Sublime

“Whatever the old earl did to Ransom and his mother, I’m sorry for it. But Ransom should know that the abuse was hardly limited to him. Edmund’s children were his favorite victims. Ask any of his daughters—they’ll tell you that living with him was no picnic-party.”

I loved her as a Chinese mandarin might love a flower, beautiful in itself, unquestionably beautiful to live with.

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he was a type of man for whom love was indistinguishable from his own interests.

the brilliance of Lauzun’s seduction was that the Grande Mademoiselle believed it was she who was making all the moves.

It very soon came to be predicted that he would marry again, and there were at least a dozen young women of whom one may say that it was by no fault of theirs that, for six months after his return, the prediction did not come true.