Lady Wesley

“By Jove, what claptrap! Love can turn to contempt in the blink of an eye. When it sours, believe me, only bitterness and misery remain. Such disappointment spoils all other affection. Whereas mature, reasonable expectations cannot be disappointed, my lady, because they can be fulfilled.”
“I will not marry without love, my lord.”
“Nor will I pretend to love in order to marry,” he growled in reply.
“I won’t spout drivel to stoke your overheated fantasies. If we can rub along, that is enough for me. In return, I will honor you, provide for you and protect you.”  
“My father loved my mother deeply, devotedly. He loves her to this day. That is perfect, enduring love.”  
“I cannot promise you perfection.”  
“It’s not impossible to love with devotion. Swans mate for life, why can’t I?”
“Perhaps because you are not an aggressive water fowl with a brain the size of an acorn. You have the option to act as a rational creature and accept that there is no such thing as perfect love in reality.”  
“ I will not settle for less.”
“By all means, don’t settle, Lady Elizabeth,” Clun said and rudely stood up to leave.
“Don’t settle for me. Hold out for a poet. Or more appealing waterfowl for all I care. In the meantime, do not presume to lecture me about the proper basis of marriage, as if you knew better than I.”
― miranda davis, The Baron's Betrothal

“I shall be much obliged to you, cousin, if you will refrain from telling my sisters that she has a face like a horse!’

‘But, Charles, no blame attaches to Miss Wraxton! She cannot help it, and that, I assure you, I have always pointed out to your sisters!’

‘I consider Miss Wraxton’s countenance particularly well-bred!’

‘Yes, indeed, but you have quite misunderstood the matter! I meant a particularly well-bred horse!’

'You mean, as I am perfectly aware, to belittle Miss Wraxton!'

'No, no! I am very fond of horses!' Sophy said earnestly.

Before he could stop himself he found that he was replying to this. 'Selina, who repeated the remark to me, is not fond of horses, however, and she—' He broke off, seeing how absurd it was to argue on such a head.

'I expect she will be, when she has lived in the same house with Miss Wraxton for a month or two,' said Sophy encouragingly.”
― Georgette Heyer, The Grand Sophy

“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

“Perhaps you have friends already who laugh when you do,’ she said diffidently. ‘I haven’t, and it’s important, I think – more important than sympathy in affliction, which you might easily find in someone you positively disliked.’ ‘But to share a sense of the ridiculous prohibits dislike – yes, that’s true. And rare!”
― Georgette Heyer, Venetia