Lord Macon deposited his wife into a chair and then knelt next to her, clutching one of her hands. "Tell me truthfully - how are you feeling?" Alexia took a breath. "Truthfully? I sometimes wonder if I, like Madame Lefoux, should affect masculine dress." "Gracious me, why?" "You mean aside from the issue of greater mobility?" "My love, I don't think that's currently the result of your clothing." "Indeed, I mean after the baby." "I still don't see why should want to." "Oh no? I dare you to spend a week in a corset, long skirts and a bustle." "How do you know I haven't?

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

Cats were not, in her experience, an animal with much soul. Prosaic, practical little creatures as a general rule. It would suit her very well to be thought catlike.

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.

Alexia figured, delightedly, that this meant he did, in fact, tend to traipse around his private apartments in the altogether. Marriage was becoming more and more of an attractive prospect.

These things, regrettably, are bound to occur when one is married and befriended.

Lord Maccon looked up. “Grovel, you say?” Lyall did not glance away from the latest vampire report he was perusing. “Grovel, my lord.