Julie Anne Long

Magnanimous of you.'His mouth twitched. 'Mmm. Use more words like that, please. Schoolmistress words. Long, impressive ones.' He'd made the last three words sound like an innuendo.

It isn't a weakness to accept kindness. It isn't a weakness to allow yourself to be cared for.

Of course you're sorry. The first words out of the mouths of men who are caught doing something they're only too happy to continue until they're caught.

Something was stirring in him, though; a bud of comprehension that could very well bloom into forgiveness if left unchecked.

He was still thoughtful. 'Do you think any of us ever really knows anyone?' 'Philosophy, Lord Dryden? And yet it's daylight and everyone is still sober.

He leaned in for a sniff. 'Smells like a horse's arse! I've got Ian!' -'No sniffing allowed! We never discussed sniffing! I cry foul!' Ian was outraged. 'I'm not giving you a shilling!' -'Give him a shilling! It's not his fault you smell like a horse's arse!

I don't know,' he said irritably. 'Is it meant to improve you?'She swiveled toward him, eyes wide with shock.'Because nothing could,' he added. Her mouth dropped in astonishment. Blotchy scarlet rushed her complexion. One would have thought he'd shot her.Oh dear God!He realized belatedly how wrong it had sounded.'No! God... that is to say.. nothing is necessary to improve you. Nothing could possibly make you better... than you already are.

She charmed and sparkled and said witty things, but she knew very well she was being charming and sparkling and witty while she was doing it, which somehow felt wrong.

I suppose we all tend to want the impossible. And sometimes in attempting it we achieve something near enough to the impossible to elicit satisfaction.

And this is the potency a first kiss should have: it should be earned. The moments leading up to it should be as tense as a crossbow drawn back. The reader should want it as badly as the hero and heroine, and feel as satisfied and transported and transformed as the hero and heroine in the wake of it. There are different ways to use kisses in a romance, but that first kiss is so meaningful, a pinnacle, and can be more intimate than sex.

I will die, however,_ he said quite seriously, __f you leave me again. Just watch me.

The one thing she__ been able to count on her entire life was her cleverness. She was so often right. It was humbling and disorienting to realize that she in truth knew nothing at all. One only ever saw a fraction of someone, whatever it was they chose to show you, and extrapolated a whole person from that. And saw them through a prism of one__ own prejudices.

Her laugh was wonderful. It was mischief made musical.

For if light had a sound, it was that laugh.

May I see your dance card?___on__ you believe me?_ She presented it to him with a flourish.He ran his fingers down the list of names.__mm . . . Waterburn? Bastard. D__ndre. Definitely a worthless bastard. Lord Camber, a thoroughgoing bastard. Lord Michaelson? Bastard. Peter Cheswick? Bast___he snatched it from him, laughing.__ wouldn__ dance a waltz with you, anyway, Lord Dryden.___o?___ou might accidentally lock eyes with Lisbeth Redmond, stumble, and fling me across the room to avoid crushing my feet.

Only two things kept her from loathing him.The expression on his face when he'd said, "France." And the expression on his face when he'd said, "home.

He wished for access to all the world's languages at once, for then he would have a better word for how he felt and what she was.

I love you," she murmured. The words ... it was as though an entire sun had exploded in his chest.He'd been ridiculous. His thrashing thoughts, his grand confusion and torment and helplessness -- it was only love, had always been love, he supposed. It was no precipice he stood at, or rather precipices have little meaning when one finally acknowledges that one has wings. Connor stepped off."I love you, too."Such grave, inadequate words for what it was he felt.