Alexia gave in to his demanding touch, but only, of course, because he sounded so pathetic. It had nothing, whatsoever to do with her own quickening heartbeat.

Really, Sophronia, it makes me most uncomfortable how you manage to sort everything out every time I faint.

I suspect it may be like the difference between a drinker and an alcoholic; the one merely reads books, the other needs books to make it through the day.

Later on Lady Maccon was to describe that particular day as the worst of her life. She had neither the soul nor the romanticism to consider childbirth magical or emotionally transporting. So far as she could gather it mostly involved pain indignity and mess. There was nothing engaging or appealing about the process. And as she told her husband firmly she intended never to go through it again.

Ivy waved her wet handkerchief, as much as to say 'words cannot possibly articulate my profound distress'. Then, because Ivy never settled for meaningful gestures when verbal embellishments could compound the effect, she said, "Words cannot possibly articulate my profound distress.

The ill-informed masses included her own family among their ranks, a family that specialized in being both inconvenient and asinine.

Lord Maccon was built like a brick outhouse, with opinions twice as unmoving and often equally full of crap.