Yesterday I decided to start re-reading this book, and I still love it a lot ♥ When I love something a lot, I usually do picspams, but since this is a book and it's not possible, I'll do a quotespam instead! I don't know if the word "quotespam" actually exists, if it doesn't I'm inventing it now!
Just the first four chapters, because I don't want to spoil it for those who haven't read it yet. If you haven't, what are you waiting for? It's fabulous! And those chapters aren't even the best ones, the middle/end of the book is even better.

Jessica+Dain=♥

This is the official description. I'm just putting it here because I like how omg!dramatic it is. What it doesn't tell you is how funny and adorable this book is.

 

They call him many names but Angelic isn’t one of them...
Sebastian Ballister, the notorious Marquess of Dain, is big, bad, and dangerous to know.  No respectable woman would have anything to do with the “Bane and Blight of the Ballisters”--and he wants nothing to do with respectable women.  He’s determined to continue doing what he does best--sin and sin again--and all that’s going swimmingly, thank you...until the day a shop door opens and she walks in.

She’s too intelligent to fall for the worst man in the world...
Jessica Trent is a determined young woman, and she’s going to drag her imbecile brother off the road to ruin, no matter what it takes.  If saving him--and with him, her family and future--means taking on the devil himself, she won’t back down.  The trouble is, the devil in question is so shockingly irresistible, and the person who needs the most saving is--herself!

CHAPTER 1

“Women don’t have a sense of humor,” Bertie said. “They don’t need one. The Almighty made them as a permanent joke on men. From which one may logically deduce that the Almighty is a female.”

*

“I believe I’ve remarked before, Trent, that you might experience less aggravation if you did not upset the balance of your delicate constitution by attempting to count,” said Dain.[...] “I particularly recommend,” he went on, his eyes upon the female, “that you resist the temptation to count if you are contemplating a gift for your chere amie. Women deal in a higher mathematical realm than men, especially when it comes to gifts.”
“That, Bertie, is a consequence of the feminine brain having reached a more advanced state of development,” said the female without looking up. “She recognizes that the selection of a gift requires the balancing of a profoundly complicated moral, psychological, aesthetic, and sentimental equation. I should not recommend that a mere male attempt to involve himself in the delicate process of balancing it, especially by the primitive method of counting.”
[...]
Lord Dain had never before in his life met a female who’d even heard of an equation, let alone was aware that one balanced them.
Bertie approached, and in his playing-field confidential whisper asked, “Any idea what she said, Dain?”
“Yes.”
“What was it?”
“Men are ignorant brutes.”
“You sure?”
“Quite.”

*

She was not classic English perfection, but she was some sort of perfection and, being neither blind nor ignorant, Lord Dain generally recognized quality when he saw it.
If she had been a piece of Sevres china or an oil painting or a tapestry, he would have bought her on the spot and not quibbled about the price.

*

Ladies, in his dictionary, were listed under Plague, Pestilence, and Famine.

*

Dain wasn’t certain what exactly was wrong with her, but he had no doubt something was. He was Lord Beelzebub, wasn’t he? She was supposed to faint, or recoil in horrified revulsion at the very least. Yet she had gazed at him as bold as brass, and it had seemed for a moment as though the creature were actually flirting with him.

CHAPTER 2

“You want to buy it, Miss Trent?” he asked. “I strongly doubt your elders will approve of such a purchase. Or have English notions of propriety undergone a revolution while I’ve been away?”
“Oh, it isn’t for me,” she said. “It’s for my grandmother.”
She had to give him credit. He never turned a hair.
“Ah, well, then,” he said. “That’s different.”

*

“Ah, you are familiar with my reputation, are you, Miss Trent?” Dain enquired.
“Oh, yes. You are the wickedest man who ever lived. And you eat small children for breakfast, their nannies tell them, if they are naughty.”
“But you are not in the least alarmed.”
“It is not breakfast time, and I am hardly a small child. Though I can see how, given your lofty vantage point, you might mistake me for one.”

*

“An animal attraction, obviously,” said Genevieve.
With that, Jessica’s small, desperate hope—that her inner disturbances had been a feverish reaction to the effluvium emanating from the open gutter in front of Champtois’ shop—died a quick, brutal death.
“Damn,” she said, meeting her grandmother’s twinkling silver gaze. “This is not only mortifying, but inconvenient. I am in lust with Dain. Of all times, now. Of all men, him.”

CHAPTER 3

The Marquess of Dain, Jessica was well aware, was furious. He lounged back in his chair, his arms folded across his chest, his obsidian eyes half-closed while his glance moved slowly round the coffee shop. It closely resembled the species of sullenly sulphurous look she had always imagined Lucifer bestowing upon his surroundings when he first came to after the Fall.
She was much surprised the gaze didn’t leave a trail of charred remains in its wake. But the patrons of the cafe simply looked away—only to look back again the instant Dain returned his brimstone displeasure to her.

*

“Miss Trent,” he said, “I am sure all the other girls at school found your wit hilarious. Perhaps, however, if you would stop batting your eyelashes for a moment, your vision would clear and you would notice that I am not a little schoolgirl.”
She hadn’t been batting her eyelashes. When Jessica did play coquette, it was purposely and purposefully, and she was certainly not such a moron as to try that method with Beelzebub.
“Batting?” she repeated. “I never bat, my lord. ”This is what I do.“ She looked away toward an attractive Frenchman seated nearby, then shot Dain one swift, sidelong glance. ”That isn’t batting,“ she said, releasing the instantly bedazzled Frenchman and returning to full focus upon Dain. Though one could hardly believe it possible, his expression became grimmer still.

*

“And she’s almost smiling. Usually they look exceedingly unhappy.”
“Cross, Miss Trent. They look exceedingly ill tempered. I suppose it’s on account of being virgins—of experiencing all the unpleasantness of breeding and birthing and none of the jolly parts.”
“Speaking on behalf of virgins everywhere, my lord,” she said, leaning toward him a bit, “I can tell you there are a host of jolly experiences. One of them is owning a rare work of religious art worth, at the very minimum, five hundred pounds.”
He laughed. “There’s no need to inform me you’re a virgin,” he said. “I can spot one at fifty paces.”

*

“Here is how it works,” he went on. “If you accept my offer of fifteen hundred, I shall behave myself, escort you to a cabriolet, and see that you are taken safely home.”
“And if I do not accept, you will attempt to destroy my reputation,” she said.
“It will not be an attempt,” he said.
She sat up very straight and folded her dainty gloved hands upon the table. “I should like to see you try,” she said.

CHAPTER 4

“Dain,” she said in a low, hard voice, “if you do not release my hand this instant, I shall kiss you. In front of everybody.”
He had a ghastly suspicion he’d kiss her back—in front of witnesses—Dain, Beelzebub himself, kissing a lady—a virgin. He crushed his panic.
“Miss Trent,” he said, his own tones equally low and hard, “I should like to see you try.”

*

“Beaumont, going after women isn’t in Dain’s style,” Vawtry said patiently. “Dain says, ”I’ll take this one.‘ Then he lays down the money and the female goes.“
“He goes after this one,” said Beaumont. “Just as I said. Before reliable witnesses. Two hundred says he does it within seven days.”