K.j Charles Quotes

[Blog post, March 10, 2014]

What the fuck, what the fucking, bloody devil-shit, what in the name of Satan's swollen cock was that?

When I fuck you, Mr. Day, it will not be briefly. It will be long and hard and extremely thorough. I'm going to take pains with you.

I like the way he says ‘furthermore’,” Merrick observed quietly. “Cos you can tell he means ‘wankers’.

I am in the process of nailing Mr. Humphrey Griffin to the wall so thoroughly that future generations will mistake him for a tapestry,...

My life changed four months ago, and I utterly failed to understand that until just recently, and therefore… I may have omitted to tell you that I love you.” He took a breath. “That’s all.

I like to make you know your master,” Crane said. “It's only fair. The rest of the time you've got me so thoroughly enslaved, I might as well be wearing a collar with your name on it.

But— Why didn’t you say?” “Secret agent. Secret.

When I have you, sweet boy, it will be because you want me to. Not against your better judgment, not in spite of my surname, and definitely not to annoy your aunt." Stephen went red, but his voice was defiant. "Well, what was that, then?" Crane shrugged. "You seemed tense.

A story without an ending is an unbearable itch to the reader.

And he owned a lot of books, although just now and then, when it got dark and the shelves loomed over him, he got the feeling that they owned him.

Two death sentences? Really? I mean, you look very well, considering.

There is something very old and odd and quite unpleasant about this house." "Yes, its Graham." Stephan grinned and followed him into the long room.

Dear me, Mr. Day. You really do love to get fucked on desks, don't you? Put you on a desk, and you're begging for it. What is so particularly exciting about desks?

There really were no chains like the ones in your head.

What I say is, one can be as moral as one likes but one should have the courtesy to do it in private, like any other bad habit.

Jesus!” he yelped. “I fear not,” said a silky voice, and Curtis realised that he had collided with da Silva. “Both Jewish, of course, but the resemblance ends there.

Why do we count the cost of change, but not the cost of the world staying the same?

You look like the cat that swallowed the cream," Stephen said softly. "That comes later.

Thank God they were British. He took a deep breath. “Cup of tea?

Stephen can, of course, use my power, for two reasons. Firstly, because it’s his, just as all I am and all I have are his. Not that he ever asks, of course. I’m not sure that he quite believes it.” He looked round at Stephen, a rueful smile dawning, ignoring Fairley’s loud noises of disgust. “But I do hope you are aware, my sweet, somewhere in that absurd heart, that I am ever, entirely, and quite pathetically yours.

You're remarkably uninteresting for a flying trollop.

The more love you give, the more you are capable of giving. It's only when you shut off the source that it dries up.

If you can’t be happy, then be something else. Be useful, that would be good. Decorative, if you like. Selfish, if you must. But don’t whine about it.

Everyone can do evil. Some people can be forced to it, and some fight against it, and some don't even need an invitation.

This is what I keep telling you, Saint. You have to think," Stephen said. "If you'd put a knee in his groin first, you could probably have punched him in the face as well when he went over.

Scars are always beautiful. They're proof we lived.

Country folk fuck,” Corvin said. “Well, they must; it’s not as if other entertainments present themselves. Plant things, dig things, knit things, fuck things. Make cheese.

Some people had strong views on attacking a man from behind. Well, Will did himself, those views being that it was an excellent idea, best done with a blade. He missed the Messer.

People create poetry and mustard gas. We invent gods and monsters and gods that might as well be monsters. We act with extraordinary grace and unfathomable cruelty. We're so terribly intelligent, and dreadfully easy to fool.

I'd call you a whore but you're nothing so honest

You do know that bad people aren’t generally redeemed by the love of a good woman, or man, don’t you? Most people don’t change, and if they do, it’s not because of someone else.

My dear chap, this is a bookshop. There’s never anywhere better to be.

But Kim had wanted him anyway, and he’d fought accordingly, until he got it through Will’s thick skull that it was time to stop seeing where they went and start heading there on purpose

I'm a very busy man" Crane said. "But I suppose I could force myself back here, lick you all over till you're begging for my cock, and then fuck you so hard they'll hear you screaming in the street. If you insist

He wished he had words for what Kim was, the aching pain and the starlight, the beauty and the ugliness.

But I do hope you are aware, my sweet, somewhere in that absurd heart, that I am ever, entirely, and quite pathetically yours.

Cyprian didn’t shrug—a servant of his calibre would never do such a thing—but his entire demeanor implied a shrug.

I should rather be a loyal liar than an honest traitor.

You like 'em dangerous, that's your trouble. If they ain't leaving a trail of dead, you ain't interested.

Holt gave a modest shrug. “I can hold my own.” “I dare say you have to,” murmured da Silva.

If you’re going to be insolent, at least pour me coffee.” “It’s brewing. Like trouble.

Would I like sodomy?” “That is without a doubt the best question that has ever been asked. English was invented purely so that you could ask that.

No.” Leo grinned reminiscently. “Tom was the most lawless man I ever knew. He always said he never let a friend down—” “But sometimes people didn’t know they weren’t friends any more until it was too late.

Every man is entitled to his beliefs.” “Yes, any man has a right to his beliefs, and a duty to question them too,” Raven retorted. “If you don’t take out your beliefs for washing now and again, they’re just bad habits.

I think once an author is attacking people for leaving Amazon reviews, common sense has shut up shop and gone home, and the best thing to do is not engage at all.

I love you,” Julius observed at last. “To a degree that frankly startles me.

If you trust someone, that means letting them into a position where they can really hurt you, and believing they won't. And if you're afraid to do that, either you aren't sure of them, or you aren't sure of yourself.

Arrogant , beautiful, domineering Lord Crane, with the caring that made Stephen’s heart break, and the vicious streak that made his knees bend, had chosen him among all the men’s men of London, and treated him with a loyalty, generosity and almost painful honesty that made Stephen’s heart hurt. And his reward was a few doled-out crumbs of Stephen’s time in a country he hated.

I see no reason the duties of Second Villain shouldn’t include being First Villain’s helpless sexual plaything. It would make the melodramas a great deal more entertaining.

If you couldn’t have a thing without hurting someone who didn’t deserve it, you shouldn’t have it.

Kim was starlight and privilege; Will had his feet firmly fixed in the mud. They didn’t belong together. Except they did.

Stephen rubbed at his face. “Look, I have three choices. I never see you again so I’m not tempted; I give in to temptation and milk you for power until I’m a raging madman; or I control myself. I don’t like the first two options.

There are a number of recommended methods of dealing with ghosts—salt and iron, harmonic resonance, some people swear by exorcism, and not just the priests—but that's the fist time I've seen anyone try a left hook.

Heroic," Crane told Baines contemptuously. "Old women, idiot children, bound men, you'll take on all comers. There's a three-legged stray dog hangs around the lanes here. Perhaps someday you could work up to kicking that.

Something difficult for you isn’t less difficult because other people have different problems.

He doesn’t remember her birthday or bring her silks, or ever do thoughtful things like that. He just works to make her safe and happy, because that’s how he loves people.

Most people think that nobody should make a fuss until it’s their own comfort at stake, at which point they will bring the roof down shrieking about it.

He had rid my inherited house of a lustful ghost, opened my eyes to a concealed world of strange forces and arcane knowledge, and buggered me twice.

Come to bed with me, you blasted radical. Bring me your revolution.

...Tell him that I am quite specifically in desperate need of a redheaded bastard." Julius blinked. "And that will help, will it?

You need to dress for your own body, not pretend you’ve someone else’s, don’t you think?

You're a fool, and I'm another. Between us, we barely make a village idiot.

I hope you find some of these as snugly up your alley as I find you up mine.

I like it here. I just want to walk the wind, watch you play rugby. Make kites for Agnes and do things, when I can—and come to bed with you at the end of the day. I’ve stopped running.” “You fell?” “I landed.

You cannot protect her from failure, so you might as well give her the best chance to succeed.

There's no good doing the right thing unless you stop people doing the wrong thing.

Justin Lazarus was without question a disgraceful fraud, but as his lips moved in silent prayer, Nathaniel could not help the thought that he looked like a glorious fuck.

Those who know, do. Those who understand, teach.

It is my aim, and would be my privilege, to ruin you for all others for a very long time to come.

Society is a consequential fool, and I am tired of rules and strictures that do no good and bring nobody happiness.

I am in the process of nailing Mr. Humphrey Griffin to the wall so thoroughly that future generations will mistake him for a tapestry,” said Crane.

What the fuck, what the fucking, bloody devil-shit, what in the name of Satan’s swollen cock was that?

I know you’ve thought about this,” Will said. “But there are men in the world who aren’t queer or arseholes. Have you considered marrying one of them instead?

When people are obliged to keep an eye out for threats, their eyes tend to be sharp. That’s what women’s intuition means, if you ask me: being unconsciously alert for dangerous men.

I don't believe in demons and pitchforks. But I think, if you had to define hell, you could take a good man and deny him the rites he believed in, and condemn his soul to a slow process of corruption until it was nothing but a mass of rage and hate and seething evil that his true self would have loathed. I think that would be hell.

You wanted me to fuck you, didn't you?" Stephen shut his eyes. "Briefly." Crane lowered his head so his mouth was right on Stephen's ear, voice vibrating, teeth and tongue touching the sensitive flesh. "When I fuck you, Mr. Day, it will not be briefly. It will be long and hard and extremely thorough. I'm going to take pains with you.

He glanced at the book in his hand and added, “I think I’d need to be a bit further away to grasp it, mind you. Manchester, perhaps.” Da Silva looked startled for a second, then his face lit with a smile.

What I mean is, one can’t help one’s fears. The question isn’t if you’re a fellow who cries in the night before a big engagement—and I knew a damned brave man who did exactly that, regularly. It’s whether you pick yourself up the next day.

When my namesake, the great Caesar, rode in triumph,” Julius said, “he was accompanied by a slave whose role was to whisper to him, You are but mortal. To remind him he was merely a man who would one day die like any other. If I could, I should have you at my side to remind me that I am alive, because I have not felt alive in so damned long, and with you, I do. No, I don’t want you to marry, any more than I want you to return to your dirty democrats. I want to show you the world, and see you smile, and keep you with me while my soul grows back.

He had no idea if he was being served or mastered now. Both, or neither, it didn’t matter.

When I have you, sweet boy, it will be because you want me to. Not against your better judgement, not in spite of my surname, and definitely not to annoy your aunt.

Well, God knows what you used to be, then, because you’re built like a brick shithouse and hung like a horse.

Of course I’ve got a conscience,” Jonah said. “He’s sitting right here next to me.

It was hard to keep up the fight for the freedom of your fellow man when your fellow man was a bastard.

You can’t just not do things acause of the consequences.' 'Consequences are literally the reason not to do things. That’s what they’re for.

He had always found hope harder to deal with than despair. Despair didn't get disappointed.

I’m tired of being the villain in the story. I never meant to be, and I don’t want to do it any more.

I’m sure you’re right about that,” Kim said. “But I really can’t bring myself to regret the man you might have been, given the one you are.

The question was never whether I loved you," Alec whispered. "It was, How brave am I? or maybe How afraid am I? And it turns out I'm slightly braver than I am afraid when it comes to you.

I love you dearly, my friend. I always will, but even without my tastes, I think we would not have grown well together. The fact is, you want an ally. I prefer a challenge. You want agreement; I want contraries. I want Silas.

Right. Put Some coffee on while I think about this. I'm in dire need" Merrick gave him a look. "You can't work the stove, can you?" "I'm the eighth Earl Crane and the twelfth Viscount Fortunegate. I don't have to work the stove." "Two extra names and you can't lift your arms any more. Bloody lucky they didn't make you a duke too or you'd forget how to brush your own teeth.

... when people want to hurt someone very much, they often reach for the thing that would hurt themselves most deeply.

Wednesday by Wednesday, week by week, I have become yours for the taking.

Not much. I’ve very little imagination. It’s the imaginative chaps who suffer.” “‘The coward dies a thousand deaths

This isn’t a speech, it’s a statement. A simple declarative statement. I love you. You thought you were renting me for a month and you have me for life. Buyer beware.

This was the torment and insanity, the enjoyment of angels, when he was helpless in Silas’s hands. “Frighten me,” Dominic whispered.

They say Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, but it’s not true. Hell hath no fury like the one who did the scorning, especially when they’re made to face up to their actions.

Alec, my sweet, you trampled me, Temp, and your family underfoot, and no less effectively because you did it in velvet slippers. I’m genuinely impressed.

Talk about making a profit on a job. I stole you, and I’m keeping you.

Fine,” Will said. “I promise. I promise I’ll just bugger off whenever it seems like the easy way out for me, and leave you in this hundred-room hellhole with your family rubbing cheese-graters on your nerve endings. Is that what you want to hear?” “I detect a note of sarcasm.

I like to make you know your master,” Crane said. “It’s only fair. The rest of the time, you’ve got me so thoroughly enslaved, I might as well be wearing a collar with your name on it.

I give him the truth. I don't ask for his; I give him mine. The shames the fears, the desires. I have made myself vulnerable to him, I have put my soul in his hands, and he has cherished it.

I had to let someone know who I was: not merely Simon's assistant, his chronicler, his poor scribbling friend, but the great love of a great life. That I may have lived in his shadow, but I was always by his side. That I was as needful to him as air.

Charm's a very dangerous thing. Lucien, tell me," Stephen said thoughtfully. "This respect for shamans, this inviolability..." "Mmm?" "Well, I don't know if you remember, but some three weeks ago, you tied me to your bedposts and spent two hours subjecting me to acts of unimaginable depravity. And considering you call me a shaman--" "I take issue with 'unimaginable'," Crane interrupted, sudden heat and light rushing through him. "I imagine those acts in detail every night you're not there. In fact, I've imagined quite a few more that I have every intention of subjecting you to when I get a chance.

Nothing had changed, nothing to remedy his pain and anger and hate. Jonah was a thief, a liar, an accessory to murder. But he had said 'Score me a try', and the words had stabbed Ben’s heart with sweetness.

No,” Kim said. “That’s the daily drip of insult you can expect as things are now, which is why I don’t want them to get worse. Because you are everything more, and I resent to the bottom of my soul that you should feel any other way. Wait for me; I’ll call you. Be good.

Richard couldn't adorn David's ears with jewels and doubted very much he'd want them. Even the plainest gifts would be attention-grabbing, inappropriate, dangerous. Richard would just have to give his valet the world instead.

Aye, duty. You do yours and I do mine. Only, my duty, as I see it, is to tell people there’s a better way than tyranny and unjust law. And yours is to uphold the law when you ain’t too busy breaking it bent over in a whorehouse.

Let me be frank. I find you intriguing, and extremely appealing, and delightful company, and very much a man who deserves more pleasure in his life. If you’d like to take that pleasure with me, I’d be honoured. If you aren’t so minded, don’t take offence at the offer, and I shan’t at the refusal. And if you decide you’d prefer Corvin, for example, I shall bow out like a gentleman, although I shall probably kick him in the shins at some point from pure envy.

Nobody ain't going to lay a finger on you, missus," said Merrick. "Not while me and my lord are standing. You tell Mr. Day about it and don't worry no more" "Since when did you talk to law?" demanded Leonora in Shanghainese. "Since his nobility's fucking it. Youe want the shortarse on your side.

Guy stared at the words. “Broken leg,” he repeated. His voice sounded odd. “I fear so, sir,” the servant said. “Sir Philip and Mr. Raven found Miss Frisby in a field, I understand.” “But—is she all right?” “No, sir. Her leg is broken.

One of Miss Marianne Loxleigh’s most admired features, at least by the kind of people who catalogued beauty rather than reacting to it, was her noble and lofty forehead. She usually emphasised it in the way she dressed her hair. Currently she was emphasising it by banging it on the breakfast table.

I have no quarrel with democrats in principle, except that they are as much frauds and liars as the rest. It is often said that mankind will not be free till the last king is strangled with the guts of the last priest; if you ask me, the man who ordered the strangling would promptly step forth to proclaim himself Lord Protector, and it would all begin again.

Such an easy thing, to be liked. All you had to do was make sure people didn’t know you.

Ben looked up, and the foundations of his life began to crumble.

It does seem unfair that one should have to rethink one’s beliefs at the advanced age of thirty-seven.

I am Jonah, therefore I love Ben.

Was he truly the only man who noticed Hart’s kindness, and passion, and thighs?

He was an aggressive, forceful, noisy man who thrived on conflict, for whom divergent opinions were airy-fairy nonsense or weakness, and anyone else’s expertise was a threat.

This was her family, chosen by love rather than bound by birth, and infinitely stronger for it.

She had a fire and a good book; what more did a woman need?

Susan put a steel hairpin into Kammy’s trouser front. Several inches deep.” Jerry cringed visibly. “Ah, the gentle sex.

Because that’s how life tends to work in all its aspects. We try things out, and make mistakes, and recover, and learn from our experiences.

You're so busy torturing yourself for your sins, you don't even notice how much you're hurting other people.

You don’t get what you want by not asking for it.

That was the sort of thing people said and then it turned out they hadn’t meant that at all. Clem knew he didn’t recognise sarcasm because he had been told so, repeatedly. Even so, he was very nearly positive that Mr. Green meant every word.

I’ve always considered you an immovable object—you do such a good impression of one—but of course you’re not. You’re a man like the rest of us, albeit gloriously strong and gloriously solid, but perhaps the solidity comes at the expense of flexibility. That’s physics for you. Maybe you need to be a bit less strong and a bit more vulnerable for a while and see what happens. Good Lord, I felt you twitch there. You can be vulnerable if you want, my love. You aren’t at war any more.

I didn’t do anything.” “You stayed,” Kim said. “You loved me. You watched me, which obliged me to behave as the man I’d like to be, rather than the less impressive one I often am. I don’t like it when you’re not there either, Will. I’m better with you.

Listen. Whatever the hell is going on, and I include the Bruton bitch in that, we will face it together. You and me. No more pissing about, Stephen, no more trying to do it all yourself, or to run the world single-handed. You will ask for help, you will take it, and you will put us first. That's not negotiable, understand?

Susan had often been told that women should not show anger. She’d concluded early on that this meant she should not emulate Nathaniel, whose rare but spectacular rages were always short-lived, but rather Justin, who was coldly vicious and could hold a grudge forever.

Miss Nodder leaned forward, then glanced round at Stephen. "Are you in this conversation, of just skulking?" "Mostly skulking." Stephen had a particular knack for making himself unobtrusive. He was mildly impressed that he'd been noticed. "But I have a licence to skulk.

He had no idea what civilians, or civilised people, would say in these circumstances. Thanks for that, old chap, much obliged, perhaps? Ought he apologise for coming in his mouth? Would this be a good moment to restart the conversation about where Kim had learned to use a knife? Thank God they were British. He took a deep breath. “Cup of tea?

I’m well aware of my good fortune. I’m well aware I ought to be happy, we all ought to be happy as the day is long, and dance the night away on the bodies of starving workers. Well, I’m not bloody happy.” He knocked back his gin. It rasped down his throat like a rusty blade. Silas watched him as he tried not to cough it back up. “If you can’t be happy, then be something else. Be useful, that would be good. Decorative, if you like. Selfish, if you must. But don’t whine about it.

So many things mattered about Kim. The way his deep brown eyes lit when he smiled, the intense concentration he brought to work or to bed. How he had made undrinkably weak tea for Will just once, watched him make his own with catlike attention, and got it spoon-dissolvingly perfect ever since. There were so many tiny wisping moments of trust and truth and vulnerability that had slowly become something real and solid between them, and Will didn’t want it to slip through his fingers. Not again.

A future. You know the concept? The shape you want the rest of your life to take? I want mine with you, all of it. A future, a forever. I love you.” He said it quite calmly, as if it was an established fact. “People say I love you to madness, but I love you to sanity, because loving you is the sanest thing I have ever done. You are everything to me, Will, and I cannot lose you to my miserable family and an accident of birth.

There are a number of recommended methods of dealing with ghosts—salt and iron, harmonic resonance, some people swear by exorcism, and not just the priests—but that's the first time I've seen anyone try a left hook.

Have you seen the mummies at the British Museum?” “The Egyptian ones? No, not yet. But they have a similar thing in China.” “Did you ever imagine if they started moving? Withered hands reaching towards you and sunken eyes staring?” “I didn’t, but now I know what I’ll be dreaming about tonight.

Rubbish," he said. "Firstly, stop talking as if you did anything but what I wanted. Secondly--well, you're a slippery bastard, granted. You've made plenty of mistakes and done a lot of bad things and told an incredible number of lies. You're an utter shit. Sorry, what was I saying? I got carried away.

No strings, Justin. I want you on your feet, not your knees, and I'd rather see you presiding at the seance table than hungry or desperate. I don't want you to capitulate. I never want you to do that. Merely, I would take it as a very great favour if you'd please, please let me give you back your freedom to choose.

But it could ruin us. But I could lose you, because your position will be intolerable, and I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want to do without you; I don’t want you to leave me. I can’t stop you, of course, but that doesn’t mean I won’t try. I’ll beg if I have to, and won’t that embarrass us both. I want a future with you.

Nobody would believe that Richard left evening pleasures promptly because it gave him longer in his valet's company, that he took such care over his clothing because it made two hours' dressing with Cyprian unexceptional. That he would rather talk to a liveried servant than to any of the gentlemen who were his closest friends.

Rowley had thought at first the beast had no name; it had taken him a while to understand that it had a perfectly good, descriptive name to which it was as likely to answer as any other, and that name was Cat. There was something terribly Clem about that.

He feared in his bones that he’d give in if Dom asked, and Dom knew it and didn’t ask. Silas loved him more for that, with a heart so poorly suited and so unaccustomed to love that he felt it might burst its banks like one of London’s choked, fetid rivers.

Kim seemed to feel the same, because he was whistling. Will must love him, because he didn't mind. He couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, he took his tea so weak it ought to be illegal, he might be letting his brother get away with murder right now, and Will felt like the whole world came to a point on him. Everything that mattered and everything he needed was right there in the dark-eyed man walking next to him, butchering ‘You’d Be Surprised’.

There is more to life than the pursuit of happiness!” “Tell that to the United States.” Giles snorted. “Yes, and I doubt that will work out well.

I see. Things must be bad if you’re voluntarily telling me the truth.

You’re doing this too, my dear. And you need my permission as much as I need yours.

That was an argument. This is a crisis. When we’ve dealt with the crisis, we’ll go back to the argument.

My Doomsday. The end of my world.

You’re sweet to offer, darling, but you can’t punch everyone in the face.” “I don’t mind trying.

Is there anything more terrifying than getting what you hope for?

What it comes down to is—” He couldn’t find a better way to say it. “I don’t like it when you aren’t there. It pisses me off; I think it always will. Don’t piss me off?

Only, while he was around, he’d given Will a taste for starlight.

He considered himself an honest trader, apart from the criminal parts.

... why have we all decided that the most important and to-be-respected quality is the one possessed by the worst people?

You did what nobody has done for me in my whole life. You saw I needed defending, and you fought.

You can be vulnerable if you want, my love. You aren't at war any more.

oleaginous

What’s it to me which rich man runs the country?

I almost never respond to literary criticism with homicide.

Christ,” Philip said after a while. “Latin imperatives in bed. I had no idea. Well, now we know why the Roman empire declined and fell.” “They were declining the wrong verbs.

Marry me.” “What? No! Go away.

You’re a very unobtrusive, nondescript little man.” “Er—” “Except for those eyes of yours,” Crane went on musingly. “And those incredible hands. And that foxy smile. You don’t let it out much, do you? Everything under cover. And then you stop hiding yourself for a moment, and your whole face lights up, and suddenly I can see just how you’ll look when I fuck you.

I have been coming to love you for a long time, you damned seditious brute, as I almost found the courage to tell you earlier. Wednesday by Wednesday, week by week, I have loved you.

I volunteered to go kill men who I’d have had a drink with if I’d met them in a pub, and that wasn’t courage, just a twist in the head that went the other way round to shellshock. Calling it honour is putting ribbons on a pile of shit. It might look good, but it still stinks.

Two death sentences? Really? I mean, you look very well, considering.” Crane grinned at him. “One was in absentia. One wasn’t, and I spent three days in a condemned cell. I can’t recommend the experience.” “And—did you say a smuggler?” “That was what the death sentences were for.

I like you, Hart. You might try believing that, and if you can’t, you’re a fool to consort with me at all. Think about it and make your decision. But don’t shout at me because you’re afraid.

He met Kim’s dark eyes. “I think about you all the time. I see you hurt and it makes me want to burn things to the ground. I don’t know what a future’s supposed to look like or how it would work, but I’m not letting you go without a fight, no matter what. I don’t know what I’d do all day.

It’s a bright shadow,” Clem said with fierce intensity, and Rowley’s throat closed. For the words, and their meaning, and for Clem’s open look, without the nervous apprehension and the hint of a stammer. For the trust that allowed him in moments like this to drop his ever-present guard. Hell

He’d spent his life carefully not looking into an abyss of rage like the pit of hellfire he’d so often been told awaited pagans, because if he ever really looked, he feared he might be angry forever.

I love you,” Robin said. “I’ve been in love with you for I don’t know how long. Since—” “—the fishpond—” “—yes, the fishpond, and don’t finish my sentences just because you know what I’m going to say.

I will not be changed!” David shouted, then dropped his voice to a low, vicious hiss. “I am a valet, and a whore’s get, and a redheaded bastard, and if that is not good enough for you, then you may go to the devil, because I will not be reshaped to fit your whim. I’m better than that. I am very well as I am, and if you cannot lower yourself to fuck the man who cleans your boots, you may not have me.

The unspoken thing, the forbidden hope, the one point that made David's service feel like servitude because he could not even ask. But Lord Richard still wasn't moving, his deep blue eyes locked on David's and wide with shock, and now they knew. Now they both knew and there was no pretending otherwise.

He'd always wanted to stand alone ; he'd always thought of reliance on others as a house of cards, a fragile structure that could be pushed over at any time. And that was true : people betrayed, and left, and died. He hadn't been wrong. Only, he hadn't considered that a card on its own couldn't stand at all.

I was holding myself together by my fingernails for a very long time, until the most magnificently stubborn sod of a bookseller came into my life. You treated me, against all the evidence, as if I were something resembling the man I ought to be, with such pertinacious obstinacy I have all but started to believe it myself. I spent the last few months thinking about this as I reordered your outrageous mess of a bookshop. How I came to be where I was, what I’d done to bring it on myself. What I need to do differently.

I can't love you again," Ben said, his heart aching on the words. "How can I, when I never stopped? I couldn't stop loving you when I hated you so much it made me sick to think about you. I used to dream about killing you and wake up crying because I thought you were dead. I can't not love you. I don't know how.

I don’t understand it. Why can’t people let everyone else get on with their lives? What possible reason is there for seeing someone not doing any harm, taking a bit of pleasure, and deciding to ruin it, for nothing?

Well, nothing really. That’s the point, isn’t it? I spend so long worrying about what might happen because I’m afraid of the worst, but fearing one will be unhappy later shouldn’t stop one being happy now, should it?

If you’re staying with your wife purely because of your marriage vows, then those vows aren’t worth a damn, and nor is your opinion on Stephen and myself.” “As I’m sure you’ve surmised, I stay with Esther out of fear,

The house is decaying, the furnishings are museum pieces, half the staff are consumed with loathing of me out of loyalty to my father, or because I remind them of my brother. In any case, they're people who lived in the same house as Hector when there are perfectly good ditches to die in, which tells you as much as you need to know.

Sorry to say it, but from what I hear, your father was a middling arsehole. No offense." "You can't just say something offensive and add 'no offense'." Joss cocked an eye at him. "Are you offended?" "No," Gareth admitted.

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Will had left the Army like he’d joined it, as a private, and ‘cloak and dagger’ was accurate if you meant ‘stabbing people in the dark’. Kim was a bloody twisting slippery weasel liar, and Will had to hold back a savage grin of pride.

He liked being the bigger man of the two, even though it wasn’t by much, he liked the way his solid rugby player’s build matched and countered Jonah’s athletic strength. But there was something about Jonah’s body hair, that incontrovertible evidence of his masculinity, that made Ben feel…not that he was less manly, precisely, but that Jonah was more so.

I want you back. I want you as my lover, my right hand, my devious, lying, counterfeiting, entirely unprincipled fox. My valet. I want you blacking my boots, solving my problems, and sharing my bed. I want you to accept a situation of gross injustice with no safeguard except your trust in me. I want you to be that foolish, vulnerable creature, a servant who warms his master's sheets, and only the two of us will know that I am not the master here. And I swear to you, if you will give me that trust, I will be worthy of it. Whatever may befall between us, no matter whether you change your mind, I will always behave as the man I ought to be. The man you need me to be. I love you, David, Will you be with me?

You say you trust him. But if you trust someone, that means letting them into a position where they can really hurt you, and believing they won’t. And if you’re afraid to do that, either you aren’t sure of them, or you aren’t sure of yourself.

That’s not a relationship!” Will shouted. “That’s not how you treat a friend or a lover or a partner, or any damn thing! ‘Take it or leave it’ is for customers, not people you care about. You’re meant to compromise, and find a way through, not just say this is how it is because you don’t have the guts to face up to things. You’re meant to give a damn when you hurt people!

You make it so easy,” Hart whispered, because his throat was closing. “How is all this so easy for you?” “I think I have a different idea of what makes life hard.” Hart couldn’t find a response to that. After a moment Robin said, “Sorry. That didn’t come out quite as I intended.” “Happens to me all the time.” “But it was stupid. Something difficult for you isn’t less difficult because other people have different problems.” “More serious ones.” “It’s your life. You decide what constitutes a problem in it.

But there was still a kernel of him that was a desperate, lost, hungry thing, and no matter how hard he tried to starve it out, it was always there, poking its head out at a sniff of affection, howling for more, making him hopeful and vulnerable and stupid.

Kim breathed out, long and slow. “I have wondered where you were hiding the damage. First things first: forget what I said. I shouldn’t have asked and I’m sorry. You came through a meat grinder alive and won medals on the way. You ‘just got on’ in order to survive hell. If that’s what you have to keep doing, then in God’s name keep doing it, at least until you don’t need to any more.

I wouldn’t dream of it.” Kim caught his hand and kissed the palm. “I couldn’t. You changed everything, Will. My life, my work, myself. It’s all changed—all better—because of you.” “You did that yourself, you daft sod. I just shouted at you a bit.” “A lot. God, I adore you.

If you tell me no, I will be silent. If you prefer, I shall never ask again. But you should know that I would plead on my knees. If I thought you wanted me there.' "To win my help?" "Be damned to your help. I want your mouth, and your hands, and your hair, and your eyes. I want to stop feeling as though half of my world has gone missing. That puts no obligation on you, none at all, but it is the truth. Do as you wish with it.

The question was never whether I loved you,” Alec whispered. “It was, How brave am I? or maybe How afraid am I? And it turns out I’m slightly braver than I am afraid when it comes to you. Tell me what I need to do so we can be together and neither of us gets arrested for anything, and I’ll do it.

Jesus,” Will said. “You don’t half talk bollocks. I know you, Kim Secretan. I know how you scoured England to find me when I was locked in a room, and how you lied up hill and down dale to get your hands on a paper and then handed it over anyway because it was the right thing to do. You ripped yourself apart for fear of hurting Phoebe, you gave up your ticket out of this mess for me, and you think you’re rotten? You stupid bastard, you’re true as steel.

What do you want to talk about?" "I don't know. The football results? Politics. The pictures. Why the blazes you're called Kim when your name is Arthur." "My name, since you raise the topic, is Arthur Aloysius Kimberley de Brabazon Secretan. What would you do in my place?" "Leave the country," Will said wholeheartedly. "You poor bastard, you never stood a chance.

Gareth stopped dead. Catherine walked up, went on tiptoes, and kissed his cheek. “You’re a good man, Gareth Inglis, and I’m so glad you came to us. You deserve to be happy. And I’ll make up a bed if you’d like me to, but I’d rather say I did and spare myself the work.” “I—uh—I—” “I won’t trouble, then. Good night.” She gave him a quick flashing smile and took her candle up to bed.

The way you talk to me, the way you think, the ways you lie, even. Every damn thing about you. You drive me out of my mind, Kim. It’s been months and I can’t think of anything but you. And I suppose all that means I love you, but that—the words—” “Not right?” “Not enough. What it comes down to is—” He couldn’t find a better way to say it. “I don’t like it when you aren’t there. It pisses me off; I think it always will. Don’t piss me off?

I said, ask.” “Nicely?” Justin enquired. “I doubt you’re capable of nicely outside the seance room.” Justin bared his teeth, then let himself go languid in the chair, raising his arms behind his head. “Oh, Mr. Roy,” he murmured through a shameless pout. “Please, sir, I’ve the wickedest spirits upon me. I’m quite at their mercy.” He hooked a leg behind one of Nathaniel’s powerful thighs. “I can’t help myself, sir, I’m consumed by their influences.” He tugged Nathaniel’s hand to his chest, sliding his fingers between shirt buttons. “Oh! Oh, sir, is it a spirit hand I can feel on me?” “If you don’t stop talking like that—” “Please sir, drive them out of me,” Justin begged. “I can’t control myself.” “Are you going to stop it?” “I can’t,” Justin panted. “I’m a slave to the lower spirits. Oh, the things they want me to do to you. Filthy, terrible things, sir.

He did want to live decently, in theory. He had always expected a respectable life with the trappings of church, children, brass doorstep, vegetable plot, just as his mother had dreamed of for him. Those were things any man, or most, would want to have. The blood-red uncivilised streak of his nature that had blossomed in the war didn’t want them. That streak wanted someone who would ask him to infiltrate night-clubs and kick people’s heads in. That streak wanted Kim, who offered none of the things that appealed to Will’s respectable ambitions and everything that fed the wolf.