A Duke Of Her Own Quotes
"Most betrothals spring from one of two fierce emotions: greed or love."
"The only reason I can countenance marrying Rupert is that I will be able to dower you."
"I suppose not," Olivia said, though secretly she sometimes wondered if she might just snap one day and break every social rule by running off to Rome with a footman.
"Your demeanor should ever augment your honor."
"I’m sure you’re right." The duke leaned his splintered walking stick against the fireplace and sat down opposite Olivia. "What I have to ask you is something that no gentleman should ever address with a young lady."
"You like dogs, though," Rupert stated. "Yes," Olivia nodded. "Said I’d do it because of that."
"My son means to say that he is deeply enthusiastic about marrying Miss Lytton once he has returned from his military service," the duke clarified.
"We’ll just say that we lay together on the sofa."
"I would rather muck out the stables than seduce a man who’s a head shorter and as light as thistledown."
"I cannot lose my position. I was born to it."
"Even a family retainer should not be tolerated if he oversteps the bounds of propriety."
"Lady Cecily Bumtrinket? My aunt? Lady Cecily is out in the rain?"
"A woman’s past her prime at twenty, decayed at four-and-twenty, old, and insufferable at thirty."
"I always heard the telltale sign was a squint, myself."
"I was born under a star, so the moon is within my grasp."
"Education should be expensive, don’t you think?"
"I find I’m so much happier if I have paid for a lecture, even if I fall asleep during it."
"I never truly believed there was anyone for me."
"I shan’t retire until I have a warmed milk and brandy."
"I am quite sure you did not mean to speak of the Marquess of Montsurrey in such a manner."
"Being shallow by nature, Justin and I have started a game to see which of us can come up with the worst insult."
"You dog’s-head, you rotten, roguey trendle-tail!"
"You thin lean polecat, you of the grasshopper thighs and bony rump!"
"You needn’t, Tarquin," the dowager said. "I always signal my arrival thus."
"The truth is that I don’t mind so much. You are a beautiful, willowy person, and I’m not."
"I’m sorry! It was so stupid of me, Quin. I never thought."
"Turdy-fancy-nasty-paty-lousy-fartical rogue!"
"You’re mine," he said, matter-of-factly. "Of course I’m happy you’re here."
"I’ll be fine. You’re the one who fell out of that other tree, not me."
"Sometimes a woman wraps her legs around her lover’s waist."
"I’ll happily stay here forever," he whispered. "I think this is my favorite place in the world."
"You are made of the same stuff as his first duchess, Evangeline. He adored her appearance as well, and found out too late that all that wanton sensuality tends to mask a woman who should be flattered to be called a trollop."
"I do understand the pole. But once you have to explain it, the verse is not very funny."
"If there had been a coffin available, I would have flung myself into it."
"You have a chance to make Mother and yourself happy. Rupert will come back one of these days, and his brain won’t be any more powerful than when he left this country. What on earth are you waiting for?"
"I don’t want to talk about my former wife," Quin said. "In fact, I’d just as soon never speak her name again."
"I’m not climbing down until I’ve had a rest. Wake me in a few hours."
"I think you could grow to love her—or care about her, if you prefer that term."
"Rupert has surpassed himself!" The duke shouted it. His entire face glowed with happiness.
"Happy is not . . . I can’t even describe what I’m feeling."
"I can see that you’re as dumbstruck as anyone, m’dear. Well, it’s the truth."
"The general labeled the Canterwick Rifles the ‘Forlorn Hope,'"
"He’s glowing," Georgiana murmured to her. "Isn’t it wonderful, Olivia?"
"I expect Picton didn’t want to let them climb the ramparts," Olivia whispered back to Georgiana.
"You could have married a war hero if I hadn’t taken your virginity. Every woman loves a hero."
"I do see what you mean," she said, lying back and folding her arms behind her head.
"I am quite certain that the duke is already preparing for the journey," Olivia said calmly.
"You raised me to be a duke, Mother. I would disgrace my own title if I allowed a man of my rank to die on a foreign shore through my own cowardice."
"I love the smell of the sea," she whispered, her voice just a thread of sound in the night.
"Nations at war tend not to have regular ferry service."
"You’re a petty blackmailer, if not worse, and I’m convinced the village would be better off without you."
"He watched dispassionately as Bessette’s bulbous face reddened to a beet color."
"But Olivia was here, somewhere. Five years before, he had not entered the Channel’s frigid, treacherous waters to save Alfie. He could not have saved Alfie. But he could make it down this bloody passage."
"I thought I had lost you," he said, his voice stark and uncompromising.
"You have changed my heart," he said at last. "I’ll never be comfortable without knowing where you are."
"For Tarquin Brook-Chatfield, Duke of Sconce, complicated words never had the same incantatory force as they had before his second marriage. He never worried if he couldn’t find just the right ones."
"There were only three that truly mattered, and they bore repeating: 'I love you; I love you; I love you.'"