Margaret

“But I do not want to be a widow!" declared Elinor.
"I am afraid it is too late in the day to alter that." said Carlyon.
"Besides, if you had known my cousin better you would have wanted to be a widow," Nicky assured her.”
― Georgette Heyer, The Reluctant Widow

“With the aid of the baluster-rail and Mr Goring's stalwart arm she arrived, panting but triumphant, on the first floor, and paused to take breath. Observing that Lybster was about to throw open the door into the drawing room she stopped him by the simple expedient of grasping his sleeve. Affronted, he gazed at her with much hauteur, and said in freezing accents: "Madam?"

"Looby!" enunciated Mrs Floore, between gasps. "You wait! Trying to push me in - like a landed salmon!”
― Georgette Heyer, Bath Tangle

“You would -- you would take him into Your heaven, my lord?" asked Ingrey in astonishment and outrage. "He slew, not in defense of his own life, but in malice and madness. He tried to steal powers not rightly given to him. If I guess right, he plotted the death of his own brother. He would have raped Ijada, if he could, and killed again for his sport!"

The Son held up his hands. Luminescent, they seemed, as if dappled by autumn sun reflecting off a stream into shade. "My grace flows from me as a river, wolf-lord. Would you have me dole it out in the exact measure that men earn, as from an apothecary's dropper? Would you stand in pure water to your waist, and administer it by the scant spoon to men dying of thirst on a parched shore?"

Ingrey stood silent, abashed, but Ijada lifted her face, and said steadily, "No, my lord, for my part. Give him to the river. Tumble him down in the thunder of Your cataract. His loss is no gain of mine, nor his dark deserving any joy to me."

The god smiled brilliantly at her. Tears slid down her face like silver threads: like benedictions.

"It is unjust," whispered Ingrey. "Unfair to all who -- who would try to do rightly...."

"Ah, but I am not the god for justice," murmured the Son. "Would you both stand before my Father instead?”
― Lois McMaster Bujold, The Hallowed Hunt