Very well, Lord Maccon. If we are going to play this particular hand, would you be interested in becoming my...” “Mistress?

If there is gossip to be garnered, garner it. If there are new dress styles to be imitated, imitate them. If there are hearts to be broken, break them. That's my girls.

Really, Alexia, what could have possessed you to attach yourself to the side of the ship in such a juvenile fashion? It is positively barnacle-like.

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.

And I find perfect beauty excessively boring, don't you?

[She] lost her patience, a thing she was all too prone to misplacing.

There are words to describe her, my dear, but one does not repeat them in polite company.