Edith Layton > Quotes

“They watched him walk away.
"Now, there's a fascinating fellow," Adele breathed.
"So charming," Pippa's grandmother sighed.
"He minces," Pippa said.”
― Edith Layton, To Love a Wicked Lord

“I've been living in waiting. I must move on. That's why we're here. Grandmamma said that the cream of Society comes here, and if anyone knows anything about his travels or his disappearance, this would be the place to find out about it.
"And have you discovered anything?" Adele asked.
"The cream," Pippa sighed, "has obviously curdled. We have one more gentleman to speak with, and then we'll move on. This fellow is said to know everyone and everything too or, at least, everything he wants to know. He does favors for his friends as well, Grandfather said. We'll see."
"Why don't you employ a Runner?"
"That way the whole world will know. This way, only the privileged few do."
"And if you find Noel is alive?" Adele asked.
"I'll kill him," Pippa said.
Her friend's eyes opened wide. "You're joking, of course.
Pippa only sighed again.”
― Edith Layton, To Love a Wicked Lord

“His was the sort of physical beauty that attracted even as any great work of art ensnared the eye. One did not have to wish to own such a creation, often it was enough just to study and appreciate it. Only a little above average height, his form was well proportioned and well muscled, with not an extra jot of flesh. He had a fencer’s easy play of movement. But it was his face that first and last attached the eye. It was a lean countenance, the ivory white skin so taut across the fine bone structure as to appear to have been stretched to fit. Feature by feature, it was not a classic visage, but the sum more than compensated for the parts. His cheekbones were high and perhaps too pronounced. The nose was straight, a trifle too long and thin, the mouth not at all the full, plump standard of Greek statuary, for while well cut it was thin as well, and bore at times a half-quirked, sensuous smile. The eyes were long and almond-shaped and pulled down slightly at the corners, rather than tilting upward in classical fashion. But despite the astonishing thick, bright-silver-tipped gilt hair and slightly darker brows, it was the eyes that one’s gaze returned to again and again. From afar, or even in shadow, Lord North’s eyes were unexceptional save for their keen expression. But in clear light and up close it could be seen that they were extraordinary. For to speak with the nobleman from his right side, one would look for answer in his grave gray eye. Yet to approach him from the left, one would seek response from his cool blue orb. His eyes were not so dissimilar as to shock, but seeing him once, the viewer would be troubled by some nagging discrepancy and turn to search his face until his varicolored eyes were at last discovered, and the viewer amazed and enchanted. To see him once was to remember him forever, to hear his name was to recall him instantly. His reputation was as varied and colorful as his strange countenance. He was said to be a libertine, he was whispered to be beyond mere libertine.”
― Edith Layton, Lord of Dishonor

“Since there is so much that you know about me, can you tell me something about yourself? Some true thing? She asked, watching him, realizing that she knew nothing of the actual man that hid beneath the blandly smiling, smooth exterior that he presented.

Some true thing? He laughed. Oh my dear, there is no true thing about me at all.”
― Edith Layton, The Duke's Wager

“No one else in the wide world, since the dawn of time, has ever seen the world as you do, or can explain it as you can. This is what you have to offer that no one else can.”
― Edith Layton, The Crimson Crown

“I am not a good man. I am at the present, as a matter of record, rejoicing in one of the most evil reputations in all of England. But don’t pity me, Regina, for I swear it is well deserved. But I am very wealthy, and I am a duke, a duke of all things. And you are a commoner. Moreover, much to my joy, you are a commoner with no connections at all. No resources. No protector. You are my natural meat. My natural prey. I want you.”
― Edith Layton, The Duke's Wager

“It's true we might not have met if I'd not been thrown literally at her feet, but we've more in common than my isolation. There is a certain fellow feeling too, our minds dovetail in matters of humor and taste.”
― Edith Layton, The Conquest

“You speak almost as well as a man. It will be a novelty to make love to a woman who seems to have a man’s mind.”
― Edith Layton, The Duke's Wager

“I need you for however long you want me.”
― Edith Layton

“Can you not speak straight? Must everything be couched in that sinister poetry you affect?

He seemed, for one second, taken aback, and then he let out a genuine laugh, oddly pure in contrast to his hoarse voice. His eyes lit up to the shade of a summer’s day.”
― Edith Layton, The Duke's Wager