Gareth turned to Gregory. “Your sister will be safe with me,” he said. “I give you my vow.” “Oh, I have no worries on that score,” Gregory said with a bland smile. “The real question is—will you be safe with her?” It was a good thing, Gareth later reflected, that Hyacinth had already quit the room to fetch her coat and her maid. She probably would have killed her brother on the spot.

I am asking you to marry me because I love you,” he said, “because I cannot imagine living my life without you. I want to see your face in the morning, and then at night, and a hundred times in between. I want to grow old with you, I want to laugh with you, and I want to sigh to my friends about how managing you are, all the while secretly knowing I am the luckiest man in town.” “What?” she demanded. He shrugged. “A man’s got to keep up appearances. I’ll be universally detested if everyone realizes how perfect you are.

And, she was able to tell herself with some satisfaction, the man in question - one Colin Bridgerton - felt precisely the same way.... ....His earth shook, his heart leaped, and Penelope knew without a doubt that his breath was taken away as well. For a good ten seconds. Falling off a horse tended to do that to a man.

If you want to know if a gentleman loves you,” her mother said, “there is only one true way to be sure.” “It’s in his kiss,” her mother whispered. “It’s all there, in his kiss.

In her heart she longed for this man, dreamed of a life that could never be.

Did you know I have always suspected that men were idiots," Daphne ground out, "but I was never positive until today.

There were rules among friends, commandments, really, and the most important one was Thou Shalt Not Lust After Thy Friend's Sister.