Home > Work > A Stranger in Mayfair (Charles Lenox Mysteries, #4)
1 " He often envied people who hadn't read his favourite books. They had such happiness before them. "
― Charles Finch , A Stranger in Mayfair (Charles Lenox Mysteries, #4)
2 " 'He often envied people who hadn't read his favourite books. They had such happiness before them. "
3 " I think perhaps it takes time, Jane. We’re not used to being married yet. On the Continent it was all somehow unreal— somehow child’s play. Now we’re back to real life. "
4 " What was missing, he knew, was a clear motive for Collingwood to kill Freddie Clarke. Would such an apparently genial soul—loved by Paul, Alfred, and Tiberius Starling—commit murder over a few coins? No. But then what could the real motive be? "
5 " More than just losing a teacher, I worry at London losing you. Many men can sit in a room and talk nonsense, as they seem to do in Parliament, but fewer can go to a prison and phlegmatically sit with a confessed murderer. "
6 " Oh, please! He’s only a boy! You can’t send him to hang! He’ll be out of the country soon—gone from England forever—he has time to change! "
7 " What will it take, money? Let me pay your standard fee, and we shall be done with each other. "
8 " Unfortunately Schott and Son was closed again. It was strange, of course, for a prominent butcher in the heart of Mayfair to close on consecutive days without any explanation "
9 " It had been hard to go it alone for so long in the face of everyone’s polite disapproval of his vocation. "
10 " In a way I’m glad they won’t. It’s always been too easy for Toto to flee to her family. Perhaps it’s a sign that she’s growing up. "
11 " He needed someone. A real father would have protected him,” she said. “That’s what he needed—he should have had a real father. Ludovic—Mr. Starling—he could have been that, when I entrusted my poor Freddie with him. Or at least a friend. It’s not right to leave a boy alone in a city like this. I should have been here—I should have come down from Cambridge more often … "
12 " Oh, yes, you and Edmund can sit in the corner and grumble together while the adults make conversation "
13 " Ludo Starling was Frederick Clarke’s father. This page intentionally left blank. "
14 " No Starling was ever too dismal a failure or too great a success, and the little parcel of family money never dipped or rose too high in value. The cousins were all looked after. They were a comfortable, pointless clan. "
15 " There hadn’t been any uncle’s inheritance. What kind of London housemaid had an uncle rich enough to see her retire upon his death? She had bought her pub with Starling money, and raised Clarke with Starling money, too. It all made so much sense. "
16 " Beyond all that, it was a tremendous thing to have him in the house. It meant that Lenox was a serious participant in the grand game of London politics, someone on the move. Disraeli wasn’t any longer a very sociable fellow; his visit here would be on people’s lips the next morning. "
17 " It’s only that the slightest breath of scandal or infelicity can shake this sort of thing. It’s all so fragile, you know. "
18 " Dallington had cause to feel more strongly than any of them, because for a brief while they had been engaged. The end of the engagement, some years before, had been the talk of London, and in truth it was he who had jilted her. Quite unreasonably he hated her for it, in particular because she tried to be friends with him, putting a brave face on things. "
19 " After I had the child I thought perhaps he would wish to speak to me, but he never did, and in my pride—in my foolishness—I decided I hated him. Though I love him still, God curse me for it! "
20 " Something else, though, made sense: the intellectual reading, the philosophy and great literature; the tailored suits and shoes; the aristocratic boxing club, where he spent money freely; and the ring, most of all having his own initials engraved on the Starling ring. Frederick Clarke was setting himself up, in his own mind, as a gentleman. "
