Courtney Milan Quotes

I have looked high." Her voice was an urgent whisper. "And I have fallen farther than you can imagine. So don't you lecture me. All I want is to pretend that this is enough - that I can be satisfied by the scraps that remain to me. " He had ~ Courtney Milan

A sign on the door proclaimed: The countess is NOT to be bothered except in the cases of death, disembowelment, the Apocalypse, or the arrival of her mother. ~ Courtney Milan

It was the first hint that she'd given that there was anything to her but an excess of shyness. He'd begun to actually doubt his own memory. Surely this woman hadn't come to his house and attempted blackmail. ~ Courtney Milan

It was like coming home to a place that he held dear and finding that the wood had burnt to the ground and the house was in ruins. ~ Courtney Milan

I used to think that the world could not spin correctly on its axis if he were not present."

"I'm sure you've learned otherwise."

"Oh, no." Theresa shook her head. "I've just learned to walk off-center. ~ Courtney Milan

Now come," he said. "Does your Alex love you back, or is he a hopeless idiot?"
"He loves me," she said quietly. "But I'm afraid he'll stop after we marry. He'll change his mind. He'll - "
"He'll love you more. Trust me."
"Really?" She was far too somber.
"Really." He had no words to make her smile, and so Gareth tweaked her nose.
And she giggled.
It had been a long time since he'd laughed. But despite all those years, he still remembered how. What he'd
forgotten was the lightness of his soul when he did so. The moment was perfect. ~ Courtney Milan

Defiance. He swallowed. It wasn't enough for him - not anymore. He wanted to be more than her defiance. He wanted to be her strength, her amusement. He wanted to be her lover. He wanted to be her every wicked desire and her safe haven, all at once. ~ Courtney Milan

When he's like this, Miss Lowell," Mark offered from his seat on the sofa, "I usually take it upon myself to stamp out in a rage."

"Must I stamp? Or can I sweet out gracefully?" "By all means, sweep. ~ Courtney Milan

It had been so long since anyone had made her feel fluttery. It felt like winter sunshine - something to be savored because it surely wouldn't last. ~ Courtney Milan

He'd fallen a little bit in love with her the moment she'd said his name as if it had value. ~ Courtney Milan

Three quarters of respectable England hates you."
"Half," Sebastian replied with a smile. "It's really only half. Judging by my correspondence, it may be as little as forty-eight percent. And of those, only a small number want to cause me bodily harm. The rest just wish to have me gagged or thrown in prison. ~ Courtney Milan

You're perfectly right. There's no two ways about it. When you leave, it will slay me. ~ Courtney Milan

Do not pollute my perfectly acceptable figurative speech with irrelevant facts! ~ Courtney Milan

I believe," he said, "that there is a special place in hell for those who steal truth. And that man - whoever he is - I hope he is burning there. ~ Courtney Milan

A life without risk is one where I tell myself I'm not worthy of taking a chance. ~ Courtney Milan

One mustn't justify day-to-day morality with extraordinary circumstances. Otherwise, we would all feel free to rape and murder at the drop of a cat. ~ Courtney Milan

She shouldn't have been beautiful - she was too forward, too freckled, too thin. Still ... Oh, to hell with it all. He wasn't hungry, anyway. He reached out and took her hand, drawing her to him. She drifted near, until she was close enough to kiss. Close enough for him to see the green of her eyes, widening as he turned her hand over, palm up.
"There's something I've wanted to do since the first moment I saw you," he said. It came out close to a whisper.
"Oh?" He could feel the puff of breath from that word against his nose.
"Don't even think of arguing."
She shook her head. Her lips opened, an impossible, inviting fraction.
He set the fork in the palm of her hand and closed his fingers tightly around hers. "I want you to eat," he said. ~ Courtney Milan

Miss Marshall was wearing a ghastly green gown, one that had no doubt been lent to her by a friend. It fit rather poorly, gaping at the bosom and stretching at the hips. The color dimmed the fire of her hair - which, without her normal pins, refused to stay in place. Little strands made an auburn halo around her head.
He'd never seen anything quite so lovely. ~ Courtney Milan

I believe that women are human beings. That belief is not diametrically opposed to thinking that men are human beings, and that if one human being has the opportunity to be kind to another, she should do so. ~ Courtney Milan

She wanted him to be right. She needed him to be wrong. And while that sounded as if she were confused, confusion implied uncertainty. And Margaret was dead certain that he was both the last man on earth that she should kiss, and the only one she dreamed of holding. ~ Courtney Milan

This wasn't a case of gilding the lily. If there was a lily underneath all that, it had long since been crushed to a pulp. The party stopped in its tracks as she took off her cloak, frozen in wordless contemplation of a wardrobe that made the word "gaudy" sound sweet and demure by contrast. ~ Courtney Milan

And then he lifted his eyes from the chair to his bed. If this was his imagination, his imagination was glorious. Margaret lay on his coverlet, stretched out full length. She still wore a corset and petticoats, but they'd been hiked up so that he could see where her garters tied at the knees. She crooked one finger at him and smiled.

"Margaret. What are you doing here?"

"I," she said, "have been procuring my future."

His mind went blank. He didn't know how to take it. She'd decided to have him, after all. She'd realized she didn't need him, not one bit. His head pounded. His heart swelled in a mix of hope and despair.

"I want you."

Hope. Hope. It was all hope. He took a careful step towards her.

"Wait. There's a condition."

"You know," Ash said, his throat closing, "that if you are half-naked on my bed, all conditions will be met. Instantly."

"Ah, but this is one of the conditions I did not deliver to Lord Lacy-Follett earlier today."

If he'd been overwhelmed by her appearance before, he was stunned now. "You talked to Lacy-Follett? You cannot be serious."

"Oh, but I am. I had to renegotiate, after I'd heard what you had done. I had been so blinded by my loyalty to my brothers that I could not see that I owed loyalty to you, as well. I was wrong. I love you, Ash."

He swallowed.

She smiled up at him. "I love that you make me feel as if I'm the onl ~ Courtney Milan

The great benefit I see to marrying you is that I would be married to you. I ~ Courtney Milan

We can't help being the most interesting people in the room. ~ Courtney Milan

No. When I was a girl, I wanted to be a pirate."
That brought up an all-too-pleasant image - Miss Marshall, the rich, dark red of her hair unbound and flying defiantly in the wind aboard a ship's deck. She'd wear a loose white shirt and pantaloons. He would definitely surrender.
"I am less shocked than you might imagine," Edward heard himself say. "Entirely unshocked."
She smiled in pleasure.
"A bloodthirsty cutthroat profession? Good thing you gave that up. It would never have suited you."
Her expression of pleasure dimmed.
"You'd have succeeded too easily," Edward continued, "and now you'd be sitting, bored as sin, atop a heap of gold too large to spend in one lifetime. Still, though, wouldn't it solve ever so many problems if you married a lord? James Delacey could never touch you again if you did. ~ Courtney Milan

Here's my most important rule: Never have intercourse when one of the parties is in love with the other. It won't end well."
She gasped. Her whole world turned grey. "You arrogant cad! I'm not in love with you."
"I know." He didn't look away from her. "Isn't that what I said? Only one of us is in love and it isn't you. ~ Courtney Milan

THERE WERE THREE SKILLS that Miss Emily Fairfield had found necessary in her current position in life: lying, smuggling, and - most important of all - scaling walls. It was the last she'd put to use at the moment. ~ Courtney Milan

I'm tired of having to remind myself that the women who are after me wish only an experience or a reputation and not a lifetime. I'm tired of holding myself back. I'm tired of having to flatten all but the barest hint of affection."
Her breath caught.
"I'm tired," he said, "Of not letting myself fall in love. ~ Courtney Milan

A lady always avoids the truth, when it happens to be gauche. ~ Courtney Milan

Ned: I figured it was time for a picnic by the menagerie.
Jenny: And you brought me? Why not take the woman you're marrying?
Ned: She's grown up with the Duke of Ware. Lions seem less ferocious. ~ Courtney Milan

I'm asking you to marry me within the next hour." He simply looked at her. "I can't think of a reason why you should. I have no moral sense to speak of. I lie, I cheat, I steal, and I'll probably drive you away screaming within the week. But if you marry me, I'll only do those things on your behalf. ~ Courtney Milan

He'd been lying to himself all these months.
He WAS in love with her. And he had no idea what to do about it. ~ Courtney Milan

Her kiss didn't sweep away the dark anguish he felt in his heart. Instead, it embraced it. It acknowledged it. ~ Courtney Milan

Some servent with no sense of the symbolic had kept the hinges well-oiled during the years of his absence,as if their marital life had merely been cast into temporary abeyance. ~ Courtney Milan

You don't love me," she said slowly. "You've looked at me the same way from the instant we met."
His grip tightened on her waist. He leaned into her on a hiss. "Don't tell me I don't love you. Don't you dare tell me that, Margaret. I have loved you since the moment you read my brother's book to me. I love that you are the one woman I can trust with my weakness, that you know all the dark parts of me and do not turn away. I love the fierceness with which you protect the ones you love, even when they don't deserve it. I love every last inch of you, and I want you for my own." His words were hot, fiercely possessive, and yet he leaned his forehead against hers gently. "Although God knows, I don't deserve you. ~ Courtney Milan

If a man ever lets you know that he sees marriage as a trap, and women as nothing but scheming connivers, you are by no means to marry him. Any man that sees your entire sex in so harsh a light has nothing to offer you. ~ Courtney Milan

This feeling, this tentative flutter in her belly - this was hers. This was sunlight on her face. It was the warmth she'd dreamed of. It was a curl of honest attraction, the first she'd experienced in years. ~ Courtney Milan

He knew taht many of his compatriots avoided marriage at all costs. They saw matrimony as an annoyance, a wife as another person who would nag and prod. But when he repeated his vows, he heard "as long as we both shall life" and he hoped. ~ Courtney Milan

The Bible got it wrong when it intimated that the valley contained the shadow of death. Death dwells in the high places. ~ Courtney Milan

If he were another person entirely, he might burst into flowery speech. If he did, she'd probably laugh at him. Besides, he didn't believe in pretending to be anyone other than who he was. Even if she swooned at whatever poetic nonsense he managed to spout, she would only be disappointed once they grew comfortable with each other and he went back to making jokes about death and gonorrhea. ~ Courtney Milan

By the by," Stephen said, "what is the difference between a viscount and a stallion?"
Miss Marshall shook her head. "What is it?"
Stephen gave her a broad smile. "The first is a horse's arse. The second is an entire horse."
She buried her head in her hands. "No. You cannot distract me with terrible jokes. You are supposed to be looking up facts. Shoo!"
But Stephen didn't stop. "What's the difference between a marquess and a paperweight?"
"I'm sure you'll tell me."
"One of them can't do anything unless a servant helps it along. The other one holds down papers. ~ Courtney Milan

One could push a pack of truths together to make one despicable falsehood. ~ Courtney Milan

Mr. Clark," she repeated, looking up at him. "You are very tall."
"And you," he said in a low voice, "you, my most maddeningly beautiful, brilliant, Free. You are perfectly sized. If you Mr. Clark me once more, I shall be forced to do something dreadful, something like kiss you in public."
Even her wildest fantasies had not had him saying something like that on arrival. She squeezed his hands and then looked up into his dark eyes.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Clark," she said. "What did you say, Mr. Clark? Mr. Clark, I fear that I have become rather hard of hearing. The noise of the press is terribly distracting. What was that you said you'd do if I called you Mr. Clark? ~ Courtney Milan

He snorted. "Are you lying to me, Miss Marshall?"
"Of course I am." She smiled at him. "I thought it would put you at ease. ~ Courtney Milan

Then I'll have to succeed three times as hard as they want me to fail. You, of all people, should understand that. ~ Courtney Milan

Never hit a man with a closed fist," he told her. He could feel her pulse.
"Why? Because it gives you an excuse to manhandle me?"
He let go. "Slap his face instead."
"Ha."
"It will make him take you less seriously, and then he won't be expecting it when you knee him in the groin. ~ Courtney Milan

He held her for a minute, then two, then three, simply holding her and committing to memory what he could not have in life. ~ Courtney Milan

Hugo reached down and plucked a spare twig from the ground and set it on the bench between them. "This," he said, "is a wall, and I will not cross it. ~ Courtney Milan

The only thing worse than an unlovable woman was an unlovable woman who whined about not being loved. ~ Courtney Milan

What part of your duty am I?"
He squeezed her hand. "You're the ray of sun at the center of the storm. ~ Courtney Milan

If I've learned anything, it's that we know next to nothing. Disease is a mystery. Health is inscrutable. The body itself is scarcely understood; we can only examine the secrets of the dead. And in all that dark ignorance, we're sometimes granted a rare moment of illumination. The truth is a gift. ~ Courtney Milan

I wish my genius ran to making automatons," he said. "I would invent one that would follow you around with a tray. It would wait patiently for you to look up from whatever you were doing, and as soon as you did, it would say, 'Lady Cambury, you must have something to eat.'"

She swallowed her bite of apple. "That would be extremely annoying."

"I do not consider that a detriment."

"I consider it a waste of a good automaton. I would modify your invention," she said, reaching for some cheese. "I'd dress my version up in my best silk and send it out to pay morning calls. Oh, how I hate making morning calls. It wouldn't need much of a vocabulary. 'Yes,' my automaton would say, 'this weather is dreadful, isn't it?' In fact, I think that's how I would do it. Whatever the other person says, it would answer, 'Yes, it most certainly is, isn't it?' My automaton would have perfect manners. ~ Courtney Milan

We're friends...And what that means is this: I won't let anyone hurt you. Not if I can stop it. ~ Courtney Milan

We don't need wealth. We don't need riches. We Lanes just believe harder than everyone else, and good things come to us. ~ Courtney Milan

No doubt she was wondering how to fight him off. That made him feel like some sordid roué, thinking of nothing but his own pleasure. But as little as he'd been in polite company, even Ash knew better than to issue a clarification. "No, Miss Lowell," Ash could imagine himself saying, "I would never force myself on you. I mean to seduce you into willingness. That's all." That would get him a fork stabbed through his hand, by the black look she gave her pudding.
Thank God the knives had been removed along with the beef. ~ Courtney Milan

If people want you to stop talking, or to stop dressing the way you do, or to change who you are, it's because you hurt their eyes. We've all been trained not to stare into the sun.' - Oliver ~ Courtney Milan

Well, perhaps it was more than her spirit. He admired her intelligence. The way that she'd walk into a room and immediately determine who was in charge and how best to alienate him. He wanted a wife just like that - except, ~ Courtney Milan

I'm not stubborn," Ash said. "I'm right. There's a difference. ~ Courtney Milan

You're annoying. You always act as if everything is so easy. 'Well, Oliver, it seems to me that your choice is either to quit or continue,'" he mimicked, remembering his father's advice when he'd been on the verge of leaving school. The other man only smiled. "I'm your father. It's my job to annoy you. ~ Courtney Milan

I've a goodly share of faults. I rush in, where I should tread carefully. I speak, where I should listen. But when I hear them sing, I don't just hear a hymn. They're singing to God because they haven't found anyone else who will listen. ~ Courtney Milan

I'll be your friend in daylight. I'll treat you as a comrade in every gas-lit ballroom. But alone, under moonlight, I'll not pretend that I want you for anything but mine. ~ Courtney Milan

Edward had the odd notion that after years of drab motionlessness, his entire world had suddenly begun to spin about him. He'd had that feeling ever since he'd been pulled into her orbit on the bank of the Thames.
She gave him the most astonishing vertigo. He should have hated it.
But he didn't - not one bit. ~ Courtney Milan

Truth, but truth twisted to sting. ~ Courtney Milan

I'm going to explode," she muttered. "Into a cloud of dust and despair. ~ Courtney Milan

They want a woman who is a canvas, white and empty. Standing still, existing for no other purpose than to serve as a mute object onto which they can paint their own hopes and desires. They want their brides veiled. They want a demure, blank space they can fill with whatever they desire."
"Miss Lowell, you magnificent creature, I want you to paint your own canvas. I want you to unveil yourself. ~ Courtney Milan

Only lawlessness and chaos can be born out of lawlessness and chaos. ~ Courtney Milan

I'm feeling generous. I shall answer one question for every month you spent in my company as a child." He looked over at her. Her lips thinned. Her fingers tapped an angry rhythm against her saucer. Robert stood up. "As you are no doubt aware," he said, "that leaves you with no questions at all. This interview is done. ~ Courtney Milan

What can I say? I have a thing for women who carry heavy books and know how to use them ~ Courtney Milan

Sir Mark Turner," he said. "I speak with the tongues of a thousand angels. Butterflies follow me wherever I go. Birds sing when I take a breath. ~ Courtney Milan

See?" Jenny said. "That was good. A comforting gesture, and completely unprompted on my part. You're a
quick study. Even you will have to admit that, despite your appeal to logic, touch works. All the cold in me flows to you."
"Cold can't flow," he said, pulling her closer. "Only heat.
Thermodynamically speaking - "
"Gareth?"
He looked down.
"Don't ruin this."
He didn't. ~ Courtney Milan

I earned this, fair and square. We'll, maybe it hadn't been fair. And maybe it hadn't been precisely square. Still, she'd earned it legally. Legally and ... rectangularly. That would have to do. ~ Courtney Milan

Edward didn't know what he was thinking, asking her about marriage. He wasn't a damned viscount. He refused to be one. And whatever odd flutterings he may have felt in her presence, whatever odd imaginings he had harbored, he wasn't going to marry her.
And yet ... It was tempting, too. While he hadn't been paying attention, his mind had constructed a might-have-been, a world where he'd never been cast out, where he'd never had to make his heart as black and hard as coal. If he'd been Edward Delacey, he might have courted her in his own right. Edward Delacey, dead fool that he was, could have had the one thing that Edward Clark never would. ~ Courtney Milan

And your mom?" Blake clears his throat. "She's not with us." I remember the conversation Blake and I had on the way down and tense. I can only imagine what my mother will say. But my mother just smiles brilliantly. "That's good! Too many boys your age get spoiled by their mothers. They don't know how to cook, how to do laundry. Tina is going to be a busy doctor. She'll need someone to do all that for her. Better if you're not used to having someone else take care of you. ~ Courtney Milan

He wasn't sure what he was saying, either, but he felt as if he were slipping into some dangerous world - one where answers ceased to be easy. ~ Courtney Milan

MARGARET HAD SEEN ASH cheerfully powerful, as talkative as a jaybird. She'd seen him silently powerful while he was listening to those around her. She didn't like seeing him vulnerable. It made her feel odd inside - hotly angry on his behalf, and enraged that someone had made him feel that way. ~ Courtney Milan

In fact, if the conversation had been animate, the merciful thing to do would have been to take it out behind the barn and shoot it. ~ Courtney Milan

Sebastian simply shrugged once more, placed his hand over his mouth in an exaggerated motion, and then bowed, gesturing to Robert. Robert translated this as 'I'm deeply sorry, but having promised my cousin that I wouldn't say a word, I must now embarrass him as best as I can with gestures. ~ Courtney Milan

You dictated it to your father," the Duke continued. "And you said: Dear Oliver, please come home. What are you going to bring me? Love, your Free.' And I remember thinking ... "
Frederica felt herself blush." How mercenary."
"I remember thinking," he said, as if she hasn't spoken, "that I would give everything I had for a little sister. ~ Courtney Milan

Miss Fairfield," he said quietly, "I am not your enemy. Stop treating me as one." Her heart slammed in her breast. "I have no enemies." "That, Miss Fairfield, is bollocks, and you know it. You have only enemies. ~ Courtney Milan

It's called basic human decency, and I deserve no credit for doing what every man should. ~ Courtney Milan

But I've always found that the quickest way to make someone relent in his foolish edicts is to take every command literally and to perform it with flagrant obedience. ~ Courtney Milan

If I had married, there is much I would not have learned of myself. This has been hard and painful and horrible. But I've learned that I'm stronger than hard, better than pain, and that with enough luck, horrible can go away. ~ Courtney Milan

You're trying to charm me with mathematics," she said.

"It's it working?"

She looked up at him. Yes, said her dark eyes, shining up at him. Yes, said the past of her lips, the fingers that drew up to brush her hair. Yes, said the tilt of her body in his direction.

"No," she told him with a firm shake of her head. "It isn't. ~ Courtney Milan

Perhaps God gave one sisters to teach one to love the inexplicable. ~ Courtney Milan

Don't imagine it would be the usual kind of marriage." He seemed to withdraw even more. "It needn't even be consummated. Any woman I liked we'll enough to marry doesn't deserve to be saddled to me. If we marry, it will be a quiet wedding by special license in a back room. At the end, we'll go our separate ways
you, to your farm, and me ... " He looked around the small room at the messy piles of paper. "I'm not offering to make a life with you. I'm merely giving you the chance to make your child legitimate. Nothing more."
He watched her, his eyes hooded and wary. And deep inside ... She had no notion as to what to say.
She let out a long breath. "Oh, you are romantic. ~ Courtney Milan

I am small," she said, "but mighty. ~ Courtney Milan

When you keep quiet, people fill in their own most intelligent thoughts on your behalf. ~ Courtney Milan

I'm not difficult," Violet said. "I'm simple. I like good books and clever conversation and being left alone much of the time. How does that make me difficult? I make sense? I don't talk about my feelings, of course, but then, I don't want to." She shrugged. "So that's reasonable."
Sebastian smiled despite himself, a smile that felt bitter even to him. "God, no. Not feelings. Heaven forbid that you have anything so messy."
"I have feelings." She spoke stiffly. "I just don't talk about them. What's the point? Talking never changes them. ~ Courtney Milan

His fingers went to the buttons of his jacket, and her mouth dried. His buttons were simple cloth and metal affairs, scarcely worth a second thought. And yet as he undid them, she had second thoughts and third thoughts, none of them proper. His gloved fingers were long and graceful, and every button he undid revealed another inch of creamy linen, one that hinted at broad shoulders and strong muscles.
He'd not shown her the slightest bit of skin, but the act of unbuttoning his coat sparked indecent thoughts - memories of his arm coming around her, his mouth on hers ...
He stopped undoing buttons, and she realized he'd only wanted to reach the inside pocket. She sat back in disappointment. ~ Courtney Milan

Let them say what they wish behind your back. You need only be strong enough that they don't say it to your face. ~ Courtney Milan

He felt as if he'd woken up, weak and confused, only to be told that he'd spent the last three weeks in bed with a fever
and that during his illness, Queen Victoria had abdicated the throne and run off with a lion-tamer from Birmingham. The world seemed an entirely different place. ~ Courtney Milan

It had taken Oliver years to learn his lesson: keep quiet and let men like Bradenton test the fences. It wouldn't do them any good, and if you were careful, one day you'd be in a position to buy their whole damned farm. ~ Courtney Milan

If that door opens now, of course," he murmured in her ear, "I can step away and only the flush in your cheeks will raise suspicion." His hands continued to chart a dangerous course over her body. He stroked her, caressed her, until she strained against him. He kissed the back of her neck. "So I think we should remove any doubt as to what is happening. ~ Courtney Milan

There was only a language of families, a tongue woven from a lifetime of shared experiences. Its vocabulary consisted of gestures and curt sentences, incomprehensible to all outsiders. Inside, it wasn't difficult to translate at all. ~ Courtney Milan

What you did when you were young could kill you. It just might take years to do it. ~ Courtney Milan

Keep quiet. Don't panic. Never tell anyone the truth. She'd lived with their rules for twelve years, and for what? So that she might one day be so lucky as to be forgotten entirely. The memory of Minerva Lane - of who she'd been, what she'd done - felt like a hot coal covered in cold ashes. It smoldered on long after the fire had been doused. Sometimes, all that heat rose up in her until she felt the need to shriek like a teapot. Until she wanted to burn the mousy shreds of her tattered personality. It rose up in her now, that fiery rebellion. The part of her that was still Minerva - the part that hadn't been ground to smoothness - whispered temptation in her ear. You don't need to keep quiet. You need a strategy. ~ Courtney Milan

Maybe that's what I have been looking for. When storms and rockslides threaten, I am looking for someone who will hold on to me and not let go. ~ Courtney Milan

Miranda, how in God's name did you end up here?"
"Well," Miranda said. "It's a sweet tale, about kittens and puppies and rainbows and love. ~ Courtney Milan

He looked over at her, at the fierce expression on her face. Her hair spilled around her shoulders in little curls, tickling his arm. And he felt a sense of unimaginable wonder. He'd thought to keep her safe, and yet here she was, insisting that she would protect him. He couldn't wrap his mind around what this could mean. ~ Courtney Milan

When someone falls," Mark said, "you don't throw her back down in the dirt. You offer her a hand up. It's the Christian thing to do. ~ Courtney Milan