The Duke Quotes

“Everyone will envy your wit, your beauty, your intelligence. But only I will kiss you every evening before you sleep and every morning when you wake. In those dark hours you will call me Kate, and I will call you my darling.”
― Anna Cowan, The Duke

“Patience,” Celine said with a coy smile that Kate wanted to worship on her knees.”
― Anna Cowan, The Duke

“She kissed Celine’s blushing cheeks, her laughing, tender mouth. God, kissing Celine. It was like drinking the sun.”
― Anna Cowan, The Duke

“Tell me you’ll be my wife,” she said. “I would like to hear you say it.” Celine’s eyes became very bright. “I will be your wife, Kate.” Pleasure ran like summer warmth over her skin. “Say you’ll marry me.” “I will marry you.” She was close now. She whispered against Celine’s lips. “Say you’ll be mine.” “I am yours,” Celine said.”
― Anna Cowan, The Duke

“My mistress?” she shouted, spinning back to Celine. “If all you want is to be my mistress, Celine Genet, you can go to the devil. You will be my wife, or nothing at all.”
― Anna Cowan, The Duke

“You have no idea how lonely I was back then. Lonely and scared. It’s beyond strange to think of you over the sea, too young for me by far, but coming to me by the only way possible. Through time. The long and painful way. It would have been easier to bear if I could have known you were coming—my very own piece of the world. A place to belong. A person who would—” The duke cut off suddenly, but Celine heard what she had meant to say. A person who would love me.”
― Anna Cowan, The Duke

“But that was it. I felt how it changed my body, physically. It will never be undone. It will never diminish. The organ that gives me breath is engineered to love you; the muscle that feels, the matter that thinks…”
― Anna Cowan, The Duke

“I was … bored with him. Stupid of me, but it’s true. He was incredibly boring in bed, and only wanted me a couple of times a week, less as time went on. He wanted someone to love, but not—” Not the way you do. “Not the way you do.” Her voice went lower, speaking truth. “You want love like you’re going to die without it. He wanted a pretty wife. Someone he could pamper and get a child on.” “Like I’m going to die without it?” “You’re…” How to explain? “Love has an uncommon hold on you. You fear it and crave it. You’re like a shipwrecked sailor drinking down the ocean.” And yet the ocean had nothing on Celine. She could have sated the duke for a lifetime.”
― Anna Cowan, The Duke

“What it revealed about the duke’s self-control was staggering. The duke did not indulge in physical expressions of affection with anyone, much less regular, daily sex. And yet every minute of every day, this enormous hunger lived inside her.”
― Anna Cowan, The Duke

“the duke got her shoulders between Celine’s thighs, bullying them wider. “My pretty little pussy,” the duke said in French, “I am going to eat you.” And did.”
― Anna Cowan, The Duke

“She touched a fingertip to the inner curve of each of Celine’s knees and, exerting almost no pressure, pushed them apart. Celine gladly took instruction. The duke’s hot eyes dropped to her fingers, and she ran them up Celine’s thighs, raising the petticoat with them. The duke was breathing heavily, and high on her cheeks were slashes of pink. She dropped to her knees and looked at what she’d exposed between Celine’s legs. The colour in the duke’s cheeks deepened. She continued to do nothing but look. Celine had understood from early on that her mind was more interesting to the duke than her body, and yet her body enthralled the duke, this one piece of her in particular. It enthralled the duke not because of what it was, uniquely, but because it was hers uniquely.”
― Anna Cowan, The Duke

“Poor darling,” Celine said condescendingly. The duke needed to be teased and laughed at occasionally.”
― Anna Cowan, The Duke

“The duke’s heavy arousal covered Celine’s tongue, her mouth. Even as she had the duke in her mouth, she wanted it again, and again, and again, an unrelenting physical ache that wouldn’t be satisfied by anything but this.”
― Anna Cowan, The Duke

“She feared she was a coward. She feared the reason she didn’t want Celine near her was not to protect Celine, who was the strongest person she had ever met, but because if she let down the drawbridge and opened the gates, it might be her own cold fortress that trembled and shook and broke apart.”
― Anna Cowan, The Duke

“acquisitive”
― Anna Cowan, The Duke

“interlude”
― Anna Cowan, The Duke

“Her lips, all animal, wanted to kiss.”
― Anna Cowan, The Duke

“inducement.”
― Anna Cowan, The Duke

“There was a war in Kate Howard between love and fear, and Celine intended to give love a reason to win.”
― Anna Cowan, The Duke

“You have been calling me by my name,” the duke said. “Say it again.” She had been using the duke’s name without quite realising. Suddenly, it was very difficult. “Kate,” she said. The duke’s eyes darkened. Her voice went rough. “Again.” “Kate.” The duke’s eyelids dropped, and her lips parted—an unmistakeably sexual response.”
― Anna Cowan, The Duke

“but a child didn’t become obsessed with gaining a parent’s approval unless that parent had made it unattainable, and she didn’t obsessively dream of that parent dying unless there was some relief to be gained by it.”
― Anna Cowan, The Duke

“There. The smile slipped loose for a moment before it was brought back under control. Kate wanted to suck that whole lip into her mouth. She wanted Celine alone and under her. Writhing, wet, blushes all the way down her body.”
― Anna Cowan, The Duke

“propriety”
― Anna Cowan, The Duke

“Celine was back there, under the blinding sun with the horse’s deep snorts of exertion and the dry slap of leather, the brush of the duke’s boot against the horse’s hide. And then, instead of going inside the house with Mr. Benson directly after, as she had in reality done, she was in the dark stable when the duke rode the horse in. She and the duke locked eyes. She stood quietly, barely visible against the wall as the duke patted the horse and gave him another apple and discussed his care with the groom, all the while aware Celine was waiting. And then the duke walked past without even glancing her way, but grabbed her wrist in a punishing grip, making her follow after. And as soon as they had turned a corner, the duke had her pushed against the wall, had her skirts pushed up—skirts and chemise and petticoats all, a violation of the tied parcel—and in some indefinite way was penetrating her, pushing her into the wall and kissing her. Taking her. The duke pulled back, breathing heavily, her eyes holding Celine captive. Then sucked her own bottom lip into her mouth and let it drag slowly out over her teeth: the first shape a mouth would make to curse. Those sharp teeth, that monstrous, perfect mouth that had smiled down at Celine, inviting her to look. Inviting her to want.”
― Anna Cowan, The Duke

“As though she had all the time in the world, the duke bent over and picked the lead rein up from where it lay in the sand. “Come,” she said quietly, and the horse ambled towards her until his monstrous nose came to rest against her free hand, from which he snatched an apple. He chewed and propped one of his hind legs up, relaxed as a dray horse at rest in the field. The duke rubbed his nose, up under his forelock, around his ears. She murmured endearments to him. Celine couldn’t make them out, but her skin rose because she didn’t need to hear them to know exactly what that felt like: the duke’s murmuring voice in her ears, hands rubbing over her.”
― Anna Cowan, The Duke

“supplanted”
― Anna Cowan, The Duke

“Celine wrapped one hand over Kate’s shoulder and said quietly into her ear, “Shall I tell you it’s not the horse that impresses me, and it’s not the title, either? It’s you. You, whose like comes along perhaps once every hundred years. You, who were made by a meeting of bloodlines and temperament that feels almost divine.”
― Anna Cowan, The Duke

“Celine’s eyes sparkled in the sun. “And you think you’re going to look very impressive riding him.” She did. She would. “How do you figure that?” “Otherwise, you wouldn’t have bothered to bring me along. You must want to impress me rather badly.” She had asked to be seen, yet the truth embarrassed her, she reflexively denied it. “Nonsense.” Unfazed, Celine murmured, “Will you like it very much, when I am impressed?” She couldn’t help how her body suddenly warmed, how it would be visible on her face.”
― Anna Cowan, The Duke

“Well?” the duke said, flicking an amused glance at her. “Prepare yourself,” she said. “I am about to do the impossible.” “And?” “I am going to charm you silly.” The duke turned back to the road, and a smile spread slowly over her mouth.”
― Anna Cowan, The Duke

“She could still feel the warmth of Celine’s nightdress in her fingers—warmth from Celine’s sleeping body, warmth that had brimmed over in Celine’s eyes when she first opened them. Perhaps it was a small, everyday treasure that thousands of Englishwomen enjoyed without thought: welcome in the waking eyes of their wives. Christ.”
― Anna Cowan, The Duke