Loretta Chase

. . I tell you Dain is a splendid catch. I advise you to set your hooks and reel him in.__essica took a long swallow of her cognac. __his is not a trout, Genevieve. This is a great, hungry shark.___hen use a harpoon.

With the world securely in order, Dain was able to devote the leisurely bath time to editing his mental dictionary. He removed his wife from the general category labeled "Females" and gave her a section of her own. He made a note that she didn't find him revolting, and proposed several explanations: (a) bad eyesight and faulty hearing, (b)a defect in a portion of her otherwise sound intellect, (c) an inherited Trent eccentricity, or (d) an act of God. Since the Almighty had not done him a single act of kindness in at least twenty-five years, Dain thought it was about bloody time, but he thanked his Heavenly Father all the same, and promised to be as good as he was capable of being.

Shall we proceed, and ought I do so with my knife drawn?___ou__ better keep it where it is for the moment,_ he said. __therwise you might stab me to death accidentally._ .__f I stab you to death,_ she said, __t will not be accidental.

They were perfectly suited. They would speak of books the livelong day and night and bore everyone else but themselves to distraction.

That is a horrid temptation to put before a man who is forbidden to make vigorous movements,_ he said. __s it really?_ she said. __o wonder Miles did not approve. He looked daggers at me._ __aybe his face froze that way,_ Rupert said. __e was looking daggers at me a few hours ago. Do you think he suspects?_ __ think he knows ,_ she said. ____ glad I don__ have a sister,_ he said. __ should have to get over my aversion to killing people._ -Rupert and Daphne

Surely she'd heard voices like his, so low-pitched as to make every commonplace utterance seem of the deepest intimacy, every cliche a delicious secret.

I spent hours yesterday talking of little but medical symptoms and insane asylums. And you listened as though it were poetry and all but swooned at my feet. It is too bad I don't have any medical treatises about. I'm sure I need read a paragraph or two, and you will become ravenous with lust and begin tearing my clothes off. (Dorian from "The Mad Earl's Bride")

In my dictionary, romance is not maudlin, treacly sentiment. It is a curry, spiced with excitement, and humour, and a healthy dollop of cynicism.

He knew there were no forevers and there was always a way out, yet he lost his way, lost his balance.

Adieu, Lord Dain,_ she answered without turning her head. __ave a pleasant evening with your cows.__ows?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__ felt the sting. He told himself to laugh and return to his_ cows.

It wasn__ the time and place.He oughtn__ to rush his fences.But she__ waved her arms, and that made her womanly parts jiggle and he could only keep one idea in his head at a time, and in any case, oughts never went down smoothly with him.He was who he was, and that wasn__ a good boy. And so down he went, and crushed her sulky little mouth under his.

She was a dreamer and a schemer & one didnt dream and scheme without hope.

Bathsheba looked at Benedict. "You never told me they were matchmaking.""He didn't notice!" said his father before Benedict could answer. "He didn't notice handsome young misses of unexceptionable family. He didn't notice beautiful heiresses. We tried bluestockings. We tried country girls. We tried everything. He didn't notice! But Bathsheba Winngate, the most notorious woman in all of England, he noticed.""We notorious women tend to stand out," she said.

He had relieved whores beyond counting of frocks, stays, chemises, garters, and stockings. He had never before in his life unbuttoned a gently bred maiden's glove. He'd committed salacious acts beyond number. He'd never before felt so depraved as he did now, as the last pearl came free and he drew the soft kid down, baring her wrist, and his dark fingers grazed the delicate skin he'd exposed.

I don't know who had the training of you," he continued doggedly, "but your morals are shocking. You spent a night in my bed, remember, after a night in a bawdy house. You go about collecting street urchins and letting inebriated vagabonds kiss you, and then you get into brawls in pawnshops. You are probably past all redemption, but I'm going to reform you anyhow. If you behave yourself, perhaps I'll let you reform me on occasion, but I make no promises.

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.

He pulled away the glove, and at the first glimpse of her fragile, white hand, all thoughts of negotiation fled. "I don't see how matters could become worse," he muttered. "I am already besotted with a needle-tongued, conceited, provoking ape leader of a lady."Her head jerked up. "Besotted? You're nothing like it. Vengeful is more like it. Spiteful.

The Challenge is to pry Bertie loose from Dain and his circle of oafish dengenerates,_ Jessica said severely. __t would be far more profitable to pry Dain loose for yourself,_ said her grandmother. __e is very wealthy, his lineage is excellent, he is young, strong, and healthy, and you feel a powerful attraction._ __e isn__ husband material._ __hat I have described is perfect husband material._ said her grandmother. __ don__ want a husband._ __essica, no woman does who can regard men objectively. And you have always been magnificently objective.