Lady Wesley

“Is this what love feels like?" he whispered to her. "I don't like it, my Beth. It hurts too much.”
― Jennifer Ashley, The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie

“Rather than fall completely under his spell, she huffed, “I should like to see you submissively fond of your wife. Given your professed opinions, I cannot expect much fondness from you as a husband, can I?”  

“Fondness, yes. Ridiculous, romantic, calf-eyed love, no, you may not,” he confirmed. “But when I am fond, Bess, I am very fond.”
― Miranda Davis, The Baron's Betrothal

“How long did it take her? People usually react to her fairly swiftly—either love or hate, there’s rarely an emotion between. A day? A week?”

He thought of Free the way he’d first seen her: standing on the bank of the Thames, leaning forward.

“Two to five,” Edward muttered.

“Days?”

“Minutes.”
― Courtney Milan, The Suffragette Scandal

“His parenting never involved indulgence, just benign neglect. And having let me do as I wish for two decades, it seems a mean trick to impose discipline by marrying me off to some relic from another age.”
“Perhaps.”
“Who knows if the old baron is even up to the task of managing me! You say I’ll give him fatal spasms.” “Only if the drink doesn’t kill him first,” Clun quipped.
“He’s a… a tippler?” She asked.
“More than tipples, if memory serves. A bottomless cask. Mouth like a funnel on one end and a wee spigot at the other,” he concluded with a wink.”
― Miranda Davis, The Baron's Betrothal