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“Maybe you should turn Protestant?” suggested Peggy. “I don’t think our version of God cares about anything very much.” Orfeo actually gasped. “Goodness, I could not. Have you seen your ghastly churches? So square and grey. And your crosses, absent of their subject, with no suffering to glorify.” “Big suffering enthusiast, are you?” “I am Catholic, mio principe. What do you think?”
The tea is optional, though. For you, anyway. I think if a British person tried to opt out, we’d get thrown into the sea or something.” “Is not, traditionally, the tea thrown into the sea?” “Only by Americans.”
Alexis loves this joke
“Just try to enjoy the sound and the spectacle, dear one. When somebody comes to the front of the stage alone and makes everything about them, that’s called an aria. You’ll relate.”
“Maybe,” she said finally, “she’ll be happy in a different way. Not everyone has to be happy the exact same way you’re happy.”
“How,” muttered Peggy finally, “how did you even get backstage?” Bonny gave a long, slow blink. “That’s what you’re asking me? Well, all right. I told them I was a duke, and they let me through. It works in most situations.”
“No.” Still visibly alarmed, Valentine cast aside his paper. “Absolutely not. He could be harmed, or killed, or unavailable to me when I need him. I’m sorry but—”
“I don’t suppose,” she tried, “you know why they left?” The butler was radiating that “I want you to go away” energy so endemic to butlerkind. “Again, I did not enquire.”
They glanced her way. “So here you are again to rescue me, mio principe?” “I wouldn’t call it a rescue. I haven’t fought a single dragon or solved a single riddle.”
At this she rolled her eyes. “Fuck nice. I deserve someone spectacular.”
Hey that's almost the name of the book!
Their lashes fluttered. “I’m a prima uomo. You should expect me to be unpredictable and tempestuous.” “Then why don’t you surprise me by being thoughtful and communicative?”
“O! Lovely hyacinth, so purple crown’d That proudly thrusts from out its earthy bed Of all of nature’s bounties most renowned I kneel before your pot and bow my head In gratitude I huff your heady scent And with my fingers pinch your trembling stem I gaze upon your petals moist with dew And think how sweet it is, how innocent So I compose this humble requiem
This whole scene was absolute perfection
Such vivid writing. One almost felt transported, as if one knelt before Lord Willoughby’s hyacinth oneself.”
Look”—George’s chin was jutting out somewhat aggressively—“we’re all great admirers of Sir Willoughby’s hyacinth here, but can I read my own damn poem now?” He glared at Peggy. “It’s a sonnet. Do you know how hard a sonnet is?” Peggy had already been involved in one fight at the Farrows’, so she did not say, “Is it as hard as Sir Willoughby’s hyacinth?”
George bristled. “Are you ridiculing me, Delancey? These are my feelings, in this sonnet. Do you know how difficult it is for a man like me to have feelings? I’m very athletic.”
“It’s just,” she rushed on, “I wonder if any of you had maybe considered having sex together? You know, instead of all the . . . um. Poetry?” “Instead of poetry?” repeated Lord Farrow, thunderously.
But Lord Willoughby’s hyacinth . . .” “There is no Lord Willoughby,” cried Algernon. “It has always been your hyacinth.” “My hyacinth?” “Yes, the one over there.” Algernon pointed at the purple-crowned hyacinth that was, indeed, thrusting proudly from a pot upon Lord Farrow’s desk. “Although, in retrospect, I was probably thinking about your penis.”
They raised a teasing eyebrow. “You seem very concerned about dukes.” “I am,” said Bob, greatly wearied. “There is something about me that feels as though it inexorably attracts them. I think it is my ordinary looks coupled with my striking eyes, alongside the fact I am mostly sensible yet given to impulsive attempts to control my own destiny.”
“That does seem like a very happy ending,” said Peggy. Bob bobbed eagerly. “Yes, and I can always marry a duke later if I change my mind.”
They’ve what?” asked Peggy, who had hubristically believed herself incapable of having her ghast in any way flabbered by either Bonny or Belle. And yet here she was, flabbered of ghast, and smacked of gob.
“I hope you don’t think”—Sir Horley’s voice mercifully drifted towards them, along with the sounds of feet being stamped and coats removed—“that I haven’t recognised you, Bonaventure Tarleton. You are the least convincing highwayman I’ve ever encountered, and I have encountered zero highwaymen.”
Trying to keep the Tarletons even a little bit on topic was a labour that would have defied the power of Hercules.
“Oh my God.” Bonny threw his arms wide in despair. “You people have no emotional stamina. You’d never survive in a novel.”
