Why did you want to go and distract me like that? I was quite in my element and everything.' Conall laughed. 'Someone has to keep you off balance; otherwise you'll end up ruling the empire. Or at least ordering it into wretched submission.

Alexia had found pregnancy relatively manageable, up to a point. That point having been some three weeks ago, at which juncture her natural reserves of control gave way to sentimentality. Only yesterday she had ended breakfast sobbing over the fried eggs because they looked at her funny. The pack had spent a good half hour trying to find a way to pacify her. Her husband was so worried he looked to start crying himself.

I am entirely capable." "Of what, waddling up to someone and ruthlessly bumping into them?

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.

I do not giggle without purpose. Lady Linette says you should never misapply a giggle.

With a resigned shrug, she screamed and collapsed into a faint. She stayed resolutely fainted, despite the liberal application of smelling salts, which made her eyes water most tremendously, a cramp in the back of one knee, and the fact that her new ball gown was getting most awfully wrinkled.

Lyall understood a broken heart, but it could not be allowed to rumple perfectly good shirtwaists.