Masculine pride is an exceedingly precious and fragile thing

I want you," she said. "I told you so," he said.

Life had a way of wrecking her careful plans, again and again. Roulette was more predictable than life. Small wonder she was so lucky at it.Life was not a wheel going round and round. It never, ever returned to the same place. It didn't stick to simple red and black and a certain array of numbers. It laughed at logic.Beneath its pretty overdress of man-imposed order, life was anarchy.

Adieu, Lord Dain,” she answered without turning her head. “Have a pleasant evening with your cows.” Cows? She was merely trying to provoke him, Dain told himself. The remark was a pathetic attempt at a setdown. To take offense was to admit he’d felt the sting. He told himself to laugh and return to his… cows.

She longed to throw something at him. A chair. Herself.

We're of one mind, Grenville and I, and the mind is hers, on account of my being a man and not having one.

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