What I Did for a Duke Quotes

“A proper kiss, Miss Eversea, should turn you inside out. It should . . . touch places in you that you didn’t know existed, set them ablaze, until your entire being is hungry and wild...It should slice right down through you like a cutlass with a pleasure so devastating it’s very nearly pain … It should make you want to do things you’d never dreamed you’d want to do, and in that moment all of those things will make perfect sense. And it should herald, or at least promise, the most intense physical pleasure you’ve ever known, regardless of whether that promise is ever, ever fulfilled. It should, in fact . . . ” he paused for effect “ . . . haunt you for the rest of your life.”
― Julie Anne Long, What I Did for a Duke

“She thought that heartbreak might just give his character the shadows and corners and angles it needed to make it truly interesting. To deepen and shape it. She was sorry she would be the one to help make him truly interesting. But she’d never apologize for falling in love with a man who already was.”
― Julie Anne Long, What I Did for a Duke

“What are your pleasures and pursuits, Lord Moncrieffe?" Miss Eversea asked too brightly, when the silence had gone on for more than was strictly comfortable or polite.
That creaky conversation lubricant. It irritated him again that she was humoring him.
"Well, I'm partial to whores."
Her head whipped toward him like a weather-vane in a hurricane. Her eyes, he noted, were enormous, and such a dark blue they were nearly purple. Her mouth dropped, and the lower lip was quivering with shock or... or...
"Whor... whores...?" She choked out the word as if she'd just inhaled it like bad cigar smoke.
He widened his own eyes with alarm, recoiling slightly.
"I... I beg your pardon - Horses. Honestly, Miss Eversea," he stammered. "I do wonder what you think of me if that's what you heard.”
― Julie Anne Long, What I Did for a Duke

“And though she could scarcely even feel them, her lips formed the words, and sound emerged, sounding frayed, and small and cracked, forged in her somehow before she was born, since before time, words meant only for him.
“I love you.”
Three of the most powerful words in the world offered to one of the most powerful men in London in such a small voice.
And at first she thought nothing at all had happened. He didn’t blink. But then she realized she’d somehow set him . . . softly ablaze. Emotion burned from him, and his eyes . . . she would never forget his eyes in this moment.
His hands remained at his sides.
Which is when she noticed they were trembling.
God help her, that’s when she felt tears begin to burn at the back of her eyes.
One got away. And she brushed her hand roughly against it.
And the man who never cleared his throat . . . cleared his throat. And his voice, in truth, wasn’t a good deal louder than hers.
“Then it’s just as well that I love you, Genevieve.”
― Julie Anne Long, What I Did for a Duke

“Of course you're sorry. The first words out of the mouths of men who are caught doing something they're only too happy to continue until they're caught.”
― Julie Anne Long, What I Did for a Duke

“You shouldn't ask questions when you know at heart you'd prefer not to hear the answers.”
― Julie Anne Long, What I Did for a Duke

“He would ask nothing else from life if he would be allowed to protect and cherish her for the rest of his.”
― Julie Anne Long, What I Did for a Duke

“She was backing away from him now. Don’t go, was his first panicked thought. Followed by: Hurry up.”
― Julie Anne Long, What I Did for a Duke

“There are things the artist intends, and things the viewer sees, and what the viewer sees isn't always what the artist intends. Isn't always apparent upon first viewing.”
― Julie Anne Long, What I Did for a Duke

“Everyone needed a reminder to simply look at things and enjoy them, without labeling them.”
― Julie Anne Long, What I Did for a Duke

“Directness often disguised as much as it revealed, and was a marvelous defense.”
― Julie Anne Long, What I Did for a Duke

“He leaned in for a sniff. 'Smells like a horse's arse! I've got Ian!' -'No sniffing allowed! We never discussed sniffing! I cry foul!' Ian was outraged. 'I'm not giving you a shilling!' -'Give him a shilling! It's not his fault you smell like a horse's arse!”
― Julie Anne Long, What I Did for a Duke

“Poetry was a barrier against raw
emotions. It distilled them into bearable
music, allowed one to accommodate them
a little at a time.

Alexander Moncrieffe”
― Julie Anne Long, What I Did for a Duke

“So she was to be savagely heartbroken and then poisoned by one of their cook’s noxious herbal brews in the space of a few hours? Dante would find inspiration in this day.”
― Julie Anne Long, What I Did for a Duke

“She felt the pain of his loss inside her like a savage hook. She wanted to reach into him and take it out, as though it were shrapnel. But the pain was old to him, and somehow it had become a part of him. He could bear it and speak of it. It had shaped him; he had accommodated it. He had loved and he had lost and it had made him who he was.”
― Julie Anne Long, What I Did for a Duke

“But now he understood why someone would write things like 'she walked in beauty like the night' and so forth. Because poetry was a barrier against raw emotions. It distilled them into bearable music, allowed one to accommodate them a little at a time.”
― Julie Anne Long, What I Did for a Duke

“Perhaps we can discuss this further during the dancing portion of the evening. You'll enjoy waltzing with me later this evening, Miss Eversea. I dance very well, despite the height.:
"Your modesty is as appealing as your sensitivity, Lord Moncrieffe. But perhaps a reel other than the waltz? We differ so in height I shall be speaking to your third buttom throughout the dance. Else you will need to look a great distance down and I will need to look a great distance up. I shouldn't like you to end the evening with an aching neck."
Inevitable at your creaky, advanced age, she left eloquently, palpably unspoken.
He looked down at her for a moment, head slightly cocked, as if he could hear that unworthy thought echoing in her mind.
“My third button is so often a wallflower during balls I doubt it will mind your conversation overmuch.”
She blinked. This was so delightfully ... silly... she forgot herself absolutely for a moment. She stole a glance at his third button. It was nacre, of course, as were the rest of them, and looked like an expensive and luminous tiny moon brought down from the sky specifically to button up the duke. A row of snobs, those buttons, all of them.
Lovely gown, it might say to her. But can you trace your ancestry back to the Conqueror?”
― Julie Anne Long, What I Did for a Duke

“A girl could forget her precise location in the universe when a man looked at her with eyes like those.”
― Julie Anne Long, What I Did for a Duke

“The stars are particularly spectacular tonight, don't you think? Dazzling. As if they've all had a good rinsing from the storm.”
― Julie Anne Long, What I Did for a Duke

“Irony, when delivered cold and shaved very, very fine, could sound like amusement.”
― Julie Anne Long, What I Did for a Duke

“She wanted to buckle, lie on her side and gasp like an eviscerated fish. She held her breath against it, but her mouth parted. She cared naught for living in the moment, but apparently her body was sensible. It wanted to breathe.”
― Julie Anne Long, What I Did for a Duke

“It's... 'Titian,'" Genevieve breathed. "I'm sure of it."
A slow, awestruck, disbelieving smile took over her face. Stunned pleasure shone from her eyes. And he was certain her heart was racing with the sheer delight of being in the 'presence' of the thing.
Because his heart was racing at simply watching her love it.
She turned to look at him as if he himself had painted it. Her radiance rendered him absolutely silent. He could only bask.
One was either moved by something or one was not, he knew. Certain tastes- for fine wine or teas, for instance- could be acquired. 'Skill' could be acquired, but talent could not. And passion was either intimate... or it was not.
He still in truth didn't care to know much about the painting.
He only cared about what it did to Genevieve Eversea.
And it was 'this' that gave it its value in his eyes. Not the name of the artist, or the pigments he had used.
He felt her joy as his own.”
― Julie Anne Long, What I Did for a Duke

“We think we’re so clever. And yet we’re always surprised to find ourselves entrapped or made fools of.”
― Julie Anne Long, What I Did for a Duke

“One could tolerate an acid tongue for a time when the owner of it was so very pretty.”
― Julie Anne Long, What I Did for a Duke

“What was love if not a certain pleasantly deluded familiarity built up over years?”
― Julie Anne Long, What I Did for a Duke

“Fear did rather play havoc with one's self of time.”
― Julie Anne Long, What I Did for a Duke

“Good evening, Miss Eversea. You’ve stars in your hair.”
― Julie Anne Long, What I Did for a Duke

“Fear. Alex knew he was a fine one to pontificate about fear. He'd issued the world's most tepid, careful marriage proposal. Because he'd been afraid to tell Genevieve he loved her.
Not that it would have made much of a difference.
She loved Harry.
Harry in his youthful innocence had put his finger right on it. And Moncrieffe pushed the realization away. He took in a sharp breath.
Harry took Moncrieffe's silence as a reason to go on.
"God help me, it was only because I was afraid of losing her. And I honestly didn't feel I deserved her, for I had nothing to give her. I simply needed to know whether she loved me. I'm not proud of it, but I have never loved anyone more."
Moncrieffe could still scarcely get the words out.
"I just can't believe you would 'do' such a thing to someone you... loved."
Osborne was very, very drunk, but he wasn't stupid. "But I couldn't hurt her, could I, if she didn't love me?"
And now Harry's blue eyes fixed on him almost searchingly.
Moncrieffe couldn't believe he had almost shown his hand.
"You just said you weren't certain whether she did love you. And if she does love you anywhere as much as you claim to love her, imagine the pain you may have caused her with your whole charade."
Harry looked up at him and blinked. And as he thought about it, his face slowly went white.
After a moment he swallowed.
"'Gallant' of you," Moncrieffe drawled, twisting the knife.
Moncrieffe knew a surge of hatred for himself for saying it. But he wanted Harry to feel what he'd done to Genevieve.”
― Julie Anne Long, What I Did for a Duke

“You should see your expression."
"The duel one?"
"No. It's more like... when a snarling dog is swatted across the nose by a kitten. Surprised and affronted. As though the natural order of things has been subverted."
He blinked. Bloody hell, but he was charmed speechless by the analogy.”
― Julie Anne Long, What I Did for a Duke

“He was buoyant with the triumph of the roses. He'd bestowed pearls upon women he'd courted before, he'd indulgently paid lengthy bills for all manner of folderol presented to him by modistes and run up by mistresses, he'd given jewels to his wife, but never, never had he enjoyed giving a gift as much as he'd had this morning, regardless of its strategic purpose. He'd enjoyed the giving as much as Genevieve clearly had enjoyed the getting, judging from the colors she'd turned and that glow in her eyes. A man could grow almost too accustomed to seeking that response to a gift, the way one grew to love opium (not that 'he' was familiar with that particular vice) or drink. He could spend sleepless nights imagining how to go about getting it again.”
― Julie Anne Long, What I Did for a Duke