Why must women stay quietly? Why must we be little moons, each of us stuck in our little orbit, revolving around a planet that is some man? Why can't we be other planets? Why must we be moons?

I am not in love with you," she said. "It is an infatuation. I have heard of such derangements happening to elderly spinsters.

Prying into others' private affairs is the preferred occupation of small minds.

No its you," she said. How far away her voice sounded, as though it had traveled to London already, ahead of her. "Your ducal self assurance. Everything will give way to you. Even Satan's own storm." "You are definitely improving," he said. "Full mocking sentences.

I beg your pardon for questioning your judgement," she said. "It is nothing to me, after all, if it proves faulty. I am not the one responsible for the Marquess of Atherton's heir and sole offspring. I am not the one who will be toppled from my pedestal if the world learns I have not only permitted but encouraged my nephew to associate with the most shocking persons. I am not the one who-" "I wish you were the one who had heard of the rule Silence is Golden," he said.

I can do one or the other. Lovemaking or thinking. But not both at the same time.

I love these pet names," she said, gazing soulfully up into his eyes, "Nitwit. Sap skull. Termagant. How they make my heart flutter!