Quotes from Mary Balogh

It is a trial to live in such a retired corner of the country, where one rarely sees anyone worth seeing.

He would see her for perhaps five minutes the next morning, when he would be tongue-tied with all there was to say. And then the journey back to London. And Cassandra. And his wedding. And the rest of his life. And never Allie again. Never again.

unguarded moment she pictured herself waltzing with Viscount Whitleaf

I thought I had forgotten . . . But maybe I just pushed it deep and denied it and let it fester.

It is a kind of vanity to wear patched clothes, the baron added sagely. He likes other people to notice how godly he is.

He could not do it. It was as simple as that. He had known it there at the castle as he held her in his arms, his head bent back against the stone pillar, his body aching and aching for her. He could not do it. She had done nothing to deserve him and the kind of destruction he could bring into her life.

She wondered how long it would be before she could no longer remember clearly what he looked like. She turned her head to look at him now as if it were somehow important to remember, to memorize

It is sometimes too delicious to hear evil of a person one has despised for many years.

And she had loved him before, ached for him, wanted his happiness. But she knew him fully now. Oh, there were still mysteries. One could never know every shadowed corner of another person.

La vida no era perfecta. Salvo en ocasiones.

One day I am going to share the sort of love with a man that poets write of.

Mr. Sinclair is here now, and I mean to have him.

Algunos días eran tan tranquilos que al cabo de una semana era imposible recordar lo que había sucedido en su transcurso. Otros estaban tan llenos de acontecimientos que era imposible creer que veinticuatro horas dieran para tanto.

It is said, you know, that hatred is very akin to love. There is too much to dislike, he told her. There are too many irritants. There is too much bitterness and lack of trust. There is too much— Passion? she suggested.

For Allie would suffer for what she had done this night. And he would be the last person on this earth who could comfort her.

At the present, she said, you are here holding my hands. Your past has nothing to do with me. Just as mine has nothing to do with you.

She did not wish the girl to be beguiled by such a practiced and heartless charmer.

The next few days were all she could ever have of him.

And she was in his arms, her head pillowed against his shoulder, held to him, rocked against him. She closed her eyes and willed herself to remember every detail of this moment for the rest of her life. The hard muscularity of his body. The comfort of his arms and his shoulder. His cheek against the top of her head. The warmth and the smell of him. He and she, and their child between them. Perhaps thirty seconds. At the most a minute. A minute to last a lifetime.

And there was that other thing too—that thing that dominated his every waking moment and kept him from sleep at night and haunted his dreams when he did nod off. There was Allie.

She had always known deep down that she had never recovered fully from his defection. She had loved him for so long that he had become part of her very being.

He knew that after tomorrow he would try to remember what she looked like and not always succeed.

She did not want to dance with him. But it was one thing not to want to do so and quite another not to be given a chance to do so. Lord Crensford did not come near her during the first three sets, and after that it was perfectly clear to her that he had no intention of doing so. She was not to have the satisfaction of refusing him.

But marriage is forever.' 'Oh, not really,' he assured her. 'Only until one of us dies.' Her eyes widened. 'I do not want you to die,' she said. 'Perhaps you will go first,' he said, though I rather think I hope not. I would probably have grown accustomed to you by then and would miss you.