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b57c238
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The leaves do fad and fall away, / Berries rot and sheaves decay; / The deer is fled back to the field. / That is all your promises yield. / All wind and words, your vows, I see, / Are barren as the fruitless tree.
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Lauren Willig |
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35c3467
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Imagination was all very well in the daylight, but it was an uncomfortable thing late at night.
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Lauren Willig |
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7d1ebd5
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When they arrived at Parva Magna, everyone agreed that it was quite a good thing that the newly married couple had managed to find shelter in the storm, although there was some confusion as to why it had taken them a full three days to make their way fifteen miles.
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way-with-words
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Lauren Willig |
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9f257e1
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This was what the poets couldn't put in their poetry, she thought dumbly, the rush of desire so fierce and pure it made one shake, all on the force of a word.
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poetry
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Lauren Willig |
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398c8cc
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Crossing my arms over my chest, I said, a little too heartily, "So this is the library." There certainly couldn't be any doubt on that score; never had a room so resembled popular preconception. The walls were paneled in rich, dark wood, although the finish had worn off the edges in spots, where books had scraped against the wood in passing one too many times. A whimsical iron staircase curved to the balcony, the steps narrowing into pie-sh..
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Lauren Willig |
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d85a5dc
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For I shall bring you crimson leaves And rippling wheat in golden sheaves; A cache of berries, red and sweet, And dappled deer on silent feet." - Emma Delagardie and Augustus Whittlesby, Americanus: A Masque in Three Parts"
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Lauren Willig |
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198906d
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All this rapture," managed Letty, wriggling out of her mother's grasp, "is decidedly premature."
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Lauren Willig |
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e1fd6e8
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There's nothing like competing for your boyfriend's attention with an emotionally needy sibling to make you feel like the worst sort of evil psycho-bitch.
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Lauren Willig |
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7b5b71e
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Such kindness wasn't a gift but a goad, scraping against one's skin like a yoke of thorns. She would have preferred him stiff, defensive, even offensive.
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men
kindness
love
pride
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Lauren Willig |
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118d878
|
He admired her for throwing off her aristocratic shackles -- his terms, that -- and making her own way in the world. He didn't realize that the truth was so much more complex, so much less impressive. She had less thrown than been thrown.
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Lauren Willig |
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831320e
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It hurt to kill a dream, like tearing petals off a rose in full bloom.
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hurting-others
killing-dreams
rose
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Lauren Willig |
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748390c
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Her mother would be appalled, but she wouldn't say anything. She would just telegraph her distress with tightened lips and raised brows. She was good at that. Clemmie's mother's brows were better than sign language, complicated concepts conveyed with the minimum of movement.
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Lauren Willig |
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9f625a0
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It was very hard to rant while accepting a cup of tea.
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tea
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Lauren Willig |
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ffeec29
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That's a good point, I suppose,' he said in that way people have when you've just said something that's so off the mark it might as well be in Sanskrit, but they like you, so they want to make something positive out of it so they can give you the credit you both know you don't deserve.
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Lauren Willig |
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cb2b159
|
I'm not your gilded prince with the gilded chairs, Letty," Geoff said simply. "I couldn't be if I tried." "I wouldn't want you to be." Letty's voice felt rusty. "I'm not particularly bold or dashing or heroic. I'm happier at my desk than in a black cloak. And I've never entirely mastered all the steps of the quadrille." He looked soberly down at her. "But what I am is yours, if you'll still have me."
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Lauren Willig |
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a2976da
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Sometimes Richard had the sinking suspicion that he had a far better chance of preventing Bonaparte from conquering Europe than he had of thwarting his mother's plans to see him married off within the next Season.
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Lauren Willig |
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ea3372c
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When Richard created the Purple Gentian, the talent for ancient languages that had stunned his schoolmasters at Eton had come to his aid once again. While Sir Percy had pretended to be a fop, Richard bored the French into complacency with long lectures about antiquity. When Frenchmen demanded to know what he was doing in France, and Englishmen reproached him for fraternising with the enemy, Richard opened his eyes wide and proclaimed, 'But ..
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scholar
languages
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Lauren Willig |
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1b7175b
|
This was Hist and Lit, after all. If you couldn't work the term "liminal" into your tutorial, you were doing it wrong."
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Lauren Willig |
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040dea0
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From far across the sea I come, Through fire, frost,and blazing sun, That you might, with your own fair hand, Enjoy the bounties of my land - Emma Delagardie and Augustus Whittlesby Americanus, A masque in three parts
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Lauren Willig |
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b572b8d
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No sin is original, no matter what the bright young things may hope. We're all merely playing to a theme.
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Lauren Willig |
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c266e10
|
Even Sally wound't want to cross fans with the Dowager Duchess of Dovedale. The woman had a tongue of steel and drank the blood of young virgins for breakfast.
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humor
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Lauren Willig |
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8e79c01
|
Her eyes were as hard and bright as stars. Not the pretty sort that poets mooned about, but the kind that made men's destinies.
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Lauren Willig |
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d066025
|
Word of advice, sister mine. If you want to keep your papers private, don't write 'Private' on the cover. It set the mater right off. It was all I could do to stop her sniffing around like some great sniffing thing.
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humor
turnip
funny-quotes
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Lauren Willig |
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25e45a2
|
His look felt like a touch
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Lauren Willig |
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0628dec
|
Most of the time, there is no truth, only various levels of interpretation. Fact is a construct we provide to the public.
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Lauren Willig |
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4494f72
|
She could feel herself pressing the details into memory, saving them like dried flowers kept in a spinster's chest, relics of a past that might have been, of a future that never was.
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Lauren Willig |
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473f396
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Only the silver head of his cane blazed with reflected fire, held aloft above the grave like a medieval necromancer summoning spirits from the vasty deep.
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Lauren Willig |
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cfc65e3
|
there is no friend like a sister / In calm or stormy weather; / To cheer one on the tedious way, / To fetch one if one goes astray, / To lift one if one totters down, / To strengthen whilst one stands.'" Bea was much struck by this. "How lovely,"
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Lauren Willig |
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be001d9
|
Patience," she said in her best governess voice, "is only a virtue when there is something worth waiting for."
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Lauren Willig |
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4796231
|
His mother made a noise that in anyone of lower rank than a countess would have been given the unmannerly name of snort. As a cowed member of the ton had once commented, 'Nobody harrumphs quite like the Marchioness of Uppington.
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Lauren Willig |
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2d8472a
|
I'm not sure intentions make much difference in the end. I hear the road to hell is paved with them. She meant it frivolously, but Olivia answered seriously, "Yes, but one does have to live with one's self." "Not necessarily...There are any number of ways to avoid living with one's self. Gin, for example." "Yes, but you're still there at the base of it aren't you. Only with a terrible head in the morning."
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living-with-yourself
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Lauren Willig |
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f495189
|
What is love? Jane had asked Nicolas, when he had professed that emotion, unasked. It hadn't been coyness. It had been a genuine question. She knew what the poets said of love; she knew what great men and women had sacrificed in the name of that elusive emotion. Towers had toppled; fleets had been launched. But Jane had always wondered if they had all felt a bit sheepish about it afterwards, if what they had lauded as love was merely, in fa..
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Lauren Willig |
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37841a2
|
I should have known something was wrong when my advisor's parting words were Good luck. To his credit, he had--very gently--suggested that I might want to consider a different sort of topic. But I didn't want to consider another topic. I was madly in love with my topic: "Aristocratic Espionage during the Wars with France, 1789- 1815." It had dash, it had swash, it had buckle."
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Lauren Willig |
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355f0b1
|
The woman in purple subjected Jack to a critical inspection. "You must be Jack. Jane succeeded in part of her mission, at least." And then: "You don't look at all as I expected." "Fewer horns?" said Jack tersely."
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Lauren Willig |
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87c3dd8
|
Of course, they don't like him! Liking is for ninny-hammers. Real men elicit rancor." Pausing for a moment of deep consideration, she added, "Loathing, even. But never liking." "Hatred, perhaps?" suggested Mary's brother-in-law, hiding his amused smile behind a tone of excessive gravity. Mrs. Fustian was not impressed. "Certainly not. Any common laborer can hate. True connoisseurs prefer more subtle shades of aversion."
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geoffrey-pinchingdale-snipe
miss-gwendolyn-meadows
mary-alsworthy
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Lauren Willig |
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1750636
|
For the first time, Mary understood what drove animals to bite the hand that fed them--sheer irritation at being patronized.
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Lauren Willig |
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c6ca624
|
The room was so still that Mary could hear the ticking of the clock on the mantel and the gentle whisper of Vaughn's breathing, in and out, in and out. Outside, there was the rustle of the leaves in the square and a rhythmic creak where someone had left a shutter unlatched and the wind was batting it back and forth, playing with it for its sport. "From another man," said Mary quietly, "I would have taken that as a proposal of marriage." Vau..
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Lauren Willig |
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b899bff
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If you don't mind my interrupting your no doubt fascinating private conversation," said Richard, lifting a blond brow, "there have been some inquiries as to why our guest is not bound." "Or trussed," contributed Henrietta. "I have," said Nicolas, spreading his arms wide, "attempted to explain, but your comrades, my love, seem reluctant to listen. I would prefer not to have rope marks on this coat, if it is all the same." "There must be some..
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Lauren Willig |
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e2cfc7c
|
In flawless and very aristocratic French, Jane said, "Tell Monsieur le Comte de Brillac that he has a guest." "Er . . ." It was clear the guard didn't know what to make of her. "Do you have papers?" Yes. In a trunk somewhere on the road to Santarem. Jane drew herself up, doing her best imitation of the Dowager Duchess of Dovedale in a snit. "Take me to the comte. At once." "But--" "You may tell him," said Jane, flicking at a smudge of dirt ..
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Lauren Willig |
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a9cc701
|
He glanced at the woman in purple, who was smirking fondly at Jack's father in a way that filled Jack with darkest foreboding. "We wanted to surprise you." Jack looked from his father to the woman in purple. He thought he knew what was coming and he didn't like it. "We?" His father slid his arm through that of the woman in purple. He cleared his throat. "Jack, may I present my wife, your new--" "Felicitations." If his father thought he was ..
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Lauren Willig |
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2076fe7
|
Jack reached up to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. The perfume was growing on him. "How are your blisters?" It didn't work. "They sting," said Jane shortly. "But I didn't mind that. I didn't mind any of it. As I would have told you if you had only listened." Jack pressed his eyes shut. Somehow he had gone from being noble and wronged to just being wrong. He wasn't quite sure how that had happened. "I thought you wanted a bath an..
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Lauren Willig |
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23df098
|
Before Jack could say anything, he was bowled sideways by a small female moving with great velocity. "Jack! Jack, Jack, Jack!" His sister Lizzy flung herself at him, momentarily stunning him. Or maybe that was just the large wooden object she was holding banging into the side of his head. Jack gave his sister a quick, reflexive squeeze before turning to glare at his father. "You brought Lizzy?" "How could I miss the return of my favorite br..
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Lauren Willig |
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70455d7
|
Jack was not feeling warm and filial sentiments towards his new stepmother. "What was she meant to do, deliver me trussed and bound onto the ship?" "Wouldn't that be a bit gratuitous?" Everyone turned to look at Miles Dorrington, who held up both hands in self-defense. "Why would you truss and bind? Surely one would do." "You," said Jack's stepmother, advancing purposefully, "are not helping." Miles Dorrington ducked behind his wife."
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Lauren Willig |
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4b5d288
|
But we know Jane," put in Lady Henrietta. "Her plans always go as planned." She exchanged a glance with her husband. "Well, almost always. But that wasn't her fault." And then, as if it explained everything, "She is the Pink Carnation." She wasn't just the Pink Carnation. She was also human, very, very human. She made mistakes, she doubted herself, her heels blistered, and her hair snarled. Couldn't any of them see that? "She's not invincib..
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Lauren Willig |