4
" The Challenge is to pry Bertie loose from Dain and his circle of oafish dengenerates,” Jessica said severely.
“It would be far more profitable to pry Dain loose for yourself,” said her grandmother. “He is very wealthy, his lineage is excellent, he is young, strong, and healthy, and you feel a powerful attraction.”
“He isn’t husband material.”
“What I have described is perfect husband material.” said her grandmother.
“I don’t want a husband.”
“Jessica, no woman does who can regard men objectively. And you have always been magnificently objective. "
― Loretta Chase , Lord of Scoundrels (Scoundrels, #3)
13
" With the world securely in order, Dain was able to devote the leisurely bath time to editing his mental dictionary. He removed his wife from the general category labeled "Females" and gave her a section of her own. He made a note that she didn't find him revolting, and proposed several explanations: (a) bad eyesight and faulty hearing, (b)a defect in a portion of her otherwise sound intellect, (c) an inherited Trent eccentricity, or (d) an act of God. Since the Almighty had not done him a single act of kindness in at least twenty-five years, Dain thought it was about bloody time, but he thanked his Heavenly Father all the same, and promised to be as good as he was capable of being. "
― Loretta Chase , Lord of Scoundrels (Scoundrels, #3)
17
" You'll want all your strength for the wedding night."
I cannot think why I should need strength," she said, ignoring a host of spine-tingling images rising in her mind's eye. "All I have to do is lie there."
"Naked," he said grimly.
"Truly?" She shot him a glance from under her lashes. "Well, if I must, I must, for you have the advantage of experience in these matters. Still, I do wish you'd told me sooner. I should not have put the modiste to so much trouble about the negligee."
"The what?"
"It was ghastly expensive," she said, "but the silk is as fine as gossamer, and the eyelet work about the neckline is exquisite. Aunt Louisa was horrified. She said only Cyprians wear such things, and it leaves nothing to the imagination."
Jessica heard him suck in his breath, felt the muscular thigh tense against hers.
"But if it were left to Aunt Louisa," she went on,"I should be covered from my chin to my toes in thick cotton ruffled with monstrosities with little bows and rosebuds. Which is absurd, when an evening gown reveals far more, not to mention--"
"What color?" he asked. His low voice had roughened.
"Wine red," she said, "With narrow black ribbons threaded through the neckline. Here." She traced a plunging U over her bosom. "And there's the loveliest openwork over my...well, here." She drew her finger over the curve of her breast a bare inch above the nipple. "And openwork on the right side of the skirt. From here" --she pointed to her hip--"down to the hem. And I bought---"
"Jess." Her name was a strangled whisper.
"--slippers to match," she continued." Black mules with--"
"Jess." In one furious flurry of motion he threw down the reins and hauled her into his lap. "
― Loretta Chase , Lord of Scoundrels (Scoundrels, #3)