The Unbreakable Spell
Aug. 5th, 2013 04:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
todayiamadaisyIn my last entry, I mentioned that I'd read a Barbara Cartland novel whose title is way down in the list I'm using for my entry titles. Should I stick to my principles and wait eighty entries, I asked, or post it now? Only one person voted for sticking to my principles, and that person was me. So by popular demand:
The Unbreakable Spell
Our heroine is Rocana. Rocana Brunt. Yes, I know. That's not a name, but her non-name is the least of Rocana's troubles, so we'll look away and quickly move past it.
Rocana is nineteen and, alas, an orphan. Her mother, Yvette de Soissons, daughter of the French ambassador, died after stepping on a snake while walking barefoot on the grass; her father, Lord Leopold Brunt, who was the best horseman in the world, died in a hunting accident. Rocana, orphaned and penniless, has to live with her uncle, the Duke of Bruntwick and his awful, awful wife. This is the worst aunt yet, even worse than the one in The Prisoner of Love who got a small boy to lock her niece in a ruined crypt. Rocana wishes her aunt would lock her in a ruined crypt. That would be a step up.
The Duke and Duchess have a daughter, Caroline, who is a pleasant girl. She and Rocana are best friends, so that's nice for them. She and Rocana look alike, which is going to be important. They both have fair hair and pink complexions, but there is one major difference. Rocana has a peg leg. No. That's not it. Caroline has two English parents, meaning that she has good, decent, English eyes of pale blue. Rocana had one English parent and one French parent, and we all know what happens when English people breed with French people, don't we? They spawn freaks. Purple-eyed freaks. Just about everyone who meets Rocana comments on her purple eyes, then when they find out she's half-French, they're all, oh, yes, that explains it. The French are famous for their purple eyes.
Rocana is a horse whisperer, so she's got a fall-back if the whole romantic heroine thing doesn't work out. Also, she is mildly clairvoyant. In the sense that when she saw her mother walking barefoot on the grass that one time, she was filled with dread. And that time her father went hunting alone? Dread. And sometimes she gets a funny, faraway look in her eyes. Her French, purple eyes. So... not very usefully clairvoyant, then. (I think the clairvoyance and the purple eyes are meant to connect to the title in a sort of woooo, mystic, sort of way. It's half-hearted, though. I think she just couldn't come up with anything better.)
As the story begins, Caroline has just come back from a trip to London, where she was lucky enough to meet the cat that everyone's talking about, the Marquis of Quorn. Quorn! I have some quorn in my freezer. Little chunks of it to toss into stir-fries and think, hmm, I should have bought some tofu instead. And there's a Marquis of it. I am impressed.
The Marquis of Faux-Meat Mycoprotein, oh, let me tell you about him. He's a handsome man, but cruel and forbidding, who ruins women, leading them to pine away, forgotten, because he is cruel and forbidding. He is the finest horseman in the world, now that Rocana's father is dead. Also, did I mention that he is cruel and forbidding? Because he is. Totally cruel and forbidding.
He favours champagne-coloured pantaloons. Cruel and forbidding.
Imagine how cruel and forbidding he must be, though. A lesser man would not be able to pull off cruel and forbidding while wearing champagne-coloured pantaloons, but the Marquis of Quorn owns it. That's how cruel and forbidding he is.
Anyway, Caroline met him and he snubbed her, because he's not interested in eighteen-year-old daughters of Dukes, but Caro was fine with that, because she found him a little, how shall I put this? Cruel and forbidding. As all of London knows, he is having a passionate affair with a red-haired, green-eyed woman who is married to some sort of important person from Austria or the Balkans. So Caro and Rocana have a good old gossip about that, then move on to how happy they both are that Caro is home. Rocana is happy about it because the Duchess is even meaner than usual to her when Caro is away, and Caro is happy about it because she is in love with the next door neighbour, Patrick. The Duchess doesn't approve of Caro's fondness for Patrick, because he is only the son of a Baronet, which means he is no better than riffraff. RIFFRAFF, f-list. Aim higher!
Then: disaster! Caro must have made some sort of impression on the Marquis, because he sends a letter to the Duke, saying he will come to compete in the local steeplechase and, while he's in the area, he will marry Caro. PS, he adds, it is v. important that I get married as quickly and as quietly as possible, and then I will take my new wife to Paris ASAP. Don't ask why. Just because. Nothing sinister.
So Caro and her mother go back to London to buy a wedding dress. Rocana, left to do mending, sneaks out of the house to see Patrick and tell him what's up. He says to leave it to him and he will come up with a plan. And he does. It's the most bone-headed plan in history, but he does come up with it, so you can't say he's not man of his word. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Before he reveals his plan, he competes in the steeplechase against the Marquis. The Marquis rides a wild black stallion, because he is cruel and forbidding. Patrick rides a regular horse, because he is only the son of a Baronet. They tie for first place, which Rocana takes as an omen that Patrick is just as good as the Marquis. Either that, or a well-trained horse is a more sensible thing to ride than a wild stallion.
Rocana goes back to the Castle, where she finds the Marquis's men cowering in fear from his other horse, which is another wild black stallion. Of course it is. He probably owns all the wild black stallions in the country. Rocana uses her horse whispering skills to calm it and then tells the groom to put the saddle on gently. She is surprised when she turns around to find that the 'groom' is the cruel and forbidding Marquis himself, who is both polite and impressed by her horse whispering. You're not doing your cruel and forbidding reputation any good there, Marquis.
During the steeplechase dinner, Rocana and Patrick meet again so he can unveil his grand plan. He and Caro will elope as soon as she gets back from London; the next day, when Caro is supposed to marry the Marquis, ta-DAH! Rocana will marry him instead! Not as herself, obviously. Because they look so much alike, she will marry him disguised as Caro, standing in front of Caro's parents, the family vicar, and a room full of people who have known Caro her entire life. All they have to do is make sure no-one sees her purple eyes. Because that's the one weak point in this plan. Obviously.
Amazingly, Rocana agrees to this. Even more amazingly, it works. Patrick and Caro escape to parts unknown; Rocana is now married to the Marquis, who thinks she is Caro, despite having met them both. So he's cruel and forbidding, and also a little bit stupid. The Marquis wasn't joking about going to Paris straight away. He sent horses and carriages ahead, staggered along the coast and also across to France, so they reach Paris just eleven hours and ten minutes after the wedding. Rocana, tired, goes to bed. When she wakes up the next morning, the Marquis has gone out, so it is not until dinner, thirty-six hours after the wedding, that he finds out that he married the wrong cousin.
He takes this about as well as you would expect such a cruel and forbidding man to take it, which is to say, he seems mildly disconcerted. Mostly surprised and disappointed that Caroline didn't want to marry him. I'd be more upset about it than that, and I'm no-one's idea of cruel and forbidding. The Marquis and Rocana agree that him making a fuss would cause scandal and gossip, so they will remain married and travel about as horse-loving chums. The Marquis is looking less cruel and forbidding by the minute. Also, the reason they had to go to Paris so quickly was that that his best friend, the Prince Regent, had asked him to go to an auction and buy some paintings for the Palace. (So that's why they had to leave straight after the wedding, but we never find out why he wanted to marry Caro in the first place. The closest explanation we get is that he wanted a proper marriage, but not how he picked Caro. But that doesn't matter, because he's just as happy with Rocana. So that worked out well for him.)
So Rocana is having a super time in Paris, the belle of every ball, and the French all think she's tops and are especially delighted by her purple eyes that show she is really one of them. Then, oh, disaster! While having dinner one night, an angry man with a cane and an Austrian or Balkans accent bursts into the house and accuses the Marquis of having an affair with his red-haired, green-eyed wife in London. The Marquis calls the man Your Highness and suggests going outside to settle the matter with duelling pistols. His Highness isn't having that. Instead, he reveals that his cane is actually a sword-stick. He pulls the sword out and goes to stab the Marquis in the heart, but Rocana jumps in front of him and it goes through her shoulder instead. She falls to the ground and the servants come in and throw the Prince of Austrian or Balkans origins out. Finally. What are these people paid for? Who let him in in the first place? Sack them all, Marquis! Get some quality help.
Rocana wakes up to find the Marquis has left the house for days. She feels a bit down about this, because she now knows that she loves him. There's no better way to realise you love the husband you tricked into marrying you than seeing someone threaten him with a sword, apparently. But, she thinks, not unreasonably, I tricked him into marrying me, so I can't complain that he goes off to be with his red-haired, green-eyed Austrian or Balkans Princess. Only then, happiness! The Marquis returns! He realised, when she took a sword through the shoulder for him, that he's in love with Rocana, so he decided to show this by tracking down Caro and Patrick, and bringing them to see her. The four of them have a jolly old laugh about how angry Caro's mother will be when they get round to telling her about the wedding switch. The Marquis volunteers to tell her, because he is not scared of angry Duchesses. He is going to take Rocana's suggestion that the whole plan was his idea: that he wanted to marry Rocana all along, and also saw a way to help Caro and Patrick. Take all the credit to make yourself look good, Marquis.
Caro and Patrick go home, and then it is time for Rocana's nap, as she is still recovering from her shoulder wound. As she gets ready for bed, the Marquis comes in and says, 'Tell me, Rocana, why did you save me? Is it because you lurve me? Is it, is it?' Before he can start a chorus of 'me and Rocana sitting in a tree', she agrees and they kiss, and then, in the raciest paragraph I've yet encountered from the Dame, they get into bed together, and the Marquis makes strange magic which seems to leap like a flame within Rocana, with light which is dazzling and music in their hearts. God only knows what that's about.
The end.
The watch list
Orphaned heroine with unusual name: Rocana Brunt
Who – speaks with – Shatner-esque pauses: Yes, but only sometimes.
Who lives with her titled uncle: The Duke of Bruntwick
And his unsympathetic wife: Yes
Absurdly named hero with aristocratic title: Titus, Marquis of Quorn (we only know his name is Titus because he says it when he gets married)
Female friends of heroine: One, her cousin Caroline; also, one male friend, Caroline's betrothed, Patrick. You can tell they're not the main couple in the story because their names are too normal.
Male friends of hero who seem more pleasant than he does: None; his only male friend seems to be the Prince Regent, who we don't meet.
Hero and heroine united in shared love of a dog: No, it's horses this time.
Act of vengeance by a bitter former servant: None. There is one by a bitter soon-to-be-former servant, as Caroline's nanny is part of the wedding switch plan, then flees to Patrick and Caroline's new home rather than deal with the Duchess.
Heroine requires rescue from: Being forced to do mending by her anti-French aunt (that's why Patrick thought she would agree to get married in Caro's place). She in turn rescues the hero from being stabbed in the heart.
Duels fought: One, which ends when the Prince attempts to stab the Marquis before he can call for his duelling pistols.
Book ends with one of the pair recovering in bed: Rocana, after being stabbed in the shoulder trying to stop the duel.
What the heroine believes the hero's lips give her when they kiss at the end: No specific mention of his lips this time, but his kiss gives her '... not only the sunshine, but the moon, the stars, all the magic she had found in everything beautiful and had known instinctively she would one day find it in love.'
Diamond-studded snuff boxes mentioned: None, sadly.
And some examples of this fine work
Her glove was in her hand?; or, the waywardly placed 'from'
Then he reached out and kissed Caroline's hand from which she had drawn her glove.
Named after her in everything but name
Like Caroline, she [Rocana] too resembled the beautiful Lady Mary Brunt after whom they had both been christened.
The Marquis endears himself to me by not wanting wasting time with chit chat
He knew from long experience that it was always wise to arrive to stay with people so that there was less than an hour to make conversation before it was time to change for dinner.
What about her eyes?
"... a strange colour that in certain lights seemed almost purple."
Because she was frightened, her eyes were purple in their depths and had a strange mystic quality about them that was not wholly English.
That explains everything
"Do you really mean that she hates you? But why should she?"
"I can answer that quite easily. My father died in debt and my mother was French."
"French?" he repeated. "I suppose that explains your eyes."
The Duke gives Caroline (Rocana in disguise) a pep talk as they walk into the church for her wedding
'I shall miss you, Caroline. You've been a good girl. But I don't pretend I am not pleased that you are marrying a man in such an important position and who is so well endowed with this world's goods. At the same time Quorn is a difficult man and I daresay he will make a difficult husband! Nevertheless, he is a gentleman, and he will do the right thing by you. If you take my advice, you will not go prying into his private affairs. All young men have to "sow their wild oats" and Quorn by all accounts has produced a whole harvest of them! Well, here we are, and just you do want he wants and no tears. No man likes a crying woman!'
Let go of her lips!
The Marquis set her lips free.
The Marquis explains why he wanted to marry Caroline
"I suppose, now I think about it, it was somewhat arbitrary!"
Caroline having second thoughts on finally talking to the Marquis
"You are so much nicer than I thought you were, that I feel I ought to apologise."
Random line that amused me
Something that has cropped up in all three of the books: whenever the hero gets serious, he says whatever he says in a deep voice. It just makes me laugh, the idea that he's talking normally, then drops his voice to ask something:
"Are you thinking of running away from me?" he asked in a deep voice.
Now I have broken the shackles of posting these out of order, I should say this was one of three Cartlands that I bought for a pittance, so we have two more to look forward to. I'm not sure if that's a promise or a threat.
The Unbreakable Spell
Our heroine is Rocana. Rocana Brunt. Yes, I know. That's not a name, but her non-name is the least of Rocana's troubles, so we'll look away and quickly move past it.
Rocana is nineteen and, alas, an orphan. Her mother, Yvette de Soissons, daughter of the French ambassador, died after stepping on a snake while walking barefoot on the grass; her father, Lord Leopold Brunt, who was the best horseman in the world, died in a hunting accident. Rocana, orphaned and penniless, has to live with her uncle, the Duke of Bruntwick and his awful, awful wife. This is the worst aunt yet, even worse than the one in The Prisoner of Love who got a small boy to lock her niece in a ruined crypt. Rocana wishes her aunt would lock her in a ruined crypt. That would be a step up.
The Duke and Duchess have a daughter, Caroline, who is a pleasant girl. She and Rocana are best friends, so that's nice for them. She and Rocana look alike, which is going to be important. They both have fair hair and pink complexions, but there is one major difference. Rocana has a peg leg. No. That's not it. Caroline has two English parents, meaning that she has good, decent, English eyes of pale blue. Rocana had one English parent and one French parent, and we all know what happens when English people breed with French people, don't we? They spawn freaks. Purple-eyed freaks. Just about everyone who meets Rocana comments on her purple eyes, then when they find out she's half-French, they're all, oh, yes, that explains it. The French are famous for their purple eyes.
Rocana is a horse whisperer, so she's got a fall-back if the whole romantic heroine thing doesn't work out. Also, she is mildly clairvoyant. In the sense that when she saw her mother walking barefoot on the grass that one time, she was filled with dread. And that time her father went hunting alone? Dread. And sometimes she gets a funny, faraway look in her eyes. Her French, purple eyes. So... not very usefully clairvoyant, then. (I think the clairvoyance and the purple eyes are meant to connect to the title in a sort of woooo, mystic, sort of way. It's half-hearted, though. I think she just couldn't come up with anything better.)
As the story begins, Caroline has just come back from a trip to London, where she was lucky enough to meet the cat that everyone's talking about, the Marquis of Quorn. Quorn! I have some quorn in my freezer. Little chunks of it to toss into stir-fries and think, hmm, I should have bought some tofu instead. And there's a Marquis of it. I am impressed.
The Marquis of Faux-Meat Mycoprotein, oh, let me tell you about him. He's a handsome man, but cruel and forbidding, who ruins women, leading them to pine away, forgotten, because he is cruel and forbidding. He is the finest horseman in the world, now that Rocana's father is dead. Also, did I mention that he is cruel and forbidding? Because he is. Totally cruel and forbidding.
He favours champagne-coloured pantaloons. Cruel and forbidding.
Imagine how cruel and forbidding he must be, though. A lesser man would not be able to pull off cruel and forbidding while wearing champagne-coloured pantaloons, but the Marquis of Quorn owns it. That's how cruel and forbidding he is.
Anyway, Caroline met him and he snubbed her, because he's not interested in eighteen-year-old daughters of Dukes, but Caro was fine with that, because she found him a little, how shall I put this? Cruel and forbidding. As all of London knows, he is having a passionate affair with a red-haired, green-eyed woman who is married to some sort of important person from Austria or the Balkans. So Caro and Rocana have a good old gossip about that, then move on to how happy they both are that Caro is home. Rocana is happy about it because the Duchess is even meaner than usual to her when Caro is away, and Caro is happy about it because she is in love with the next door neighbour, Patrick. The Duchess doesn't approve of Caro's fondness for Patrick, because he is only the son of a Baronet, which means he is no better than riffraff. RIFFRAFF, f-list. Aim higher!
Then: disaster! Caro must have made some sort of impression on the Marquis, because he sends a letter to the Duke, saying he will come to compete in the local steeplechase and, while he's in the area, he will marry Caro. PS, he adds, it is v. important that I get married as quickly and as quietly as possible, and then I will take my new wife to Paris ASAP. Don't ask why. Just because. Nothing sinister.
So Caro and her mother go back to London to buy a wedding dress. Rocana, left to do mending, sneaks out of the house to see Patrick and tell him what's up. He says to leave it to him and he will come up with a plan. And he does. It's the most bone-headed plan in history, but he does come up with it, so you can't say he's not man of his word. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Before he reveals his plan, he competes in the steeplechase against the Marquis. The Marquis rides a wild black stallion, because he is cruel and forbidding. Patrick rides a regular horse, because he is only the son of a Baronet. They tie for first place, which Rocana takes as an omen that Patrick is just as good as the Marquis. Either that, or a well-trained horse is a more sensible thing to ride than a wild stallion.
Rocana goes back to the Castle, where she finds the Marquis's men cowering in fear from his other horse, which is another wild black stallion. Of course it is. He probably owns all the wild black stallions in the country. Rocana uses her horse whispering skills to calm it and then tells the groom to put the saddle on gently. She is surprised when she turns around to find that the 'groom' is the cruel and forbidding Marquis himself, who is both polite and impressed by her horse whispering. You're not doing your cruel and forbidding reputation any good there, Marquis.
During the steeplechase dinner, Rocana and Patrick meet again so he can unveil his grand plan. He and Caro will elope as soon as she gets back from London; the next day, when Caro is supposed to marry the Marquis, ta-DAH! Rocana will marry him instead! Not as herself, obviously. Because they look so much alike, she will marry him disguised as Caro, standing in front of Caro's parents, the family vicar, and a room full of people who have known Caro her entire life. All they have to do is make sure no-one sees her purple eyes. Because that's the one weak point in this plan. Obviously.
Amazingly, Rocana agrees to this. Even more amazingly, it works. Patrick and Caro escape to parts unknown; Rocana is now married to the Marquis, who thinks she is Caro, despite having met them both. So he's cruel and forbidding, and also a little bit stupid. The Marquis wasn't joking about going to Paris straight away. He sent horses and carriages ahead, staggered along the coast and also across to France, so they reach Paris just eleven hours and ten minutes after the wedding. Rocana, tired, goes to bed. When she wakes up the next morning, the Marquis has gone out, so it is not until dinner, thirty-six hours after the wedding, that he finds out that he married the wrong cousin.
He takes this about as well as you would expect such a cruel and forbidding man to take it, which is to say, he seems mildly disconcerted. Mostly surprised and disappointed that Caroline didn't want to marry him. I'd be more upset about it than that, and I'm no-one's idea of cruel and forbidding. The Marquis and Rocana agree that him making a fuss would cause scandal and gossip, so they will remain married and travel about as horse-loving chums. The Marquis is looking less cruel and forbidding by the minute. Also, the reason they had to go to Paris so quickly was that that his best friend, the Prince Regent, had asked him to go to an auction and buy some paintings for the Palace. (So that's why they had to leave straight after the wedding, but we never find out why he wanted to marry Caro in the first place. The closest explanation we get is that he wanted a proper marriage, but not how he picked Caro. But that doesn't matter, because he's just as happy with Rocana. So that worked out well for him.)
So Rocana is having a super time in Paris, the belle of every ball, and the French all think she's tops and are especially delighted by her purple eyes that show she is really one of them. Then, oh, disaster! While having dinner one night, an angry man with a cane and an Austrian or Balkans accent bursts into the house and accuses the Marquis of having an affair with his red-haired, green-eyed wife in London. The Marquis calls the man Your Highness and suggests going outside to settle the matter with duelling pistols. His Highness isn't having that. Instead, he reveals that his cane is actually a sword-stick. He pulls the sword out and goes to stab the Marquis in the heart, but Rocana jumps in front of him and it goes through her shoulder instead. She falls to the ground and the servants come in and throw the Prince of Austrian or Balkans origins out. Finally. What are these people paid for? Who let him in in the first place? Sack them all, Marquis! Get some quality help.
Rocana wakes up to find the Marquis has left the house for days. She feels a bit down about this, because she now knows that she loves him. There's no better way to realise you love the husband you tricked into marrying you than seeing someone threaten him with a sword, apparently. But, she thinks, not unreasonably, I tricked him into marrying me, so I can't complain that he goes off to be with his red-haired, green-eyed Austrian or Balkans Princess. Only then, happiness! The Marquis returns! He realised, when she took a sword through the shoulder for him, that he's in love with Rocana, so he decided to show this by tracking down Caro and Patrick, and bringing them to see her. The four of them have a jolly old laugh about how angry Caro's mother will be when they get round to telling her about the wedding switch. The Marquis volunteers to tell her, because he is not scared of angry Duchesses. He is going to take Rocana's suggestion that the whole plan was his idea: that he wanted to marry Rocana all along, and also saw a way to help Caro and Patrick. Take all the credit to make yourself look good, Marquis.
Caro and Patrick go home, and then it is time for Rocana's nap, as she is still recovering from her shoulder wound. As she gets ready for bed, the Marquis comes in and says, 'Tell me, Rocana, why did you save me? Is it because you lurve me? Is it, is it?' Before he can start a chorus of 'me and Rocana sitting in a tree', she agrees and they kiss, and then, in the raciest paragraph I've yet encountered from the Dame, they get into bed together, and the Marquis makes strange magic which seems to leap like a flame within Rocana, with light which is dazzling and music in their hearts. God only knows what that's about.
The end.
The watch list
Orphaned heroine with unusual name: Rocana Brunt
Who – speaks with – Shatner-esque pauses: Yes, but only sometimes.
Who lives with her titled uncle: The Duke of Bruntwick
And his unsympathetic wife: Yes
Absurdly named hero with aristocratic title: Titus, Marquis of Quorn (we only know his name is Titus because he says it when he gets married)
Female friends of heroine: One, her cousin Caroline; also, one male friend, Caroline's betrothed, Patrick. You can tell they're not the main couple in the story because their names are too normal.
Male friends of hero who seem more pleasant than he does: None; his only male friend seems to be the Prince Regent, who we don't meet.
Hero and heroine united in shared love of a dog: No, it's horses this time.
Act of vengeance by a bitter former servant: None. There is one by a bitter soon-to-be-former servant, as Caroline's nanny is part of the wedding switch plan, then flees to Patrick and Caroline's new home rather than deal with the Duchess.
Heroine requires rescue from: Being forced to do mending by her anti-French aunt (that's why Patrick thought she would agree to get married in Caro's place). She in turn rescues the hero from being stabbed in the heart.
Duels fought: One, which ends when the Prince attempts to stab the Marquis before he can call for his duelling pistols.
Book ends with one of the pair recovering in bed: Rocana, after being stabbed in the shoulder trying to stop the duel.
What the heroine believes the hero's lips give her when they kiss at the end: No specific mention of his lips this time, but his kiss gives her '... not only the sunshine, but the moon, the stars, all the magic she had found in everything beautiful and had known instinctively she would one day find it in love.'
Diamond-studded snuff boxes mentioned: None, sadly.
And some examples of this fine work
Her glove was in her hand?; or, the waywardly placed 'from'
Then he reached out and kissed Caroline's hand from which she had drawn her glove.
Named after her in everything but name
Like Caroline, she [Rocana] too resembled the beautiful Lady Mary Brunt after whom they had both been christened.
The Marquis endears himself to me by not wanting wasting time with chit chat
He knew from long experience that it was always wise to arrive to stay with people so that there was less than an hour to make conversation before it was time to change for dinner.
What about her eyes?
"... a strange colour that in certain lights seemed almost purple."
Because she was frightened, her eyes were purple in their depths and had a strange mystic quality about them that was not wholly English.
That explains everything
"Do you really mean that she hates you? But why should she?"
"I can answer that quite easily. My father died in debt and my mother was French."
"French?" he repeated. "I suppose that explains your eyes."
The Duke gives Caroline (Rocana in disguise) a pep talk as they walk into the church for her wedding
'I shall miss you, Caroline. You've been a good girl. But I don't pretend I am not pleased that you are marrying a man in such an important position and who is so well endowed with this world's goods. At the same time Quorn is a difficult man and I daresay he will make a difficult husband! Nevertheless, he is a gentleman, and he will do the right thing by you. If you take my advice, you will not go prying into his private affairs. All young men have to "sow their wild oats" and Quorn by all accounts has produced a whole harvest of them! Well, here we are, and just you do want he wants and no tears. No man likes a crying woman!'
Let go of her lips!
The Marquis set her lips free.
The Marquis explains why he wanted to marry Caroline
"I suppose, now I think about it, it was somewhat arbitrary!"
Caroline having second thoughts on finally talking to the Marquis
"You are so much nicer than I thought you were, that I feel I ought to apologise."
Random line that amused me
Something that has cropped up in all three of the books: whenever the hero gets serious, he says whatever he says in a deep voice. It just makes me laugh, the idea that he's talking normally, then drops his voice to ask something:
"Are you thinking of running away from me?" he asked in a deep voice.
Now I have broken the shackles of posting these out of order, I should say this was one of three Cartlands that I bought for a pittance, so we have two more to look forward to. I'm not sure if that's a promise or a threat.