To Sir Phillip, With Love (Bridgertons, #5)

by Julia Quinn

“If you were wishing for spring, sir, perhaps you should have consulted a calendar.” Phillip regarded him with a sideways glance. “Do I pay you for such impertinence?” “Indeed. And rather handsomely, too.”

He told her to fight, even though he knew his words fell on deaf ears. Three days later she was dead.

Rolling green hills looked like rolling green hills looked like rolling green hills, and she could be in Wales, for all she knew.

“Was that the source of the, ah . . .” “Noise?” Gunning supplied helpfully. “Yes.” “No.” The butler cleared his throat. “That would have been your children.” “I see,” Phillip murmured. “How silly of me to have hoped otherwise.” “I don’t believe they broke anything, sir.” “That’s a relief and a change.” “Indeed, sir, but there is the caller to consider.”

He could drown in those eyes. And Phillip did not, as one might imagine, even think the word drown lightly.

And it wasn’t the least bit drafty. Could one shiver from feeling too . . . hot?

all that rage in his voice, in the shaking of his body—it wasn’t directed at the children. Not really, and certainly not entirely. The look on his face, the bleakness in his eyes—it was self-loathing. He didn’t blame his children. He blamed himself.

since it was her experience that neither the English nor the French had any clue as to how to fashion comfortable furniture.

Poor Hyacinth now breaks into tears every time she hears the word “seven.” (Although I must confess that I don’t understand why one through six do not elicit similar reactions.) I don’t know what we shall do. Dip her hair in ink, I suppose. (Miss Haversham’s, that is, not Hyacinth’s, although I would never rule out the latter.)

Men. The day they learned to admit to a mistake was the day they became women.

He was hungry, needy, and he kissed her as if he would die without her, as if she were his very food, his air, his body and soul.

“You’re one of the special ones, Eloise. Life never happens to you. Trust me on this. I’ve watched you grow up, had to be your father at times when I wanted only to be your brother.”

“You happen to life, Eloise,” Anthony said. “You’ve always made your own decisions, always been in control. It might not always feel that way, but it’s true.”

“the tavern wench arrived and she had the biggest—” “Benedict!” Eloise exclaimed. Benedict looked over at his sister with a supremely guilty expression, yanked back his hands, which were demonstrating the size of what was clearly an impossibly endowed female, and muttered, “Sorry.” “You’re married,” Eloise scolded. “But not blind,” Colin said with a grin. “You’re married, too!” she accused. “But not blind,” he said again.

She had four brothers, and quite frankly should have understood them better than most women, and maybe it had taken all of her twenty-eight years to come to this realization, but men were, quite simply, freaks.

“I’m going to kill him,” Anthony announced. “Does anyone mind if I kill him?” No one did, although Sophie did look up and mention something about blood and messes and not wanting to have to clean up. “It’s an excellent fertilizer,” Phillip said helpfully, since, after all, that was his area of expertise. “Ah.” Sophie nodded and turned back to her book. “Kill him, then.”

And it occurred to her that for a woman who opened her mouth every other second, there was an awful lot inside of her that she’d never shared.

She didn’t want to tell her mother that she and Francesca had in fact pooled their pin money to bribe the housemaid. It had been worth every penny, however. Annie Mavel’s explanation had been detailed and, Francesca had later informed her, absolutely correct.

And his lips had never left hers. “I need you,” he said hoarsely, pulling her dress from her body with shaking fingers. “I need you like I need breath. I need you like food, like water.”

There is never anything to be gained by taking the easy road. (Unless, of course, the road is an easy one to begin with. Roads sometimes are. If that should be the case, do not forge a new, more difficult one. Only martyrs go out looking for trouble.)

Laugh. Laugh out loud, and laugh often. And when circumstances call for silence, turn your laugh into a smile. Don’t settle. Know what you want and reach for it. And if you don’t know what you want, be patient. The answers will come to you in time, and you may find that your heart’s desire has been right under your nose all the while.