A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting Quotes

“Would you - would you like to marry me, Kitty?' Lord Radcliffe - James - asked, voice like gravel.
She gave a helpless little laugh at the absurdity of the question - as if he did not know.
'I would,' she said. 'But first, I feel I must inform you that I come with four sisters, a badly leaking roof, and a veritable ocean of debt.'
He had started to smile now, and once begun it did not seem to stop, overtaking his whole face.
“I thank you for your honesty,’ he said cordially, and she laughed. ‘May I reassure you that I am desperate to meet your other sisters, the roof sounds charmingly rustic, and the debt does not faze me.’ He paused. ‘Of course, I understand that you will need to see my accounts before committing yourself,’ he went on, and she laughed again, loud and bright.
‘I’m sure that won’t be necessary,’ she said. ‘As long as you can promise you’re absurdly rich and you’ll pay off all my family’s debts.’
‘I am absurdly rich,’ he repeated. ‘And I will pay off all your family’s debts.’
‘Why then by all means,’ she said, grinning up at him, ‘I would indeed like to marry you.”
― Sophie Irwin, A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting

“By God, how could you let her do such a thing?’ There was real, fierce anger in his voice. ‘She could have been hurt.’ ‘Let her?’ his friend expostulated, bridling in indignation. ‘Good God man, have you ever tried telling her what to do?”
― Sophie Irwin, A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting

“There was nothing hesitant about the kiss, nothing uncertain. It was as if they'd both read the script beforehand and had—all along—simply been waiting for the cue.”
― Sophie Irwin, A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting

“I don't know what you want from me then,' she cried, casting out her arms. 'For I cannot make my situation any different. I must marry. And so far, I have no promises.'
He would not look at her.
'Ask me then,' she said, voice raw, 'ask me if I should like, if I should want to marry Pemberton, were the choice only about me?'
He looked up. 'Would you?'
'No,' she said, voice cracking. 'Now ask me, whether I should still love you, were the choice only mine to make?'
He took a step forward. 'Would you?' he said again.
'Yes,' she confessed. 'I will always choose my sisters. I will choose their need more than my want every day. But I want you just as much as I need money. You see me, in my entirety - the worst and the best of me - as no one else ever has.”
― Sophie Irwin, A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting

“She was going to shoot him,’ Archie said, dazed. ‘I was not,’ Kitty insisted. ‘Give me that pistol,’ Hinsley instructed angrily, making a grab for it. ‘By George, do you have the faintest idea how to use it?’ ‘Well, not really,’ Kitty admitted. ‘But as it turns out, neither do you – it wasn’t loaded, you dolt. I checked as soon as you left. Are you honestly a soldier?’ ‘Dear God,’ Hinsley cursed. ‘Dear God.”
― Sophie Irwin, A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting

“One must never begin a game by conceding,” he warned. “Play to win, my dear, always.”
― Sophie Irwin, A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting

“But first, I feel I must inform you that I come with four sisters, a badly leaking roof, and a veritable ocean of debt.’ He had started to smile now, and once begun it did not seem to stop, overtaking his whole face. ‘I thank you for your honesty,’ he said cordially, and she laughed. ‘May I reassure you that I am desperate to meet your other sisters, the roof sounds charmingly rustic, and the debt does not faze me.’ He paused. ‘Of course, I understand that you will need to see my accounts before committing yourself,’ he went on, and she laughed again, loud and bright. ‘I’m sure that won’t be necessary,’ she said. ‘As long as you can promise you’re absurdly rich and you’ll pay off all my family’s debts.’ ‘I am absurdly rich,’ he repeated. ‘And I will pay off all your family’s debts.”
― Sophie Irwin, A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting

“At home, at Netley, when either she or Beatrice couldn't sleep, they would whisper confidences to each other under the covers, sharing their secrets and fears until they belonged more to each other than to just one alone.”
― Sophie Irwin, A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting

“As they moved into the great entrance hall, she hissed into Kitty’s ear, quietly, so Cecily could not hear, “Is she a fool?” “An intellectual,” Kitty explained softly. Aunt Dorothy sighed. “I was afraid of that.”
― Sophie Irwin, A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting

“And little though you may care,” he added severely before he shut the door, “in polite society, it is considered highly inappropriate for an unmarried woman to be seen visiting an unmarried man’s house, maid or no maid.” She gave an extravagant roll of her eyes. “Dear lord, city dwellers are easily so scandalized. Do you think it’s the lack of fresh air?”
― Sophie Irwin, A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting

“Perhaps,” Aunt Dorothy said softly, pulling a comb slowly through the tangles, “we ought all to try to be a little kinder. Perhaps that is what being ‘good’ is—trying to pass on kindness, even when it is not convenient. I’m sure you could begin now, if you so wished.”
― Sophie Irwin, A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting

“They paused there for a beat, looking at each other with mutual calculation. It occurred to them both, then – though of course they did not know it – that they might equally have agreed to pistols at dawn.”
― Sophie Irwin, A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting

“Well you displayed so little anxiety about my being murdered," he said to her hotly, pride very much injured, "that I have a great mind not to tell you whether I was or not.”
― Sophie Irwin, A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting

“I have long known you to be the worst sort of villain.”
― Sophie Irwin, A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting

“Well, you displayed so little anxiety about my being murdered,' he said to her hotly, pride very much injured, 'that I have a great mind not to tell you whether I was or not.”
― Sophie Irwin, A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting

“It is not uncommon to encounter persons who are in the habit of making outlandish claims. It is rarer to meet persons who are also in the habit of fulfilling them, and it was to this second group that Miss Kitty Talbot belonged.”
― Sophie Irwin, A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting

“Why do you want it so much?” Aunt Dorothy asked imploringly, when Kitty did not answer. “I–I just,” Kitty faltered. “It could have been mine. If things—if things had gone differently for Mama and Papa, I would have had all this without thinking about it for a second. I am not so different to these other ladies, Aunt. They are not better than me. It feels so close—I cannot help but want to reach for it.”
― Sophie Irwin, A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting

“Bring your prettiest sister. And as Beatrice was currently—by her own admission—half girl, half forehead, and”
― Sophie Irwin, A Lady's Guide to Fortune-Hunting