Things like this are why I read Loretta Chase
Hero and Heroine when Hero tries to win a sparring match:
"A Lady and a gentleman may not know each other unless they have been properly introduced," she said coolly. "If they do not know each other, they cannot have met. Since we were properly introduced only a moment ago, we cannot have met previously."
"What a madly contorted logic that is," he said.
"It is a rule of behavior," she said. "It needn't be logical. There may even be a rule that rules of behavior must be illogical."
Hero, internally, when he catches himself acting like a romance novel hero:
It was a sure way to find himself (a) standing at the altar hearing the marriage service or (b) at the wrong end of a horsewhip, or (c) facing a pistol at twenty paces.
Fights to the death over females were common enough and all very well among the birds and beasts. Among reasoning beings, however, such behavior was absurd. Especially when the last thing a reasoning being wanted was to offend her father.
ETA(will just keep adding to this):
Another conversation:
"You are fond of your stepmother," he said.
"Yes," she said. I know it is abnormal. I am supposed to hate her."
"It's certainly unusual," he said. "Females can be more viciously territorial than males."
"Can we indeed?"
Hero's internal monologue after learning he wasn't the first to offer help over a broken carriage wheel:
Darius did not snarl at the mention of the colonel. Animals snarled at enemies and rivals. He was not an animal but a rational being who had no logical reason to view Morrell as eithe enemy of rival.
But really, I only added the above to say that she doesn't think he's attractive until she sees his crates of books, and he plots her death because she files his books alphabetically, by title, including by "the."
Random funny:
When Colonel Morrell came home after a long evening at Eastham Hall, he found his manservant Kenning awaiting him as usual. The colonel's faithful attendant was a small, wiry man of nearly forty with a head as round and hairless as a cannonball. Hewas not, in fact, completely bald. However, being perfectly neat and orderly, he could not abide straggling tufts of hair, and shaved it.
The hero, after an argument in which: A) He was a jackass, and treated as being a jackass, and B) She 100% won:
He set Logic to work on the problem. He looked at it this way and that way, inside out and upside down.
And in the end, being a servant of Logic, he knew he was doomed. He must go to her and endurethe unendurable, a fate worse than torture, maiming, plague, pestilence, famine, or death.
He must APOLOGIZE.
Asking for help:
"The image of obnoxious infants had led my thoughts astray. I asked you to come because I need your help...Those last may be the most difficult four words I've ever uttered in my life," he said. "I thought I would choke saying them."
"I thought I'd faint, hearing them," she said. "In my experience, men would rather have a limb amputated than admit they need help. And to seek it from a woman is completely unheard of."
He smiled. "The pain is nearly unbearable."
"Yet you appear to be breathing normally," she said. "Your face has not turned blue."
"Perhaps there will be a delayed reaction."
When discussing the fact that she hasn'r managed to discard all suitors without their noticing:
"I should have noticed," she said.
"Then what?"
"Then I should have done something," she said.
"Such as?"
"I should have got him to not marry me," she said. "I'm quite good at not getting married."
"Are you indeed?" he said. "I wondered how you managed it for so long. I shall be interested to hear your technique. The question has puzzled me to no end."
"A Lady and a gentleman may not know each other unless they have been properly introduced," she said coolly. "If they do not know each other, they cannot have met. Since we were properly introduced only a moment ago, we cannot have met previously."
"What a madly contorted logic that is," he said.
"It is a rule of behavior," she said. "It needn't be logical. There may even be a rule that rules of behavior must be illogical."
Hero, internally, when he catches himself acting like a romance novel hero:
It was a sure way to find himself (a) standing at the altar hearing the marriage service or (b) at the wrong end of a horsewhip, or (c) facing a pistol at twenty paces.
Fights to the death over females were common enough and all very well among the birds and beasts. Among reasoning beings, however, such behavior was absurd. Especially when the last thing a reasoning being wanted was to offend her father.
ETA(will just keep adding to this):
Another conversation:
"You are fond of your stepmother," he said.
"Yes," she said. I know it is abnormal. I am supposed to hate her."
"It's certainly unusual," he said. "Females can be more viciously territorial than males."
"Can we indeed?"
Hero's internal monologue after learning he wasn't the first to offer help over a broken carriage wheel:
Darius did not snarl at the mention of the colonel. Animals snarled at enemies and rivals. He was not an animal but a rational being who had no logical reason to view Morrell as eithe enemy of rival.
But really, I only added the above to say that she doesn't think he's attractive until she sees his crates of books, and he plots her death because she files his books alphabetically, by title, including by "the."
Random funny:
When Colonel Morrell came home after a long evening at Eastham Hall, he found his manservant Kenning awaiting him as usual. The colonel's faithful attendant was a small, wiry man of nearly forty with a head as round and hairless as a cannonball. Hewas not, in fact, completely bald. However, being perfectly neat and orderly, he could not abide straggling tufts of hair, and shaved it.
The hero, after an argument in which: A) He was a jackass, and treated as being a jackass, and B) She 100% won:
He set Logic to work on the problem. He looked at it this way and that way, inside out and upside down.
And in the end, being a servant of Logic, he knew he was doomed. He must go to her and endurethe unendurable, a fate worse than torture, maiming, plague, pestilence, famine, or death.
He must APOLOGIZE.
Asking for help:
"The image of obnoxious infants had led my thoughts astray. I asked you to come because I need your help...Those last may be the most difficult four words I've ever uttered in my life," he said. "I thought I would choke saying them."
"I thought I'd faint, hearing them," she said. "In my experience, men would rather have a limb amputated than admit they need help. And to seek it from a woman is completely unheard of."
He smiled. "The pain is nearly unbearable."
"Yet you appear to be breathing normally," she said. "Your face has not turned blue."
"Perhaps there will be a delayed reaction."
When discussing the fact that she hasn'r managed to discard all suitors without their noticing:
"I should have noticed," she said.
"Then what?"
"Then I should have done something," she said.
"Such as?"
"I should have got him to not marry me," she said. "I'm quite good at not getting married."
"Are you indeed?" he said. "I wondered how you managed it for so long. I shall be interested to hear your technique. The question has puzzled me to no end."