Biffy was so sweet when he tried to be circumspect. Alexia shook her head at him. “Biffy, and I mean this in the kindest way possible: then you should change the music.” “Very good, my lady.

She would have colored gracefully with embarrassment had she not possessed the complexion of one of those “heathen Italians,” as her mother said, who never colored, gracefully or otherwise. (Convincing her mother that Christianity had, to all intents and purposes, originated with the Italians, thus making them the exact opposite of heathen, was a waste of time and breath.)

Really, Channing,” remonstrated Alexia, “did you have to eat the man’s dog? I am convinced you will experience terrible indigestion.

Mrs. Loontwill did what any well-prepared mother would do upon finding her unmarried daughter in the arms of a gentleman werewolf: she had very decorous, and extremely loud, hysterics.