Quotes from Mary Balogh

I could not possibly have imagined anything more wonderful if I had tried.

You did not grow up in the gutter. Your mother housed you and fed and clothed you. But even if you had, your basic human dignity would not be the less. Why should a king be of more value as a human being than a vagabond?

I had forgot that you have discovered my darkest secret—that I am a gentleman at heart.

Can we accept reality now and move on?

She had given him all she had to give. She would not feel guilty for that.

She wished and wished that he had not come. She had thought all that turmoil behind her. She had achieved a hard-won measure of tranquility in the past three months. She did not want it all destroyed. She did not want another three days with him. And the inevitable parting again. She did not believe she could hold on to her sanity if she had to go through all that again. If! She was already going through it.

What is going to happen between you and me in that time? Are we going to do what we both want to do?

Elizabeth again found it difficult to reconcile that memory of a tender, loving Robert with the afternoon's encounter with the cold, unfeeling Marquess of Hetherington.

But did he want to repeat that sort of relationship? . . . The inability to share any of his inner self with her?

She felt no uncontrollable physical passion. Only something far, far worse. Only a deep feeling of affection. Only a craving to get behind his mask—because he assuredly did wear one, however much he denied doing so. Only a longing to know the man as he was and to find that after all he was likable and lovable. Only a need to deny reality and find her fantasy lover again.

She remembered Robert as he had looked when the vicar had pronounced them married. The sun itself had seemed to be behind his smile as he had turned to her and kissed her lightly on the lips. It had seemed that they had conquered fate, that they were now safe forever.

He was asked, rhetorically, he guessed, if he supposed the irons would heat themselves, a question that was followed by a not particularly complimentary remark about men.

Being with them had always filled him with a yearning for a similar sort of love. He had tried to find it, but he had never come close.

If he was determined to give, then she would take.

Maybe they do not have a breaking point. But even if they do, do you care, Abby?

You cannot make a romantic lover of me, my dear. Or a noble character. I want you. In bed, do you understand? And I mean to do everything in my power during the next two weeks to have you there. Nothing else. No romance.

There was no looking to the future. It was a moment without future.

It's not enough. There has to be something else. And there is nothing else between you and me.

It had always seemed unfair to him that Web had confided his love for her when she was fifteen before he had thought to confide his own.

She realized even as she gazed that he was looking at her just as intently.

It was hard to cope with pain, she was finding, by telling oneself that the joy preceding it had made it worthwhile.

Had he hoped, against all logic and sense, to find her broken and distraught with love for him?

So little time. And all the pain looming ahead again.

It always was well nigh impossible to get any sense out of you, Jack, she said. Have you ever said anything to anyone that you really meant?