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She smiled. He’d joked once that he feared her gown might be contagious, but it was her smile that was catching. It caught him now. He felt hooked by it, no desire to do anything except smile back at her.
-
I adhere to the law of chastity because I don’t believe in pushing women. That’s what it means to be a man. I don’t hurt others simply to make myself feel superior. Gossip can ruin a woman as surely as unchaste behavior. True men don’t indulge in either. We don’t need to.
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Under any other circumstances, he’d have found himself stealing glances all evening. But looking at her was like picking up a luxurious peach and discovering it half taken over by mold.
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M is for Me. I’m yours, even when you make mistakes.
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His past followed him around as faithfully as his shadow.
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She felt like a juggler tossing torches into the air. The circus-master kept throwing more in. Sooner or later, one would fall, and the life she'd built would burn to cinders.
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“You count,” he said softly. “That’s what it means, to not belong - it means that you count. It wouldn’t be bearable if you didn’t know it would end.
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Anything is bearable if you can fight it, but if you must sit back and take it… That breaks you in a way I can’t explain.”
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“Distressed sighs!” Robert protested. “Not once did I stoop to distressed sighs! I might have emitted a manly huff of oppression.
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Everything comes easily to Sebastian, don't you know? He drifts because of it - drifts from person to person, thing to thing, gadding about like a butterfly.
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All trace of the woman he had seen had vanished, leaving behind a shadow with perfect posture and no conversation. She was right. Everyone would wonder if he flirted with her. He wouldn’t even know how to manage it. One couldn’t flirt with a lump.
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"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.” He was talking about friendship, but the way he looked at her… She would crackle like fire if he touched her.
-
“Ah, the rule that says that women aren’t allowed to be intelligent.” He brushed a kiss against her forehead. “Burn that one to the ground, Violet, and dance on the ashes. And damn anyone who tells you it’s selfish to do so.
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For everyone who has carried water in thimbles and teaspoons throughout the centuries. And for all those who continue to do so. For as many centuries as it takes.
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Ash Turner seduced her with the promise of her own self.
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She was nothing. He had everything. And for what little it was worth, he was embarrassed by his own strength.
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She wagged a finger at him. “You’re mispronouncing that word.” “Your pardon?” He groped, trying to remember what he’d said. “Suffragette? How does one pronounce it, then?” “Suffragette,” she said, “is pronounced with an exclamation point at the end. Like this: ‘Huzzah! Suffragettes!
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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.
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I’m going to explode,” she muttered. “Into a cloud of dust and despair.
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"Work your way on to number twelve,” she snapped. “Number eleven wants nothing more to do with you.
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My entire notion of friendship altered when I depended on someone for more than just the pleasant passing of time.
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Here’s the thing: Admitting I’m flirting is a big step for me. I don’t want to be ignored. It hurts, like I’m being told that it’s just me. That I’m flirting, and he’s just handing out equations.
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Miss Fairfield had a gift for taking a beautiful concept and then marring it beyond all recognition.
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He couldn't bring himself to look directly at her. Her gown was the color of daylight just before sunset; if he looked at her too long, he feared he might be left blind once she was gone.