Emma Orchard

“He was no poet. He despised high-flown sentiment, always had. One of the main aims of poetry, as far as he could see, and his classical education had confirmed as much, was to persuade women into your bed who otherwise might not agree to go there, and make everyone think you were a devil of a fine fellow, rather than a hopeless libertine, while you were doing it. A clever trick, or a cheap one, he was not quite sure. Both, perhaps.”
― Emma Orchard, A Duke of One's Own