And what form do these take?'...

Marthe's, cool and articulate, did not alter at all. 'My name is Marthe.'...

He has to perfection, M. le Comte, the art of living his private life with as much public attention as possible.

I know. Aha, Oho, and every other bloody ejaculation. Let's take it as read. You're delirious at the idea of manhandling me and can't wait to start. I in turn may say I find your arrival offensive and...

It was of no importance. Birth did not matter; heredity was merely a hurdle; one was what one made of oneself; that and no other.

He's asked Master Zitwitz to leave the duke and travel with him as household controller to the Ambassador's residence in Turkey.'Philippa Somerville blew her nose sharply. 'On the strength of his...

Whether romance existed in him or not, sentimentality had no place at all.

I'll take care of it,' said Richard Crawford quietly, and Lymond lifted his head. 'Oh, Richard. Timely as ever. I want.…'...

Danny said, 'I didn't tell you the other side, because you know it. You and I don't have a family. They have. They were brought up together. They need each other, and support each other. It's too late...

I am saying,' Lymond said, 'that the bond of race is a deep one, and of a dimension which gives it nobility. I am saying that the salvation of each man's soul lies within himself, and is not a matter...

If you don't mind.''I do,' said Kate. 'I don't care to have my second-best bedroom looking like the den of a hibernating bear.

How do you take leave, for all time, of a brother?''You wish him well,' Lymond said, 'if that is what is in your mind. And you accept from him his understanding, and his pity, and his fellowship as he...

How nice," said Lymond, "to have simple emotions. No trouble with principles; no independence of thought; no resistance to suggestion; no nonsense about adult behaviour when it comes to one's own...

Terror, said Lymond, is our daily bread in the Wuthenheer. We eat it, we live by it and we disseminate it; and not only between Christmas and Epiphany: there is no close season for fright.

I dislike untidy wars, as I dislike untidy peacemaking.

Why?' said Philippa. 'For suffering what you have suffered for three months?' And felt the veils rend about her, for she had broken the unwritten law: it must not be uttered. It must not be uttered,...

It was then that she found that he had laid flat, himself, every defence against her: that she could, if she wished, enter and be received within this, the long-guarded citadel. And so she discovered,...

Quarrelling with the Prince of Barrow was like fighting a curtain. Robin Stewart gave up.

Before God, you are my soul; and till death and beyond, will remain so.

Darting a glance to either side, Danny Hislop had a sudden feeling that the whites of his eyes were beginning to show.'Suppose we go upstairs?' said Sybilla comfortably. 'I think the steward is...

The prospect of watching the Crawford family at grips with itself was something that, blissfully, he wanted very much for his birthday.

Elephants gave you less bother, any day.

Gilles made up his mind, and snapped, 'D'you write Latin?'Sometimes Jerott forgot that the blazon of chivalry, with all the status it once had carried, was no longer his. In any case, he had an...

I shall let you know,' Lymond said, 'when I am ready to embrace you, and with what. In the meantime should you seek a favour, ask elsewhere.

You invited them without Lymond knowing?' said Danny Hislop. He wriggled into the circle. 'Can I be there when he hears about it?

Are you implying,' said Philippa coldly, 'that I enjoyed being brought up surrounded by eunuchs?''No,' said Lymond. 'But I expect you enjoyed it more than the eunuchs did.

There are times,' said Philippa shortly, 'when I feel like the entire Russian army.''There are times, said Lymond equally shortly, 'when I wish that you were. It would solve the whole Tartar problem...

Except once, long ago, over an estrangement with his wife Mariotta, Lord Culter had never been jealous of the young brother he had seen grow from babyhood. Until the moment Francis had left home at...

All the linear delicacy of the boy he had once been stood exposed now in the still, blindfolded face of her son. The clinging yellow hair, orderly on the white linen, was the same silk that had veiled...

There breaks a crutch Scotland never knew it possessed.