Quotes from Mary Balogh

He wanted her. He did not say so, but the evidence was there for her, and it was indisputable. He wanted her. And she wanted him, with an ache that drugged her mind again. It had been so long. So very long. And it had never been exciting. Never anything but briefly and mildly pleasurable. But she ached to be possessed again, to feel her femininity affirmed again. And with him. With him it would be good. Very good.

Elizabeth had told him all about her life at home, her dreams of a home of her own in which family ties would be close, in which love would be the ruling spirit.

It was the safe thing to do, but that did not make it right.

One look at her had brought on that familiar sensation of homecoming.

When you believe in yourself, Anna, when you are in command of yourself, when nothing derogatory anyone says of you or to you has the power to arouse your anger or any desire to retaliate, people seem to sense it and respect you.

He would not have raised an eyebrow and smiled behind his eyes at a lady whose bed he had climbed into by mistake one night. He would have done the gentlemanly thing and died of mortification.

Philippa knew why her mother had kept everything bottled up inside. It was the innate compulsion some people—particularly women?—felt not to make a fuss, not to display their suffering and humiliation to the whole world or even to those who are nearest and dearest to them.

Could she ever have imagined in those few golden months that one day they would be in a room together, separated as if by a thousand miles?

The scoundrel has not let you down, has he? My God, I will not allow anyone else to do that to you. I'll kill him!

I shall allow you to return to your trunks and your mice in the attic, then, he said. One hates to interrupt a lady when she is having fun.

is the epitome of unfairness that many people would choose the comfortable lie over the uncomfortable truth and, in this case, would brand you as the archvillain instead of him.

Martin breakfasted with Elizabeth and Nancy. The latter treated him with cold civility. As if he cared, Martin thought. Silly bitch—did she think he cared how she treated him?

He had spent almost two years hearing a baby cry in his nightmares while he found it impossible to reach her.

I will not knowingly empty my life of all meaning. Not just for pleasure. And not for you. It would be a poor exchange indeed.

Love had taken her quite unawares.

There had been a fairy-tale quality about the day. It had not seemed as real as others.

For very pride's sake she had kept quiet about the humiliation that had ravaged her life. There was all the horror of being pitied if one spoke out.

It would be a challenge worth undertaking . . . to rid your face of that look of longing . . . and to replace it with a look of—something else.

But she did not want to break away. This moment was the whole of life. Tomorrow he would be gone.

It is most degrading. And a marquess, no less, Bridget. He could not even be a simple mister or perhaps a baronet. Oh, no, he has to be a marquess.

And he must have felt her desire. And her surrender. He might have made her his.

following spring to find himself a

You cannot continue an embrace when you know your victim to be unwilling . . . There is something of the gentleman in you after all. I believe I am safe.

Rapists do not deserve to live." And