Tessa Dare

I'm not going to accept your challenge. There will be no duel.""Why not? Because I'm a woman?""No, because I've seen the way you spinsters handle a pistol. You'd shoot me dead where I stood.

Her,_ he said. ____l take her.

This explains so much," she said, clucking her tongue in mother-hen fashion. "You're compensating for this withered appendage."Withered appendage? What the devil was she talking about? He shook his head, trying to clear it. Colin's dire predictions of shriveled twigs and dried currants rattled in his skull. Wide awake now, he fought to sit up, wrestling the sheets."Listen, you. I don't know what sort of liberties you've taken while I was insensible, or just what your spinster imagination prepared you to see. But I'll have you know, that water was damned cold."She blinked at him. "I'm referring to your leg.""Oh." His leg. That withered appendage

This wasn't her first kiss. He could tell that much, though he doubted any of the young men who'd kissed her had known what the hell they were doing. He felt a vague, stupid sort of rage toward them. It made him all the more resolved to make this kiss sublime. Sufficiently long and slow and sweet and deep to obliterate those embraces from her memory.From this day forward-when she thought of kisses, she would think only of him.

He couldn't escape it. She'd begun re-calibrating his senses the moment she came through that library door. His peripheral vision was now trained for flashes of golden hair: his ears, trained for her melodic laugh. He found himself following the drifting scent of her soap and dusting powder, like a dog panting after the butcher's wife.

What if I told you I know the risks, and I'm willing to take my chances?""It wouldn't change a thing. Those walls, as you call them. . . They're apart of me now, and they are iron strong." He lifted a hand to her face, skimming his thumb over her lower lip. "Even if I wished to, I wouldn't know how to dismantle them.""I know," she said quietly. "I know." She wreathed her arms around his neck. "That's why you need me. I'm going to burn them to the ground.

No man deserves a woman like that. He mortgages his very soul to win her and spends his life paying off the debt.

Forgive me, Your Grace. Are you suggesting a woman is some sort of _ piece of fruit to you? One squeeze, and you know if she__ ripe?

Cleverness is like rouge - liberal application makes a woman look common and desperate. Wit is knowing how to apply it.

Oh no. Oh God. I couldn't possibly be so stupid.""Don't limit yourself. You can be anything you wish.

You're so young, you can't know the meaning of true regret. It's never what you've done, love, it's what you've left undone.

You're an intensely attractive woman. You do know that, don't you?" To her silence, he replied, "You'd believe me if you could see your

These kisses... they were confessions. Tastes of everything she had stored inside her. Everything she could give a man if he was brave enough to accept. Kiss by kiss, she was baring herself to the soul.

Of course one kiss changes things. If it's done right, a kiss changes everything.

It seemed any young woman at odds with her place in life--be she a genteel lady or a serving girl--might find a happier home within the pages of a book.

Her chin lifted. "Very well. Here is my best offer. Half of my nakedness for all of yours."He pretended to think on it. " It's a bargain.

I will insist you be man enough to take it. I won__ have you making light of my feelings, or making light of yourself__s if you__e not worthy of them. Because you are worthy, Colin. You__e a generous, good-hearted person, and you deserve to be loved. Deeply, truly, well, and often.__e looked utterly bewildered. Well, what did he expect, after the power he__ given her? He couldn__ compare a woman to a torrentially beautiful monsoon, and then look surprised that he__ gotten wet. __ou reckless man._ She laid a touch to his cheek. __ou really should be more careful with those compliments.

You__e my home, Susanna. My home, my heart, my dearest love. Wherever you are, that__ where I belong. Always._ - Victor Bramwell, Earl of Rycliff