If one didn't have love, was it better, then, to be alone?

And what renders him so unmarriageable?” Eloise asked. Francesca leveled a serious stare at her older sister. Eloise was mad if she thought she should set her cap for Michael. “Well?” Eloise prodded. “He could never remain faithful to one woman,” Fran-cesca said, “and I doubt you‟d be willing to put up with infidelities.” “No,” Eloise murmured, “not unless he‟d be willing to put up with severe bodily injury.

But Hyacinth Bridgerton, who at ten should have known the least about kisses of anyone, just blinked thoughtfully, and said, " I think it's nice. If they're laughing now, they'll probably be laughing forever.

Do I look like a mess?” she asked. He nodded. “But you’re my mess,” he whispered.

When you walk into a room,” he said softly, “the air changes.

She had been born for this man, and she had spent so many years trying to accept the fact that he had been born for someone else.

As his hands moved to his trousers, he saw that she was pulling the bedsheets over her. "Don't," he said, barely recognizing his own voice. Her eyes met his, and he said, "I'll be your blanket".