A Lady's Lesson in Scandal Quotes

“Manners, you see, come down to a single principle: talk of nothing that might actually prove interesting.”
― Meredith Duran, A Lady's Lesson in Scandal

“He see's the world the way cynics do; Not looking for false Hope.”
― Meredith Duran, A Lady's Lesson in Scandal

“He smiled at her: he simply couldn't help himself. He was so glad she'd wandered into his house to kill him.”
― Meredith Duran, A Lady's Lesson in Scandal

“Now, when he sat at the piano, he did not play music for the company the notes provided him. He played the music so she might hear it, and come a little closer to him as she listened.”
― Meredith Duran, A Lady's Lesson in Scandal

“His smile faded a little, growing softer, more intimate, like the look he'd showed her in bed this morning. 'You haven't learned yet when to lie.' Slowly, as if the words were being dragged from him, he added: 'I confess, Nell, I hope you never learn.' She found herself staring at him. Unsteadying thought: there was something hot in his eyes that wasn't purely want. It was too tender, too ... affectionate.”
― Meredith Duran, A Lady's Lesson in Scandal

“You interest me,' he said, and his tone suggested this fact itself surprised him, meant something more to him than perhaps it should: a man surprised by being interested was living a piss-poor facsimile of life, in her view.”
― Meredith Duran, A Lady's Lesson in Scandal

“His slow smile might haved lured angels from heaven, flocking noisily, arms outstretched,happy to burn for him.”
― Meredith Duran, A Lady's Lesson in Scandal

“It was no small talent to know how to immerse oneself in mundane pleasures. It had been a very long time since he’d experienced the feeling that he saw on her face. Curious to consider that he might have something to learn from her. Years, perhaps, since he’d found a novelty able to keep all his senses occupied. Perhaps she was such a novelty in herself.”
― Meredith Duran, A Lady's Lesson in Scandal

“If a woman could win love with her body, the world would have no bastards.”
― Meredith Duran, A Lady's Lesson in Scandal

“He was a bloody genius with these people, slicker than any confidence artist, more popular than whisky in a room full of Irishmen.”
― Meredith Duran, A Lady's Lesson in Scandal

“If something frightens you,” he said, “that means it’s the best place to start.”
― Meredith Duran, A Lady's Lesson in Scandal

“He might have taken her inscrutability to mean there was no depth to her, but even their short acquaintance proved otherwise. Conversely, she might be opaque because her depths were so foreign, so purely lower class, that he simply had no hope for getting a grip on them without prolonged exposure.
Well. It seemed he'd turned into a snob, which made this next bit all the more ironic.
'You'll do it very simply,' he said. 'Marry me.”
― Meredith Duran, A Lady's Lesson in Scandal

“She was a sharp-toothed tiger wrapped up in silk. “I think I’ll make you pay for that taunt.”
“Will you, now! And what price for your arrogance, me pretty lad?”
He looked up from the chalk, smiling slowly. “I am pretty, aren’t I? High time you noticed.”
― Meredith Duran, A Lady's Lesson in Scandal

“I’ll never belong to your world.” She spoke carefully, with all the honesty she could offer. “Even after twenty years, Simon. Or forty.” The memory of hunger would still be inside her. It would prevent her from taking good fortune for granted as he did. “But nobody belongs to that world, Nell. Nobody feels as if they belong, at any rate. They’re all watching each other—fearful of the laughter coming from across the room, wondering to themselves, are they the target? Are they the joke?”
― Meredith Duran, A Lady's Lesson in Scandal

“His easy smile looked genuine. It made a dimple pop out in his right cheek, proof that preachers lied when they said God was just. Wasn’t any fairness in giving a man with money the sort of face this one was sporting.”
― Meredith Duran, A Lady's Lesson in Scandal

“She arched as his fingers dug into her spine; she wanted to slip inside his skin and inhabit this wondrous body of his, to know what it was to move through the world as he did.
[T]he world rose to meet him; it clamored for him. There was magic in him and she wanted it.”
― Meredith Duran, A Lady's Lesson in Scandal

“[H]er attention squarely on the master of the house, whose displeasure with her looked mild but definite. Oh, but wasn’t it terrible when the underlings stepped out of line! Wasn’t it vexing beyond belief when the poor proved they weren’t deserving or much grateful, either!”
― Meredith Duran, A Lady's Lesson in Scandal

“Best awake and face your death like a man."
"Like a man?” The lazy voice came from her right. She whirled, fingers tight around the barker. “Is there some template for a manly death?” the voice continued from the darkness. “Because I was preparing to weep and cringe. Is that off the table?”
― Meredith Duran, A Lady's Lesson in Scandal

“You want money; I know that much. But what of power, Nell?” The word sent a frisson down her spine. Power: what he was exercising right now, holding her riveted with only his words and the light press of his wicked fingers. What a terrible power, too—what a terrible context in which to discover such a power existed. Better for her sake if he’d exercised the clumsier forms: raw strength, muscle, a shout. Brute force she knew well enough.”
― Meredith Duran, A Lady's Lesson in Scandal

“Manners are merely a game, Nell. As with all games, one applies the rules in particular situations, but not in others.”
― Meredith Duran, A Lady's Lesson in Scandal

“You're the lucky one. Otherwise you'd know there's a pleasure to be had from boredom. The best kind of pleasure: it means you've got nothing to worry about.”
― Meredith Duran, A Lady's Lesson in Scandal

“But here there were houses full of *stuff*, fancy sheets woven with silk floss as soft as a baby's bum; fancy washstands carved of dark wood that glowed like cherries where the light hit it; curtains the shade of the summer sky, heavy and glossy and smooth to the touch. The velvet-flocked wallpaper was so soft beneath her fingertips that had her eyes been closed, she might have thought she was brushing the belly of a rabbit.
And the stool in the corner! One wouldn't imagine you'd get too fancy with such a piece, but this stool was covered with embroidery so fine that her knuckles ached just looking at the stitches. Unbelievable. The rich even spoiled their arses!”
― Meredith Duran, A Lady's Lesson in Scandal