Pandora Ravenel Quotes

“Pandora launched into a detailed account of her conversation with the hermit crab, reporting that his name was Shelley, after the poet, whose works he admired. He was a well-traveled crustacean, having flown to distant lands while clinging to the pink leg of a herring gull who had no taste for shellfish, preferring hazelnuts and bread crumbs. One day, the herring gull, who possessed the transmigrated soul of an Elizabethan stage actor, had taken Shelley to see Hamlet at the Drury Lane theater. During the performance, they had alighted on the scenery and played the part of a castle gargoyle for the entire second act. Shelley had enjoyed the experience but had no wish to pursue a theatrical career, as the hot stage lights had nearly fricasseed him.
Gabriel stopped digging and listened, transported by the wonder and whimsy of Pandora's imagination. Out of thin air, she created a fantasy world in which animals could talk and anything was possible. He was charmed out of all reason as he watched her, this sandy, disheveled, storytelling mermaid, who seemed already to belong to him and yet wanted nothing to do with him. His heart worked in strange rhythms, as if it were struggling to adjust to a brand new metronome.
What was happening to him?”
― Lisa Kleypas, Devil in Spring

“Grinning at her sister's haste, Pandora cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted after them in her best imitation of Lady Berwick, "Ladies do not gallop like chaise horses!"
Cassandra's reply floated back from a distance, "Ladies do not screech like vultures!”
― Lisa Kleypas, Devil in Spring

“I think if you wanted a peaceful marriage and orderly household, you should have proposed to any one of the well-bred simpletons who've been dangled in front of you for years. Ivo's right: Pandora is a different kind of girl. Strange and marvelous. I wouldn't dare predict-" She broke off as she saw him staring at Pandora's distant form. "Lunkhead, you're not even listening. You've already decided to marry her, and damn the consequences."
"It wasn't even a decision," Gabriel said, baffled and surly. "I can't think of one good reason to justify why I want her so bloody badly."
Phoebe smiled, gazing toward the water. "Have I ever told you what Henry said when he proposed, even knowing how little time we would have together? 'Marriage is far too important a matter to be decided with reason.' He was right, of course."
Gabriel took up a handful of warm, dry sand and let it sift through his fingers. "The Ravenels will sooner weather a scandal than force her to marry. And as you probably overheard, she objects not only to me, but the institution of marriage itself."
"How could anyone resist you?" Phoebe asked, half-mocking, half-sincere.
He gave her a dark glance. "Apparently she has no problem. The title, the fortune, the estate, the social position... to her, they're all detractions. Somehow I have to convince her to marry me despite those things." With raw honesty, he added, "And I'm damned if I even know who I am outside of them."
"Oh, my dear..." Phoebe said tenderly. "You're the brother who taught Raphael to sail a skiff, and showed Justin how to tie his shoes. You're the man who carried Henry down to the trout stream, when he wanted to go fishing one last time." She swallowed audibly, and sighed. Digging her heels into the sand, she pushed them forward, creating a pair of trenches. "Shall I tell you what your problem is?"
"Is that a question?"
"Your problem," his sister continued, "is that you're too good at maintaining that façade of godlike perfection. You've always hated for anyone to see that you're a mere mortal. But you won't win this girl that way." She began to dust the sand from her hands. "Show her a few of your redeeming vices. She'll like you all the better for it.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Devil in Spring

“Being imaginative and playful doesn’t make you any less of an adult,” Gabriel said gently. “It only makes you a more interesting one.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Devil in Spring

“Tom looked at St. Vincent. “I assume the editor at the Chronicle refused to divulge the writer’s identity?”
St. Vincent looked rueful. “Categorically. I’ll have to find a way to pry it out of him without bringing the entire British press to his defense.”
“Yes,” Tom mused, tapping his lower lip with a fingertip, “they tend to be so touchy about protecting their sources.”
“Trenear,” Lord Ripon said through gritted teeth, “will you kindly throw him out?”
“I’ll see myself out,” Tom said casually. He turned as if to leave, and paused as if something had just occurred to him. “Although … as your friend, Trenear, I find it disappointing that you haven’t asked about my day. It makes me feel as if you don’t care.”
Before Devon could respond, Pandora jumped in. “I will,” she volunteered eagerly. “How was your day, Mr. Severin?”
Tom sent her a brief grin. “Busy. After six tedious hours of business negotiations, I paid a call to the chief editor of the London Chronicle.”
St. Vincent lifted his brows. “After I’d already met with him?”
Trying to look repentant, Tom replied, “I know you said not to. But I had a bit of leverage you didn’t.”
“Oh?”
“I told him the paper’s owner would dismiss him and toss him out on the pavement if he didn’t name the anonymous writer.”
St. Vincent stared at him quizzically. “You bluffed?”
“No, that is what the business negotiations were about. I’m the new owner. And while the chief editor happens to be a staunch advocate for freedom of the press, he’s also a staunch supporter of not losing his job.”
“You just bought the London Chronicle,” Devon said slowly, to make certain he hadn’t misheard. “Today.”
“No one could do that in less than a day,” Ripon sneered.
Winterborne smiled slightly. “He could,” he said, with a nod toward Tom.
“I did,” Tom confirmed, picking idly at a bit of lint on his cuff. “All it took was a preliminary purchase agreement and some earnest money.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Chasing Cassandra

“You can say whatever you like to me. I make no moral judgments."
Cassandra was slow to reply, momentarily distracted by his eyes. They were blue with dapples of brilliant green around the pupils, but one eye had far more green than the other.
"Everyone makes judgments," she said in response to his statement.
"I don't. My sense of rights and wrong is different from most people's. You could say I'm a moral nihilist."
"What's that?"
"Someone who believes nothing is innately right or wrong."
"Oh, that's dreadful," she exclaimed.
"I know," he said, looking apologetic.
Perhaps some gently bred young women would have been shocked, but Cassandra was accustomed to unconventional people. She'd grown up with Pandora, whose twisty-turny, hippy-hoppity brain had enlivened an unbearably secluded life. In fact, Mr. Severin possessed a kind of contained energy that reminded her a little of Pandora. One could see it in the eyes, the quicksilver workings of a mind that ran faster than those of other people.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Chasing Cassandra

“Damn it, Pandora, I can’t promise not to protect you.”
“Protecting can turn into controlling.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Devil in Spring

“Pandora was an unconventional girl: impulsive, intelligent, and usually filled with more energy than she seemed able to manage. Of all the three Ravenel sisters, she had been the least likely to marry the most eligible bachelor in England. However, it spoke well of Gabriel, Lord St. Vincent, that he was able to appreciate her. In fact, from all accounts, St. Vincent had gone head over heels for her.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Devil's Daughter

“What do you think of Lord St. Vincent?” Pandora asked eagerly.
West’s gaze moved to a man who appeared to be a younger version of his sire, with bronze-gold hair that gleamed like new-minted coins. Princely handsome. A cross between Adonis and the Royal Coronation Coach.
With deliberate casualness, West said, “He’s not as tall as I expected.”
Pandora looked affronted. “He’s every bit as tall as you!”
“I’ll eat my hat if he’s an inch over four foot seven.” West clicked his tongue in a few disapproving tsk-tsks. “And still in short trousers.”
Half annoyed, half amused, Pandora gave him a little shove. “That’s his younger brother Ivo, who is eleven. The one next to him is my fiancé.”
“Aah. Well, I can see why you’d want to marry that one.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Devil's Daughter

“When they were out of earshot, Ivo announced, "I like her."
Seraphina grinned at her younger brother. "Last week you said you were finished with girls."
"Pandora's a different kind of girl. Not like the ones who are afraid to touch frogs and are always talking about their hair."
Gabriel barely listened to the exchange, his gaze fastened on Pandora's retreating form. She went to the verge of the high water mark where the sand was glossy, and stopped to pick up an interesting shell. Glimpsing another one behind her, she retrieved that as well, and another. She would have continued if Justin hadn't seized her hand and tugged her back on course.
Good God, she really did walk in circles. A pang of tenderness centered in Gabriel's chest like an ache.
He wanted all her circles to lead back to him.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Devil in Spring

“As the third evening approached, Gabriel looked up blearily as two people entered the room.
His parents.
The sight of them infused him with relief. At the same time, their presence unlatched all the wretched emotion he'd kept battened down until this moment. Disciplining his breathing, he stood awkwardly, his limbs stiff from spending hours on the hard chair. His father came to him first, pulling him close for a crushing hug and ruffling his hair before going to the bedside.
His mother was next, embracing him with her familiar tenderness and strength. She was the one he'd always gone to first whenever he'd done something wrong, knowing she would never condemn or criticize, even when he deserved it. She was a source of endless kindness, the one to whom he could entrust his worst thoughts and fears.
"I promised nothing would ever harm her," Gabriel said against her hair, his voice cracking.
Evie's gentle hands patted his back.
"I took my eyes off her when I shouldn't have," he went on. "Mrs. Black approached her after the play- I pulled the bitch aside, and I was too distracted to notice-" He stopped talking and cleared his throat harshly, trying not to choke on emotion.
Evie waited until he calmed himself before saying quietly, "You remember when I told you about the time your f-father was badly injured because of me?"
"That wasn't because of you," Sebastian said irritably from the bedside. "Evie, have you harbored that absurd idea for all these years?"
"It's the most terrible feeling in the world," Evie murmured to Gabriel. "But it's not your fault, and trying not to make it so won't help either of you. Dearest boy, are you listening to me?"
Keeping his face pressed against her hair, Gabriel shook his head.
"Pandora won't blame you for what happened," Evie told him, "any more than your father blamed me."
"Neither of you are to blame for anything," his father said, "except for annoying me with this nonsense. Obviously the only person to blame for this poor girl's injury is the woman who attempted to skewer her like a pinioned duck." He straightened the covers over Pandora, bent to kiss her forehead gently, and sat in the bedside chair. "My son... guilt, in proper measure, can be a useful emotion. However, when indulged to excess it becomes self-defeating, and even worse, tedious." Stretching out his long legs, he crossed them negligently. "There's no reason to tear yourself to pieces worrying about Pandora. She's going to make a full recovery."
"You're a doctor now?" Gabriel asked sardonically, although some of the weight of grief and worry lifted at his father's confident pronouncement.
"I daresay I've seen enough illness and injuries in my time, stabbings included, to predict the outcome accurately. Besides, I know the spirit of this girl. She'll recover."
"I agree," Evie said firmly.
Letting out a shuddering sigh, Gabriel tightened his arms around her.
After a long moment, he heard his mother say ruefully, "Sometimes I miss the days when I could solve any of my children's problems with a nap and a biscuit."
"A nap and a biscuit wouldn't hurt this one at the moment," Sebastian commented dryly. "Gabriel, go find a proper bed and rest for a few hours. We'll watch over your little fox cub.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Devil in Spring

“She burst into tears. Not dainty, feminine tears, but a messy, red-faced explosion of sobs. The most terrible, beautiful, stunning feeling she'd ever known had come crashing over her in a huge wave, and she was drowning in it.
Gabriel stared at her with alarm, fumbling in his coat pocket for a handkerchief. "No, no... you weren't supposed to... my God, Pandora, don't do that. What is it?" He mopped at her face until she took the handkerchief from him and blew her nose, her shoulders shaking. Ashe continued to hover and ask worried questions, Phoebe left the piano and came to them.
Keeping Pandora folded deeply in his embrace, Gabriel cast a distracted glance at his sister. "I don't know what's wrong," he muttered.
Phoebe shook her head and reached up to ruffle his hair fondly. "Nothing's wrong, lunkhead. You came into her life like a lightning strike. Anyone would feel a bit scorched.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Devil in Spring

“Risking a glance at the dignified young man beside her- what was his name?- Mr. Arthurson, Arterton?- Pandora decided to try her hand at some small talk.
"It was very fine weather today, wasn't it?" she said.
He set down his flatware and dabbed at both corners of his mouth with his napkin before replying. "Yes, quite fine."
Encouraged, Pandora asked, "What kind of clouds do you like better- cumulus or stratocumulus?"
He regarded her with a slight frown. After a long pause, he asked, "What is the difference?"
"Well, cumulus are the fluffier, rounder clouds, like this heap of potatoes on my plate." Using her fork, Pandora spread, swirled, and dabbed the potatoes. "Stratocumulus are flatter and can form lines or waves- like this- and can either form a large mass or break into smaller pieces."
He was expressionless as he watched her. "I prefer flat clouds that look like a blanket."
"Altostratus?" Pandora asked in surprise, setting down her fork. "But those are the boring clouds. Why do you like them?"
"They usually mean it's going to rain. I like rain."
This showed promise of actually turning into a conversation. "I like to walk in the rain, too," Pandora exclaimed.
"No, I don't like to walk in it. I like to stay in the house." After casting a disapproving glance at her plate, the man returned his attention to eating.
Chastened, Pandora let out a noiseless sigh. Picking up her fork, she tried to inconspicuously push her potatoes into a proper heap again.


Fact #64 Never sculpt your food to illustrate a point during small talk. Men don't like it.


As Pandora looked up, she discovered Phoebe's gaze on her. She braced inwardly for a sarcastic remark.
But Phoebe's voice was gentle as she spoke. "Henry and I once saw a cloud over the English Channel that was shaped in a perfect cylinder. It went on as far as the eye could see. Like someone had rolled up a great white carpet and set it in the sky."
It was the first time Pandora had ever heard Phoebe mention her late husband's name. Tentatively, she asked, "Did you and he ever try to find shapes in the clouds?"
"Oh, all the time. Henry was very clever- he could find dolphins, ships, elephants, and roosters. I could never see a shape until he pointed it out. But then it would appear as if by magic." Phoebe's gray eyes turned crystalline with infinite variations of tenderness and wistfulness.
Although Pandora had experienced grief before, having lost both parents and a brother, she understood that this was a different kind of loss, a heavier weight of pain. Filled with compassion and sympathy, she dared to say, "He... he sounds like a lovely man."
Phoebe smiled faintly, their gazes meeting in a moment of warm connection. "He was," she said. "Someday I'll tell you about him."
And finally Pandora understood where a little small talk about the weather might lead.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Devil in Spring

“He reached for me, and fast as lightning, he boxed my ears. All I remember is the world exploding. Cassandra says she helped me back to our room, and there was blood coming from my left ear. My right ear mended in a day or two, but I could only hear a little out of the left one, and there was a beating pain deep down. Soon I took ill with fever. Mama said that had nothing to do with the ear, but I think it did."
Pandora paused, unwilling to relate any of the distasteful details of her ear suppurating and draining. She glanced cautiously at Gabriel, whose face was averted. He was no longer playing with her braid. His hand had clenched around it until the muscles of his forearms and wrist stood out.
"Even after I recovered from the fever," Pandora said, "the hearing didn't come back all the way. But the worst part was that I kept losing my balance, especially at night. It made me afraid of the dark. Ever since then-" She stopped as Gabriel lifted his head.
His face was hard and murderous, the hellfrost in his eyes frightening her more than her father's fury ever had.
"That bloody son of a bitch," he said softly. "If he were still alive, I'd beat him with a thresher's flail."
Pandora reached out with a fluttering motion, patting the air near him. "No," she said breathlessly, "no, I wouldn't want that. I hated him for a long time, but now I feel sorry for him."
Gabriel caught her hand in midair, swift but gentle, as if it were a bird he wanted to hold without injuring. His eyes had dilated until she could see reflections of herself in the dark centers. "Why?" he whispered after a long moment.
"Because hurting me was the only way to hide his own pain.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Devil in Spring

“Gabriel was stunned by Pandora's compassion for a man who had caused her such harm. He shook his head in wonder as he stared into her eyes, as dark as cloud-shadow on a field of blue gentian. "That doesn't excuse him," he said thickly.
Gabriel would never forgive the bastard. He wanted vengeance. He wanted to strip the flesh from the bastard's corpse and hang up his skeleton to scare the crows. His fingers contained a subtle tremor as he reached out to trace the fine edges of her face, the sweet, high plane of her cheekbone. "What did the doctor say about your ear? What treatment did he give?"
"It wasn't necessary to send for a doctor."
A fresh flood of rage seared his veins as the words sunk in. "Your eardrum was ruptured. What in God's name do you mean a doctor wasn't necessary?" Although he had managed to keep from shouting, his tone was far from civilized.
Pandora quivered uneasily and began to inch backward.
He realized the last thing she needed from him was a display of temper. Battening down his rampaging emotions, he used one arm to bring her back against his side. "No, don't pull away. Tell me what happened."
"The fever had passed," she said after a long hesitation, "and... well, you have to understand my family. If something unpleasant happened, they ignored it, and it was never spoken of again. Especially if it was something my father had done when he'd lost his temper. After a while, no one remembered what had really happened. Our family history was erased and rewritten a thousand times.
But ignoring the problem with my ear didn't make it disappear. Whenever I couldn't hear something, or when I stumbled or fell, it made my mother very angry. She said I'd been clumsy because I was hasty or careless. She wouldn't admit there was anything wrong with my hearing. She refused even to discuss it." Pandora stopped, chewing thoughtfully on her lower lip. "I'm making her sound terrible, and she wasn't. There were times when she was affectionate and kind. No one's all one way or the other." She flicked a glance of dread in his direction. "Oh God, you're not going to pity me, are you?"
"No." Gabriel was anguished for her sake, and outraged. It was all he could do to keep his voice calm. "Is that why you keep it a secret? You're afraid of being pitied?"
"That, and... it's a shame I'd rather keep private."
"Not your shame. Your father's."
"It feels like mine. Had I not been eavesdropping, my father wouldn't have disciplined me."
"You were a child," he said brusquely. "What he did wasn't bloody discipline, it was brutality."
To his surprise, a touch of unrepentant amusement curved Pandora's lips, and she looked distinctly pleased with herself. "It didn't even stop my eavesdropping. I just learned to be more clever about it."
She was so endearing, so indomitable, that Gabriel was wrenched with a feeling he'd never known before, as if all the extremes of joy and despair had been compressed into some new emotion that threatened to crack the walls of his heart.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Devil in Spring

“People are always telling us what they think we want to hear. Raw honesty is a refreshing change, isn't it?"
"Refreshing for you, perhaps," Phoebe said with a reluctant smile. "Well, you'll certainly get that from Pandora. She's incapable of being awed by anyone."
"It's one of the reasons I love her," her brother admitted. "I also love her wit, her zest for life, and the fact that she needs me to keep her from walking in circles.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Devil's Daughter

“Pandora, who walked down the aisle of the estate chapel on Devon's arm, was radiantly beautiful in a dress of white silk, the billowing skirts so intricately gathered and draped that no lace or ornamental trim had been necessary. She wore a coronet of fresh daisies and a veil of sheer tulle and carried a small bouquet of roses and daisies.
If West had any remaining doubts about St. Vincent's true feelings for his bride, they were forever banished as he saw the man's expression. St. Vincent stared at Pandora as if she were a miracle, his cool composure disrupted by a faint flush of emotion. When Pandora reached him and the veil was pushed back, St. Vincent broke with etiquette by leaning down to press a tender kiss on her forehead.
"That part isn't 'til later," Pandora whispered to him, but it was loud enough that the people around them overheard, and a rustle of laughter swept through the crowd.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Devil's Daughter

“She wore her best dinner dress, made of silk dyed in a fashionable shade called bois de rose, a deep earthy pink that flattered her fair complexion. It was a severely simple style, with a low square-cut bodice and skirts pulled back tightly to reveal the shape of her waist and hips.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Devil in Spring

“Without warning, a smooth voice spoke next to her ear- a woman's voice with an American accent. "You're nothing but a skinny, awkward child, just as he described. He's visited me since the wedding, you know. He and I have laughed together over your juvenile infatuation with him. You bore him senseless."
Pandora turned and found herself confronted by Mrs. Nola Black. The woman was breathtaking, her features creamy-skinned and flawless, her eyes deep and dark under brows so perfectly groomed and delineated, they looked like thin strips of velvet. Although Mrs. Black was approximately the same height as Pandora, her figure was a remarkable hourglass shape, with a waist so small one could have buckled a cat's collar around it.
"That's nothing but bitchful thinking," Pandora said calmly. "He hasn't visited you, or he would have told me."
Mrs. Black was clearly "picking for a fight," as Winterborne would have put it. "He'll never be faithful to you. Everyone knows you're a peculiar girl who tricked him into marriage. He appreciates novelty, to be sure, but it will wear off, and then he'll send you packing to some remote country house."
Pandora was filled with a confusing mixture of feelings. Jealousy, because this woman had known Gabriel intimately, and had meant something to him... and antagonism, but also a stirring of pity, because there was something wounded in the biting darkness of her eyes. Behind the stunning façade, she was a savagely unhappy woman.
"I'm sure you think that's what I should fear," Pandora said, "but I actually don't worry about that at all. I didn't trick him, by the way." She paused before adding, "I'll admit to being peculiar. But he seems to like that.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Devil in Spring

“Now, who could possibly find smut interesting?"
"Not that kind of smut," West said hastily, as he saw the duke's brows lift.
"You're referring to the multicellular fungi that inflicts grain crops, of course," Kingston said blandly.
"There are all different kinds of smut," Pandora said, warming to the subject. "Smut balls, loose smut, stinking smut-"
"Pandora," West interrupted in an undertone, "for the love of mercy, stop saying that word in public."
"Is it unladylike?" She heaved a sigh. "It must be. All the interesting words are.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Devil's Daughter

“Mr. Severin smiled, tiny constellations of reflected chandelier lights glinting in his eyes. "Since I've told you about my tastes... what are yours?"
Cassandra looked down at her folded hands in her lap. "I like trivial things, mostly," she said with a self-deprecating laugh. "Handiwork, such as embroidery, knitting, and needlepoint. I sketch and paint a little. I like naps and teatime, and taking a lazy stroll on a sunny day, and reading books on a rainy afternoon. But I would like two have my own family someday, and... I want to help other people far more than I'm able to now. I take baskets of food and medicine to tenants and acquaintances in the village, but that's not enough. I want to provide real help to people who need it." She sighed shortly. "I suppose that's not very interesting. Pandora's the exciting, amusing twin, the one people remember. I've always been... well, the one who's not Pandora.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Chasing Cassandra

“For the next hour, the subject of Pandora's board game business was discarded as the group worked on the sandcastle. They paused at intervals to drink thirstily from jugs of cold water and lemonade that had been sent down from the house. Pandora threw herself into the project with enthusiasm, consulting with Justin, who had decided the castle must have a moat, square corner towers, a front gatehouse with a drawbridge, and battlement walls from which the occupants could drop scalding water or molten tar onto the advancing enemy.
Gabriel, who'd been instructed to dig the moat, stole frequent glances at Pandora, who had enough energy for ten people. Her face glowed beneath her battered straw hat, which she had managed to pry away from Ajax. She was sweaty and covered in sand, a few escaped locks of hair trailing over her neck and back. She played with the unselfconscious ease of a child, this woman of radical thoughts and ambitions. She was beautiful. Complex. Frustrating. He'd never met a woman who was so wholly and resolutely herself.
What the devil was he going to do about her?”
― Lisa Kleypas, Devil in Spring

“Do you feel any attraction to Lord Lambert? Butterflies swirling inside?"
"No, but... I do like his looks..."
"It doesn't matter if he's handsome," her sister had said with authority.
Cassandra had smiled wryly. "Pandora, it's not as if you married a bridge troll.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Chasing Cassandra

“You're not behaving the way I expected. I've done all the crying and screaming, and you've been so quiet."
"I'm sure I'll cry eventually. Right now, though, I only feel rather ill and gray."
"Should I be quiet too?" Pandora had asked.
Cassandra had shaken her head. "No, not at all. It feels as if you're crying and screaming for me when I can't."
Pandora had pressed her cheek against Cassandra's arm. "That's what sisters do.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Chasing Cassandra

“You can say whatever you like to me. I make no moral judgments."
Cassandra was slow to reply, momentarily distracted by his eyes. They were blue with dapples of brilliant green around the pupils, but one eye had far more green than the other.
"Everyone makes judgments," she said in response to his statement.
"I don't. My sense of right and wrong is different from most people's. You could say I'm a moral nihilist."
"What's that?"
"Someone who believes nothing is innately right or wrong."
"Oh, that's dreadful," she exclaimed.
"I know," he said, looking apologetic.
Perhaps some gently bred young women would have been shocked, but Cassandra was accustomed to unconventional people. She'd grown up with Pandora, whose twisty-turny, hippy-hoppity brain had enlivened an unbearably secluded life. In fact, Mr. Severin possessed a kind of contained energy that reminded her a little of Pandora. One could see it in the eyes, the quicksilver workings of a mind that ran faster than those of other people.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Chasing Cassandra

“The twins were so dazzling in their long-limbed grace, with the sunlight dancing over their disheveled hair, that it seemed entirely reasonable to have named them for Greek goddesses. Their was something lawless and cheerfully feral in their rosy-cheeked disarray.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Cold-Hearted Rake

“I can see why you would like him."
"You can?"
"Yes, he's very good-looking, and his personality has interesting corners and edges. And he's a man, not a boy."
How like Pandora to accurately identify the reasons Cassandra found Tom Severin so compelling, and Lord Lambert so... not.
Lambert had been born to privilege, and his character was still unformed in many ways. He'd never had to make his own way in life, and likely never would. Tom Severin, by contrast, had started with nothing except his wits and will, and had become powerful by anyone's standards. Lord Lambert enjoyed a life of languid ease, while Tom blazed through his days with relentless energy. Even the side of Tom that was cool and calculating was exciting. Stimulating. There was hardly any doubt in Cassandra's mind that Lambert would be easier to live with... but as to the one she would rather share a bed with...”
― Lisa Kleypas, Chasing Cassandra

“Whoever wrote the column was careful in the wording of it."
"Obviously Lord Lambert wrote it," Pandora said.
"I wouldn't be so sure," Helen commented thoughtfully. "It doesn't have the tone of a young person. The manner is scolding... lecturing... not unlike a disapproving parent."
"Or chaperone," Pandora added, grinning at Lady Berwick, who gave her an admonishing glance.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Chasing Cassandra

“It's dreadfully awkward, your first time. He'll want to do things involving body parts that really shouldn't be keeping company. Just remind yourself the things you and he do in private are secrets only the two of you will share. There's nothing shameful about an act of love. And at some moments, it stops being about bodies or thoughts or words, it's only feeling... and it's beautiful. ”
― Lisa Kleypas, Chasing Cassandra

“Later, when there's an opportunity, I want to introduce you to your two remaining siblings. You would enjoy their company. You and Gabriel, in particular, are much alike in temperament. He married into the Ravenel family, and his wife is a thoroughly charming woman---"
"Oh, Pandora is my favorite!" came a new voice from the doorway, and they both glanced at the threshold where Seraphina was standing. "She's very witty and fun, and a bit odd in the nicest possible way." With her slender form clad in a green dress, and her brilliant golden-red hair trailing over her shoulder in a thick braid, she reminded Keir of a mermaid.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Devil in Disguise