You're surrounded by it wherever you go, you walk through it, breathe it...it's in your lungs and under your tongue and between your fingers and toes.

My peer would have to be dark-haired and handsome, a wonderful dancer... and he would never ask permission before he kissed me." -Lillian Bowman

He was so far from the gallant knights in her romantic fantasies ... He was tarnished, scarred, imperfect. Deliberately he had destroyed any illusions she might have had about him, exposing his mysterious past for the ugly horror that it was. His purpose had been to drive her away. But instead she felt closer to him, as if the truth had bonded them in a new intimacy.

Sometimes you meet a really nice guy, but no matter how you try, you can't seem to make yourself want him. But that's not nearly as bad as when you meet the wrong guy, and you can't make yourself not want him. You feel hollow inside, just waiting and wishing and dreaming. You feel like every moment is leading to something so amazing that there's no name for it, and if you could just get there with him, it would be such a...relief. It would be all you'd ever need.

The London season is like one of those Drury Lane melodramas in which marriage is always the ending. And no one ever seems to give any thought as to what happens after. But marriage isn’t the end of the story it’s the beginning. And it demands the efforts of both partners to make a success of it.

It seemed as if some subtle current of recognition had passed between them... not as if they had met before... but as if they had come close several times until finally an impatient Fate had forced their paths to intersect.

I can't imagine a sweeter agony, having him so close.