The Servant and the Gentleman Quotes

“This was the lesson only love could teach. Here, now, forever, life could be sweet.”
― Annabelle Greene, The Servant and the Gentleman

“Haven’t I taught them well? You should have seen me at Hardcote. I was like a dragon.” “Hartley, that’s the loudest whisper I’ve ever heard.” Frakes tutted. “You’re ruining this.”
― Annabelle Greene, The Servant and the Gentleman

“I can’t decide whether I want you to keep talking because I’ve missed your voice, or tell you to stop blathering on about geese.” Hartley stroked Josiah’s hair. “Upon reflection, I’m happy with both.”
― Annabelle Greene, The Servant and the Gentleman

“Your teasing is much more palatable when accompanied by kisses.” “I’ll always tease you, and I’ll always kiss you. I promise you that.”
― Annabelle Greene, The Servant and the Gentleman

“All right.” Hartley pulled away. “Now I’m a little more convinced.” “If you need more reassurance...” “At least seven people are looking at us now.” “I don’t care.” “Oh, you.” Hartley smiled. “We’re going to be insufferable.”
― Annabelle Greene, The Servant and the Gentleman

“I won’t wear my new pin until I see you again. I don’t want it cheapened by other eyes. So do the same, please.”
― Annabelle Greene, The Servant and the Gentleman

“We’re already soldered together,” he whispered in Hartley’s ear. “Bound to one another. Pick any material you like. We’re woven together, knitted together, our roots have grown together. Even when we’re ashes, we’ll be one. Do you understand?”
― Annabelle Greene, The Servant and the Gentleman

“We’ll both try. We’ll both work. But most importantly, I have faith in you. Complete faith.” Josiah kissed the tip of Hartley’s nose. “Try to have faith in me.”
― Annabelle Greene, The Servant and the Gentleman

“Meeting Hartley, loving him, was a miracle. And miracles didn’t require work to maintain, not really. They needed faith.”
― Annabelle Greene, The Servant and the Gentleman

“I started making love to you when I took your boots off.” Hartley slipped his hand beneath Josiah’s trousers and took hold of the man’s stiff cock. “And I’ll keep doing it for as long as you want me to.”
― Annabelle Greene, The Servant and the Gentleman

“Christ, my thighs are sore.” “Too much pleasure?” “Too much work. A lifetime of it.” “There’s some wood in the eaves if you need to make a cross for yourself.” Hartley ran his hands along Josiah’s thighs until he reached the top of the man’s breeches. “I can find a few nails somewhere, I’m sure.” “You’d better start making love to me if you’re going to make blasphemous jokes.”
― Annabelle Greene, The Servant and the Gentleman

“Stop thinking about your cousin while your cock’s hard, or I’ll start believing all the things they say about rural men.”
― Annabelle Greene, The Servant and the Gentleman

“There was no sudden rush of joy. No fireworks in the night sky beyond the windowpane, no ecstatic embrace. Instead there was a profound peace: the sensation of coming home after a long, perilous journey, closing the door of one’s house, and knowing without a doubt that there would be no more dangers to face.”
― Annabelle Greene, The Servant and the Gentleman

“I’m not sure if you’ll grow tired of me or—” “I’ll never grow tired of you.” “I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to comprehend it.” “Comprehend what?” “That a man I’ve worshipped from afar for so very long wishes to be cared for.”
― Annabelle Greene, The Servant and the Gentleman

“Don’t push away the possibility of a future just because I took so long to notice.”
― Annabelle Greene, The Servant and the Gentleman

“For the first time in his life, he loved someone good. And to Hartley’s horrified surprise, it had made him good in turn.”
― Annabelle Greene, The Servant and the Gentleman

“Love...it meant something infinitely richer. With love, Josiah’s needs mattered more than his own. Josiah’s need to flourish, to achieve the greatness he deserved, meant so much more than his own childish need to keep him close.”
― Annabelle Greene, The Servant and the Gentleman

“Because unlike the Beasts, this is where all the men in my club would end up if caught as you were. No friends in high places.” Mr. Smith crossed through a line of densely written text with a frown. “Just low ones. But there are more low places than there are high ones.”
― Annabelle Greene, The Servant and the Gentleman

“Tighten your cravat. Not too much, but a little.” “How on earth can you see such a small detail in the dark?” “I have a sixth sense for clothes.” Hartley looked as if he’d never left the dinner table. If anything, his clothes looked neater. “I can smell a rumpled cravat at twenty paces.”
― Annabelle Greene, The Servant and the Gentleman

“A sudden surge of violin music followed by silence made him turn his head. “They’re about to serve sweets before the first dance.” “Your knowledge of musical cues is outstanding.”
― Annabelle Greene, The Servant and the Gentleman

“But he couldn’t keep letting fear make choices for him. There were higher feelings there too, glorious ones, and it was up to him to embrace them. “I am afraid.” He spoke with difficulty. “But I want you more than I want fear.”
― Annabelle Greene, The Servant and the Gentleman

“Perhaps that was the key: to keep excitement at the same pace as fear, never letting one outrun the other.”
― Annabelle Greene, The Servant and the Gentleman

“I can see why you’re comfortable taking charge of things.” He stroked down to the base, lingering there; Josiah bit his lip, exquisitely frustrated. “What large secrets you keep, Mr. Balfour.” “Very funny.”
― Annabelle Greene, The Servant and the Gentleman

“as he pulled away Josiah’s breeches with more strength than Josiah expected; it was like being under the hands of an alchemist, one’s base elements transformed into something finer with each hungry kiss, each lingering, possessive touch.”
― Annabelle Greene, The Servant and the Gentleman

“You’ve only seen me like this when I’m frightened, or overcome.” He grazed Josiah’s bottom lip with his teeth, revelling in the shiver that went through the both of them. “Allow me to show you what this is like—what I am like—when I’m at the height of my powers.”
― Annabelle Greene, The Servant and the Gentleman

“If he were to have a heaven on earth, it would be a person. Someone who carried home within him, the sense of being safe and protected from the world’s slings and arrows. Someone who could look at him, take his hand, and seamlessly envelop him in a shared future that could withstand any storm.”
― Annabelle Greene, The Servant and the Gentleman

“He was already leagues away from the man he’d been in London. As if he’d walked through a mirror, or emerged from this pool of lily-laden water shorn of everything he’d clung to. His ideas, prejudices, fears. He didn’t need them. Not now.”
― Annabelle Greene, The Servant and the Gentleman

“And if it wasn’t acting...oh, if it wasn’t, that would mean everything.”
― Annabelle Greene, The Servant and the Gentleman

“He would always feel as utterly obsessed with the man as he did now, then. There was no higher level that could be attained. With any other man that would bring a sense of disappointment, but not Josiah.”
― Annabelle Greene, The Servant and the Gentleman

“You’re terribly pretty when you’re whimsical.” “I am?” “Oh, yes. I encourage you to keep at it.”
― Annabelle Greene, The Servant and the Gentleman