“No one said we had to spend every waking moment together,” he said, “but at the end of the day”-he leaned and kissed each of her eyebrows, in turn-“an most of the time during, there is no one I would rather see, no one whose voice I would rather hear, and no one whose mind I would rather explore.”

“It was heaven. Forget angels, forget St. Peter and glittering harpsichords. Heaven was a dance in the arms of one’s true love.”

“Michael nodded tersely, eyeing a table across the room. It was empty. So empty. So joyfully, blessedly empty.He could picture himself a very happy man at that table.”Not feeling very conversational this evening, are we?” Colin asked, breaking into his (admittedly tame) fantasies.”

“He smacked the heel of his hand against his forhead, as if that could knock the mental picture out of his head. Hell, he though irritably, he didn’t want to knock the image just out of his head. He wanted to send it clear across the room and out the window.”

“This has to be the most self-centered thing I’ve ever said, but no, I think you just wanted to vex me.”

“Blake took a small roll from the tray on the table, then put it back in favor of a larger one. And maybe a little butter. It certainly couldn’t hurt. And jam…no, he drew the line at jam. She was a spy, after all.”

“Sometimes Hen…I think I would give my life just for one of your smiles.”

“Felicity,” Mrs. Featherington interurupted, “why don’t you tell Mr. Brdgerton about your watercolors?”For the life of him, Colin couldn’t imagine a less interesting topic (except maybe for Phillipa’s watercolors), but he nonetheless turned to the youngest Featherington with a friendly smile and asked, “And how are your watercolors?”But Felicity, bless her heart, gave him a rather friendly smile herself and said nothing but, “I imagine they’re fine, thank you.”

“And if you say that’s because you lot barged into her home like a herd of mentally deficient sheep, I’m disowning all three of you.”

“Anthony looked down at his evil clutches — hands, he reminded himself, hands — and grinned anew.”

“James – “Are you paying attention or just trying to make me look like an idoit?”Elizabeth – “Oh, I’m definately paying attention. If you look like an idiot it has nothing to do with me.”

“Colin decided then and there that the female mind was a strange and incomprehensible organ – one which no man should even attempt to understand. There wasn’t a woman alive who could go from point A to B without stopping at C, D, X, and 12 along the way.”