The Earl I Ruined Quotes

“He stared at her, struck dumb. It’s an act. It’s always been an act. She was not entirely the haughty, saucy woman she presented herself to be. She just worked very, very hard at pretending that she was. For some reason, this broke his heart.”
― Scarlett Peckham, The Earl I Ruined

“Sometimes, Lady Constance, you really are the woman of my dreams.” “Thank you for finally realizing it,”
― Scarlett Peckham, The Earl I Ruined

“He was not sure he believed she didn’t like it. He had heard the change in her breathing sure as anything. But in matters such as this, one took a lady at her word.”
― Scarlett Peckham, The Earl I Ruined

“It was a talent, his bland exterior. In all the years she had dismissed his dullness, she had failed to notice that his affability required as much calculated performance as her theatrics did.”
― Scarlett Peckham, The Earl I Ruined

“She rolled her eyes. “Apthorp, my dear, fretting about what is appropriate between us now is like worrying one does not have one’s parasol whilst drowning in the ocean.”
― Scarlett Peckham, The Earl I Ruined

“He turned around and busied himself retrieving his discarded clothing from the floor, because it made him ache to look at her. She had always had an affinity for gossip. She’d always been cleverer with her words than she was careful. And she’d always been provocative—determined to bend the world to her very vivid vision of it. Before, he had found these qualities poignant. They—along with her light, her charm, her mordant wit, her laughter—made her who she was. Irrepressibly, endearingly herself. Now she just seemed reckless. Cruel.”
― Scarlett Peckham, The Earl I Ruined

“She knew better than anyone that one was not entitled to one’s family’s affection. One was not even entitled to one’s home, or one’s country. One had to win one’s place through character and merit. And if one’s character was susceptible to occasional lapses in judgment, one had to draw on the more reliable powers of beguilement, ingenuity, and wiles.”
― Scarlett Peckham, The Earl I Ruined

“In all her years of knowing him—sharing a roof with him—she had never seen him quite like this. All … messy and undone. Perhaps she should have ruined him ages ago, for in this state he was the single most compelling sight she’d ever seen.”
― Scarlett Peckham, The Earl I Ruined

“He was so resplendently handsome it was ludicrous. And quite unfair. Proximity to him had always made her feel windblown and rain-dampened and wretched, even on her most collected days. With his effortless beauty and courtly manners and perfect knowledge of the orders of precedence, he had always been everything she was not.”
― Scarlett Peckham, The Earl I Ruined

“God’s elbow,” he muttered. A weak invective, for in his penitent years he’d eschewed cursing. “Dam-fucking-nation,” he tried again. Yes. That was better.”
― Scarlett Peckham, The Earl I Ruined