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“I’m older than him on the inside, by decades. My soul is a raisin. Take my word for it, you don’t want to be my wife.”
“Are you mad? Lady Cassandra isn’t a possession I can hand over like an umbrella. In fact, I wouldn’t even give you an umbrella.”
Tom was perplexed and impatient. “What’s the point of having someone’s trust if you won’t use it against them?”
“You know I’ve never been one of those sentimental fellows.” “You mean the ones with actual human emotions?” West asked acidly.
“But life is what novels are about. A novel can contain more truth than a thousand newspaper articles or scientific papers. It can make you imagine, just for a little while, that you’re someone else—and then you understand more about people who are different from you.”
Love was a prankster, preferring to sneak up on people who were busy doing other things.
“Feelings. I’ve never had more than five feelings, and they’re hard enough to manage as it is. I’ll be damned if I’ll add another.”
“No,” he said swiftly. “There’s nothing wrong about not knowing something. The stupid people are the ones who think they know everything.”
“No, long ago I identified the feelings that were helpful to me. I decided to keep those and not bother with the rest.”
“No,” she said easily, “I like you just as you are.” Mr. Severin’s expression turned inscrutable, as if she’d spoken in a foreign language he was trying to interpret.
But even if love were real, why would I want it? People make irrational decisions for the sake of love. Some even die for it. I’m far happier without it.
Pandora looked disgusted. “That’s the London Season for you: Casting girls before swine.” Turning to her husband, she asked, “Do men really talk about women that way?” “Men, no,” Gabriel said. “Arsewits, yes.”
He turned his head until his lips nudged her palm with a tenderness she knew somehow was reserved for her alone.
“What?” she whispered. His reply was halting and gruff. “Perfection is impossible. Most mathematical truths can’t be proved. The vast majority of mathematical relations can’t be known. But you … standing here in your bare feet in that dress … you’re perfect.”
He kissed her for all the midnights and mornings they would never share. He kissed her with a tenderness he would never be able to express in words, and felt her response in his blood, as if her sweetness had sunk into his marrow.
Since Love is a greased pig wasn’t a particularly dignified motto, she decided the Latin translation was more elegant: Amor est uncta porcus.
He couldn’t stand by and do nothing. Something inside him had been let out of its cage, and it wouldn’t go back in until he’d made the world pay for hurting Cassandra.
“We’ll start by killing Lord Lambert!” Pandora had cried, storming back and forth. “In the longest, most painful way possible. We’ll take him apart bit by bit. I’m going to murder him with tweezers.”
“Your body isn’t an ornament designed for other people’s pleasure. It belongs to you alone. You’re magnificent just as you are. Whether you lose weight or gain more, you’ll still be magnificent. Have a cake if you want one.”
Not for the first time, Tom reflected there was no understanding women. It wasn’t that they were illogical. Just the opposite. Their logic was of a higher order, too complex and advanced to submit to a complete proof calculus. Women assigned mysterious values to details a man would overlook, and were able to draw piercing conclusions about his innermost secrets.
He occupies a high place on the list of things I don’t respect myself for liking, right between street food and filthy drinking songs.”
Even knowing it’s a bad idea under the circumstances, you’ll end up doing it, the way I used to sing in the bath.” Phoebe slid her husband a surprised glance. “When was that?” “When I lived alone. But I was obliged to stop after I moved to Eversby Priory, when Kathleen told me it was scaring the servants.” “It sounded nonhuman,” Kathleen said. “We all thought someone was performing an exorcism.”
“He’s always had it,” he said flatly. “That thing women like.” “What thing?” Devon asked. “The secret, mysterious thing I’ve always wished someone would explain so we could pretend to have it too.”
as if Severin were overcome by illness … or emotion, which for Severin amounted to the same thing
“I don’t mind older children, who can be threatened with Scottish boarding schools,” Tom said. “It’s the younger ones, who cry and scream and totter from one catastrophe to another. They’re nerve-wracking and tedious at the same time.”
He was entirely comfortable in his nakedness, whereas she was a collection of inhibitions all held together with a blush.
