Your master plan has holes big enough to drive a truck through.

Rene, you want us to find you-don't-know-who and to retrieve his you-don't-know-what for you-won't-tell-me-whom?

A ghastly attempt at a smile, sure to send any normal person to a therapist.

I've never created a riot before. I did cause a brawl at the last formal. A large number of young women there actually arrived with the expectation of seducing me into matrimony, and a couple of their mothers came to blows. It was hilari—I mean, dreadful. Simply dreadful.

Somewhere in that database my name sat in its own little niche, the name of a reject, undisciplined and worthless. Just the way I liked it.

Why had I wasted all my time pretending to be someone I wasn't? I was tired, so very, very tired of standing on my own brakes. I felt...right. I felt free.

A forest," William said, his expression distant. "Where the ground is dry soil and stone. Where tall trees grow and centuries of autumn carpet their roots. Where the wind smells of game and wildflowers." "Why, that was lovely, Lord Bill. Do you ever write poetry? Something for your blueblood lady?" "No." "She doesn't like poetry?" "Leave it." Hehe. "Oh, so you have a lady. How interes--