Married by Morning

"You seem to think you have a choice," Cam said. "But you have it backwards. Love chooses you. The shadow moves as the sun commands."

"It's the perfect solution. We argue all the time. We can't stand each other. It's like we're already married."

"Cat doesn't have to work. She's a woman of independent means. I settled enough money on her to allow her the freedom to do anything she wished. She went to boarding school for four years, and stayed to teach for another two. Eventually she came to me and said she'd accepted a position as a governess for the Hathaway family. I believe you were in France with Win at the time. Cat went for the interview, Cam and Amelia liked her, Beatrix and Poppy clearly needed her, and no one seemed inclined to question her lack of experience.
"Of course not," Leo said acidly. "My family would never bother with something so insignificant as job experience. I'm sure they started the interview by asking what her favorite color was."

"They (mothers-in-law) never leave when they say they will. When my mother-in-law visits, the mice throw themselves at the cat, begging to be eaten."

And then to Leo's surprise, Catherine smiled at him. A sweet, natural, brilliant smile, the first she had ever given him. Leo felt his chest tighten, and he went hot all over, as if some euphoric drug had gone straight to his nervous system.
It felt like happiness.
He remembered happiness from a long time ago. He didn't want to feel it. And yet the giddy warmth kept washing over him for no reason whatsoever.

"Thank you," Catherine said, the smile still hovering on her lips. "That is kind of you, my lord. But I will never dance with you."
Which, of course, made it the goal of Leo's life.

"I love you, Marks. My heart is completely and utterly yours. And unfortunately for you, the rest of me comes with it."

"Oh, I have a very pure soul. It's only my private parts that have gotten me into trouble."

"No, no..." She shook her head for emphasis. No.
His lips twitched.
"One 'no' is enough, darling." 

Mine Till Midnight

She shook her head as she confessed, "I want it so much, I'm afraid to hope."
"Never be afraid to hope," Rohan said gently. "It's the only way to begin."

Rohan, one of us is an unmarried man with superior mathematical abilities and no prospects for the evening. The other is a confirmed lecher in an amorous mood, with a willing and nubile young wife waiting at home. Who do you think should do the damned account books?" And, with a nonchalant wave, St. Vincent had left the office.

...whether he stayed or left, whether they walked the same path or not.  They could live on opposite sides of the world, and she would still be his.

"The Rom believe you should take the road that calls to you, and never turn back. Because you never know what adventures await. ...So we're going to take this road," he murmured, "and see where it leads.

I think in a moment of weakness, you might surprise yourself.

And then another letter had come from Christopher, so devastating that Amelia wondered how mere scratches of ink on paper could rip someone's soul to shreds. She had wondered how she could feel so much pain and still survive.

But the absence of tears wasn't the same as an absence of feeling.

"I'm not the marrying kind."
St. Vincent snorted. "No man is. Marriage is a female invention."

The question, love, is whether you want me enough to take the risk.

A slow smile had curved St. Vincent's lips.  'Wives are a different case altogether.  They require a great deal of effort but the rewards are substantial.  I highly recommend wives.  Especially one's own."

"You are an interesting woman Amelia."
Gooseflesh rose wherever his breath touched. "I can't f-fathom why you would think so."
His playful mouth traced the wing of her brow. "I find you thoroughly, deeply interesting. I want to open you like a book and read every page." A smile curved the corners of his lips as he added huskily, "Footnotes included."

Cam held her closer. "Marry me, Amelia. You're what I want. You're my fate."
One hand slid to the back of her head, gripping the braids and ribbons to keep her mouth upturned. "Say yes."
He nibbled at her lips, licked at them, opened them. He kissed her until she writhed in his arms, her pulse racing. "Say it, Amelia, and save me from ever having to spend a night with another woman. I'll sleep indoors. I'll get a haircut. God help me, I think I'd even carry a pocket watch if it pleased you."

Amelia stopped before him, her skirts crowded between his parted knees. The clean, salty, evergreen scent of him drifted to her nostrils. "I have a proposition for you,” she said, trying for a businesslike tone. "A very sensible one. You see," She paused to clear her throat. "I've been thinking about your problem.
"What problem?" Cam played lightly with the folds of her skirts, watching her face alertly.
"Your good-luck curse. I know how to get rid of it. You should marry into a family with very, very bad luck. A family with expensive problems. And then you won't have to be embarrassed about having so much money, because it will flow out nearly as fast as it comes in."
"Very sensible." Cam took her shaking hand in his, pressed it between his warm palms. And touched his foot to her rapidly tapping one. "Hummingbird," he whispered, "you don't have to be nervous with me."
Gathering her courage, Amelia blurted out, "I want your ring. I want never to take it off again. I want to be your romni forever"”she paused with a quick, abashed smile, "whatever that is."
"My bride. My wife." Amelia froze in a moment of throat-clenching delight as she felt him slide the gold ring onto her finger, easing it to the base.
"When we were with Leo, tonight," she said scratchily, "I knew exactly how he felt about losing Laura. He told me once that I couldn't understand unless I had loved someone that way. He was right. And tonight, as I watched you with him . . . I knew what I would think at the very last moment of my life."
His thumb smoothed over the tender surface of her knuckle. "Yes, love?"
"I would think," she continued, "Oh, if I could have just one more day with Cam. I would fit a lifetime into those few hours."

"A lack of desire is something I've never experienced. I'd have to be on my deathbed before I stopped wanting--no, never mind, I was on my deathbed in the not-too-distant past, and even then I had the devil's own itch for my wife."

Love Story

Love means never having to say you're sorry.

What the hell makes you so smart?" I asked.
"I wouldn't go for coffee with you, " she answered.
"Listen -- I wouldn't ask you."
"That, "she replied "is what makes you stupid."

And then I did what I had never done in his presence, much less in his arms. I cried.

He had then warned his daughter not to violate the Eleventh Commandment.
"Which one is that?" I asked her.
"Do not bullshit thy father," she said.

I was afraid of being rejected, yes. I was also afraid of being accepted for the wrong reasons.

The pain of not knowing what to do was exceeded only by that of knowing what I had done.

Please, if one of us cries, let both of us cry. But preferably neither of us.


What term do you employ when you speak of your progenitor?"
I answered with the term I'd always wanted to employ. "Sonovabitch."
"To his face?" she asked.
"I never see his face."
"He wears a mask?"
"In a way, yes. Of stone. Of absolute stone.

Her handwriting was curious - small sharp little letters with no capitals. Who did she think she was? E. E. Cummings?

"But what does he do to qualify as a sonovabitch?" Jenny asked.
"Make me", I replied.
"Beg pardon?"
"Make me", I repeated.
Her eyes widened like saucers. "You mean like incest?" she asked.
"Don't give me your family problems, Jen. I have enough of my own."
"Like what, Oliver?" she asked, "like just what is it he makes you do?"
"The 'right things'", I said.
"What's wrong with the 'right things,'"she asked, delighting in the apparent paradox.

Now would you do me a favor?' From somewhere inside me came this devastating assault to make me cry. But I withstood. I would not cry. I would merely indicate to Jennifer - by the affirmative nodding of my head - that I would be happy to do her any favor whatsoever.
'Would you please hold me very tight?' she asked.
I put my hand on her forearm - Christ, so thin - and gave it a little squeeze.
'No, Oliver,' she said, 'really hold me. Next to me.'I was very, very careful - of the tubes and things - as I got onto the bed with her and put my arms around her.
'Thanks, Ollie.'
Those were her last words.

"I think the Peace Corps is a fine thing, don't you?" he said.
"Well," I replied, "it's certainly better than War Corps."

What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died?

Either way I don't come first, which for some stupid reason bothers hell out of me, having grown up with the notion that I always had to be number one. Family heritage, don't you know?

Ten Ways to be Adored when Landing A Lord

   Lord Nicholas St. John was their only hope, and she had been on the roof when he arrived, for heaven's sake. Ladies did not go traipsing about on rooftops.
And certainly gentlemen did not frequent the homes of those ladies who did traipse about on roortops.
It did not matter if the rooftop in question was in dire need of repair.
Or that the lady in question had no choice.

   But it did not stop her from wishing that it had all been different.
Wishing that she had had the chance to be everything daughters of earls were born to be. Wishing that she'd been raised without a care in the world. Without a doubt in her head that it would someday be her day to sparkle; that she would one day be courted properly - by a man who wanted her for her, not as a spoil from a game of chance.
Wishing that she were not so very alone.
Not that wishing had ever helped.

   "You must be mistaken," Isabel said, unconcerned by the insult that the words carried.
"I assure you I am not. Voluptas is nearly always portrayed wrapped in roses. If that were not enough, her faces confirms her identity."
"You cannot tell a goddess from a face carved in marble," she scoffed.
"You can tell Voluptas by her face."
"I've never even heard of this goddess, and you know what she looks like?"
"She is the goddess of sensual pleasure."
Isabel's mouth fell open at the words. She could not think of a single thing to say in response. "Oh."

   "And... as long as they need me, it's easier to forget that I am alone."

  He raked his fingers through his hair. "She doesn't need me."
Ralston smirked. "You are laboring under that mistaken impression that it is their job to need us. In my experience it is almost always the other way around."

Nine Rules to Break When Romancing A Rake

"You cheated!"
He looked at her, wide-eyed with feigned outrage.
"I beg your pardon. If you were a man, I would call you out for that accusation.
"And I assure you, my lord, that I would ride forth victoriously on behalf of truth, humility, and  righteousness.
"Are you quoting the Bible to me?"
"Indeed," she said primly, the portrait of piousness.
"While gambling?"
"What better location to attempt to reform one such as you?"

"My mother, she's desperate for a daughter she can dress like a porcelain doll. Sadly, I shall never be such a child. How I long for my sister to come out and distract the countess from my person."
"He joined her on the bench, asking, "How old is your sister?"
"Eight," she said, mournfully.
"Ah. Not ideal."
"An understatement."

"My choices are rather limited."
"How so?"
"I seem able to have my pick of the impoverished, the aged, and the deadly dull."

Nick continued, unable to keep the smug smile form his lips. "Shall I tell you what I would do if I discovered I'd been a royal ass and had lost the only woman I'd ever really wanted?"
Ralston's eyes narrowed on his brother. "I don't imagine I could stop you."
"Indeed not," Nick said, "I can tell you I wouldn't be standing in this godforsaken field in this godforsaken cold waiting for that idiot Oxford to shoot at me. I would walk away from this ridiculous, antiquated exercise, and I would find that womand tell her that I was a royal ass. And then I would do whatever it takes to convince  her that she should take a chance on me despite my being a royal ass. And once that's done, I would get her, immediatley, to the nearest vicar and get the girl married. And with child."

"Oh, Callie-mine," Anne said, her voice taking on a tone she'd used when Callie was a little girl and crying over some injustice, "your white knight, he will come."
One side of Callie's mouth kicked up in a wry smile. Anne had said those words countless times over the last two decades. "Forgive me, Anne, but I'm not so certain that he will."
"Oh, he will," Anne said firmly. "And when you least expect."
"I find I'm rather tired of waiting." Callie laughed half-heartedly. "Which is probably why I've turned my attentions to such a dark knight."

"Kisses should not leave you satisfied."

"I've spent twenty-eight years doing what everyone around me expected me to do...being what everyone around me has expected me to be. And it's horrid to be someone else's vision of yourself."

"I enjoyed every bit of the evening. I may not drink scotch or smoke a cheroot again, but I shall always cherish the fact that I did those things. The adventure is well worth the disappointing experience."

"She did not want to be that woman - the one of whom they spoke. She had never planned to be that woman. Somehow, it had happened, however...somehow, she had lost her way and, without realizing it, she had chosen this staid, boring life instead of a different, more adventurous one."

Nick spoke again. "Her legitimacy will be questioned."
Gabriel thought for several moments. "If our mother married her father, it means that the marchioness must have converted to Catholicism upon arriving in Italy. The Catholic Church would never have acknowledged her marriage in the Church of England."
"Ah, so it is we who are illegitimate." Nick's words were punctuated with a wry smile.
"To Italians, at least," Gabriel said. "Luckily, we are English."
"Excellent. That works out well for us."

"You plan to be a challenge, do you?"
Juliana smiled angelically. "I agreed to remain, my lord. Not to remain silent."

"She winced, knowing what was to come, "Calpurnia." She closed her eyes again, embarrassed by the extravagant name - a name with which no one but a helplessly romantic mother with an unhealthy obsession with Shakespeare would have considered saddling a child."

"He smiled, setting his forehead to hers. "you are very bad for me. I am trying to turn over a new leaf--I am trying to be more gentlemanly."
"But what if I want you to stay a rake?" she teased, her fingers trailing down his neck and chest, fingering the buttons on his waistcoat. "A libertine, even?" she slipped one fastening from its seat and he grabbed her errant hand, bringing it to his lips for a swift kiss.
"Callie," he said, his voice thick with warning as she set her free hand to the second button on his coat.
"What if I want the rogue, Gabriel?" the question was soft and sweet.
"What are you saying?"
She kissed across the firm square line of his jaw and whispered to him, shyness in her shaking voice, "Take me to bed, Gabriel. Give me a taste of scandal."

"If I am an empress, he is the only man worthy of being my emperor."

"How is it that one woman is enough for three men?"
"I don't know."
"She must be a very talented courtesan."
"Callie."
"Well, that was what she was. Wasn't it?"
"Yes."
"How very fascinating!" She smiled brightly."I've never met a courtesan, you know.
"I could have surmised as such."
"She looked just as I imagined they did! Well, she was rather prettier."
Ralston's eyes darted around the room as though he was looking for the quickest escape route.
"Callie. Wouldn't you rather gamble than talk about courtesans?"

"But she had dreamed of being his for too long.  He had quite ruined her for a marriage of convenience.  She wanted everything from him: his mind, his body, his name and, most of all, his heart."

"Ralston didn't care. He turned on his brother as the surgeon knelt next to him and inspected the wound. "She could have been killed!"
And what about you?" This time, it was Callie who spoke, her own pent-up energy releasing in anger, and the men turned as one to look at her, surprised that she had found her voice. "What about you and your idiotic plan to somehow restore my honor by playing guns out in the middle of nowhere with OXFORD?" She said the baron's name in disdain. "Like children? Of all the ridiculous, unnecessary, thoughtless, MALE things to do...who even FIGHTS duels anymore?!"

"It was a terrifying feeling. And if it was love, he wanted none of it.

"The most confident of women are those who believe in every scrap of fabric they wear.  They are the ones who are as happy wih their drawers as they are with their gowns.  You can tell the difference between a woman who wraps herself in beautiful silks and satins and she who wears...otherwise."

"It didn't matter the quality of the writing - Callie's fantasies about her fictional heroes were entirely
democratic."

"Why now? Why not wait for a man to come along and sweep you off your feet?"
She gave a short laugh. "If the man you speak of had ever planned on coming, my lord, I'm afraid he has
obviously lost his way. And, at twenty-eight, I find I have grown tired of waiting."

"Benedict looked to the ceiling as though begging for divine patience. Or for the Lord to strike his sister
down. Callie couldn't quite discern which. "I forbid you from frequenting taverns, public houses, or other establishments of vice."
She snorted in amusement. "Establishments of vice? That's a rather puritanical view of things, isn't it? I
assure you, I was quite safe."
"You were with Ralston!" he said, as though she were simpleminded.
"He was perfectly respectable," she said, the words coming out before she remembered that the
carriage ride home was anythingbut respectable.
"Imagine, my sister and the Marquess of Ralston together. And he turns out to be the respectable one,"
Benedick said wryly, sending heat flaring on Callie's cheeks, but not for the reason he thought. "No more
taverns. I do not like this taste for adventure you have developed, sister."
"I am afraid I cannot guarantee I shall be rid of it anytime soon."

"Before I merely daydreamed about Ralston. Now I find myself actually with him. Actually talking to
him. Actually discovering the real Ralston. He is no longer a creature I invented. He is flesh and blood
and now I can't help wondering," She trailed off, unwilling to say what she was thinking.What if he were mine?
She did not have to say the words aloud; Anne heard them anyway. When Callie opened her eyes and
met Anne's gaze in the looking glass, she saw Anne's response there. "Ralston is not for you, Callie."
"I know, Anne," Callie said quietly, as much to remind herself as to reassure her friend.

"If I were anyone else, your opera singer, the woman across the hall would you have apologized?"
He looked confused. "No, but you are neither of those women. You deserve better."
"Better," she repeated, frustrated. "That's just my point! You and the rest of society believe that it's better for me to be set upon a pedestal of primness and propriety, which might have been fine if a decade on that pedestal hadn't simply landed me on the shelf. Perhaps unmarried young women like our sisters should be there. But what of me?" Her voice dropped as she looked down at the cards in her hands. "I'm never going to get a chance to experience life from up there. All that is up there is dust and unwanted apologies. The same cage as hers,” she indicated the woman outside "Merely a different gilt."

"How could she go on without him? And, at the same time, how could she go on knowing that every
moment of their time together had meant so little to him She'd so believed he could, that decades marked by disdain for emotion could have been nothing more than a faint memory in his checkered past. That she could love him enough to prove to him that the world was worth his caring, his trust. That she could turn him into the man of whom she had dreamed for so long."

"That was perhaps the hardest truth of all - that Ralston, the man she'd pined over for a decade, had never been real. He'd never been the strong and silent Odysseus; he'd never been aloof Darcy; never Antony, powerful and passionate. He had only ever been Ralston, arrogant and flawed and altogether flesh and blood. Even as she'd come to know the real Ralston, the Ralston who was not cut from heroic cloth, Callie
had failed to see the truth. And, instead of seeing her own heartbreak coming, she had fallen in love, not
with her fantasy, but with this new, flawed Ralston."

New Moon

     Forbidden to remember, terrified to forget; it was a hard line to walk.

     The bond forged between us was not one that could be broken by absence, distance, or time.

     And no matter how much more special or beautiful or brilliant or perfect than me he might be, he was as irreversibly altered as I was. As I would always belong to him, so would he always be mine.

     Time passes. Even when it seems impossible. Even when each tick of the second hand aches like the pulse of blood behind a bruise. It passes unevenly, in strange lurches and dragging lulls, but pass it does. Even for me.

     What happens when you lose your heart's desire?

     Like everything in life, I just had to decide what to do with what I was given. When you can't be with the one you love, will you stay with the one who loves you?

     One thing I truly knew - knew it in the pit of my stomach, in the center of my bones, knew it from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet, knew it deep in my empty chest - was how love gave someone the power to break you. I had been broken beyond repair. And yet, I found I could survive. I was alert, I felt the pain - the aching loss that radiated out from my chest, sending wracking waves of hurt through my limbs and head - but it was manageable. I could live through it. I didn't feel like the pain had weakened over time, rather that I'd grown strong enough to bear it.

     I was perfect- not healed, but as if there had never been a wound in the first place

     He was my best friend. I would always love him, and it would never, ever be enough.

     I walked towards my fate with my destiny standing solidly by my side

     The fairy tale was back on. Prince returned, bad spell broken. I wasn't sure exactly what to do about the leftover, unresolved character. Where was his happily ever after?

     "I'm trying to keep" he huffed, shifting his weight as the treetop bounced him "my promise!"
I blinked my wet blurry eyes, suddenly sure that I was dreaming.
"When did you ever promise to kill yourself falling out of Charlie's tree?"

     Jacob really did look older than sixteen--not quite forty, but maybe older than me. Quil didn't have too much on him in the muscle department, for all that Jacob claimed to be a skeleton. The muscles were the long wiry kind, but they were definitely there under the smooth skin. His skin was such a pretty color, it made me jealous.
Jacob noticed my scrutiny.
"What?" he asked, suddenly self-conscious.
"Nothing. I just hadn't realized before. Did you know, you're sort of beautiful?"
Once the words slipped out, I worried that he might take my impulsive observation the wrong way.
But Jacob just rolled his eyes. "You hit your head pretty hard, didn't you?"
"I'm serious."
"Well, then, thanks. Sort of."
I grinned. "You're sort of welcome.

     It took less than half a second for me to realize that, as long as I was truly insane now, I might as well enjoy the delusions while they were pleasant.

     After all, how many ways can one heart be mangled and still be expected to keep beating?

The Last Kiss

The world is moving so fast now, we are all chasing something so fast now, we start freaking out.

 What you feel only matters to you . Its what you do to the people you say you love that what matters. that’s the only thing that’s counts.

Just do whatever it takes. You can’t fail until you give up.

You can’t try so hard to control it all. You know life is pretty much in the grays for the most part. And if you insist always on black and white you are going to be very unhappy.

Don’t be so quick so walk away.

Love me enough to let us go back to the way things were.

Message in a Bottle

- Someday you'll find someone special again.  People who've been in love once usually do.  It's in their nature.

- That initial anger she had felt turned to sadness, and now it had become something else, almost a dullness of sorts. Even though she was constantly in motion, it seemed as if nothing special ever happened to her anymore. Each day seemed exactly like the last, and she had trouble differentiating among them.

- I have come to realize that destiny can hurt a person as much as it can bless them, and I find myself wondering why--out of all the people in all the world I could ever have loved--I had to fall in love with someone who was taken away from me.

- Life passes by now like the scenery outside a car window. I breathe and eat and sleep as I always did, but there seems to be no great purpose in my life that requires active participation on my part...I do not know where I am going or when I will get there.

- If some lives form a perfect circle, other take shape in ways we cannot predict or always understand. Loss has been part of my journey. But it has also shown me what is precious. So has love for which I can only be grateful.

- To all the ships at sea, and all the ports of call. To my family and to all friends and strangers. This is a message, and a prayer. The message is that my travels taught me a great truth. I already had what everyone is searching for and few ever find. The one person in the world who I was born to love forever. A person, like me, of the outer banks and the blue Atlantic mystery. A person rich in simple treasures. Self-made. Self-taught. A harbor where I am forever home. And no wind, or trouble or even a little death can knock down this house. The prayer is that everyone in the world can know this kind of love and be healed by it. If my prayer is heard, there will be an erasing of all guilt and all regret and an end to all anger. Please, God. Amen.

- Without you in my arms, I feel an emptiness in my soul. I find myself searching the crowds for your face - I know it's an impossibility, but I cannot help myself. Thank you for coming into my life and giving me joy, thank you for loving me and receiving my love in return. Thank you for the memories I will cherish forever. But most of all, thank you for showing me that there will come a time when I can eventually let you go.

- There are winds of destiny that blow when we least expect them. Sometimes they gust with the fury of a hurricane, sometimes they barely fan one's cheek. But the winds cannot be denied, bringing as they often do a future that is impossible to ignore.

- The ocean has been singing to me, and the song is that of our life together...

 Theresa, I know there's a part of you that believes you can change someone, but the reality is that you can't.  You can change yourself, and Garrett can change himself, but you can't do it for him.

- I watch with breaking heart as you slowly fade away.

- Each recognized the fact that real commitment could be proven only through the passage of time.

Love in the Afternoon

When Christopher finished, there was a moment of silence.
Leo looked at Cam expectantly. "Well?"
"Well what?"
"Now is the time when you dredge up one of your blasted Romany sayings. Something about roosters laying eggs, or pigs dancing in the orchard. It's what you always do. Let's have it."
Cam gave him a sardonic glance. "I can't think of one right now.
"By God, I've had to listen to hundreds of them. And Phelan doesn't have to hear even one?"

"I'm fairly certain, Captain, that the more you discover about me, the more you will dislike me. Therefore, let's cut to the chase and acknowledge that we don't like each other. Then we won't have to bother with the in-between part."
She was so bloody frank and practical about the whole thing that Christopher couldn't help but be amused. "I'm afraid I can't oblige you."
"Why not?"
"Because when you said that just now, I found myself starting to like you."
"You'll recover," she said.

Bending his head over hers, Leo murmured, "When  I give you away at the altar, Bea, I want you to remember something. I'm not really giving you away. I'm merely allowing him the chance to love you as mush as the rest of us do."

"I beg your pardon?" Catherine interrupted. "Are you implying that women have poor judgment?"
"In these matters, yes." Leo gestured to Christopher. "Just look at the fellow, standing there like a Bloody Greek god. Do you think she chose him because of his intellect?"
"I graduated from Cambridge," Christopher said acidly. "Should I have brought my diploma?"
"In this family," Cam interrupted, "there is no requirement of a university degree to prove one's intelligence. Lord Ramsay is a perfect example of how one has nothing to do with the other?"

"Captain Phelan," Cam asked, choosing his words with care. "Have you come to ask for our consent to marry Beatrix?"
Christopher shook his head.
"If I decide to marry Beatrix, I'll do it with or without your consent."
Leo looked at Cam. "Good God," he said in disgust. "This one's worse than Harry."

"Of all the Hathaway sisters," Cam said equably, "Beatrix is the one most suited to choose her own husband. I trust her judgment."
Beatrix gave him a brilliant smile. "Thank you, Cam."
"What are you thinking?" Leo demanded of his brother-in-law. "You can't trust Beatrix's judgment."
"Why not?"
"She's too young," Leo said.
"I'm twenty-three," Beatrix protested. "In dog years I'd be dead."

"Beatrix puts a distance between herself and the rest of the world. She's very engaging, but also quite private in nature. I see the same qualities in Captain Phelan."
"Yes," Amelia said. "You're absolutely right, Catherine. Put that way, the match does seem more appropriate"
"I still have reservations," Leo said.
"You always do," Amelia replied. "If you'll recall, you objected to Cam in the beginning, but now you've accepted him."
"That's because the more brothers-in-law I acquire," Leo said, "the better Cam looks by comparison."

"Before you marry, you have to get shot by an arrow and fall in love," the boy explained. He paused thoughtfully."But I don't think the rest of it hurts as much as the beginning."

"You could run to the farthest corners of the earth. There's no place you could go where I wouldn't love you. Nothing you could do to stop me."

"Yes, but you need to learn your maths."
"I don't need to, really. I already know how to count to a hundred. And I'm sure I'll never need ore than a hundred of anything."

"What kind of wedding would you like?" he asked, and stole another kiss before she could reply.
"The kind that turns you into my husband." She touched the firm line of his mouth with her fingers. "What kind would you like?"
He smiled ruefully. "A fast one.

"The trick was forgetting about what she had lost ...and learning to go on with what she had left."

"No marriage stays in the same pattern forever. It is both the best feature of marriage and the worst, that it inevitably changes."

"I didn't mean to send love letters, but that is what they became. On their way to you, my words turned into heartbeats on the page."

After a universal silence, Leo was the first to speak. "Did anyone else notice”
"Yes," Catherine said.
"What do you make of it?"
"I haven't decided yet." Leo frowned and took a sip of port. "He's not someone I would pair Bea with."
"Whom would you pair her with?"
"Hanged if I know," Leo said. "Someone with similar interests. The local veterinarian, perhaps?"
"He's eighty-three years old and deaf," Catherine said.
"They would never argue," Leo pointed out.

"Very well," Beatrix said reluctantly. "But I warn you, they may be resistant to the match."
"I'm resistant to the match," Christopher informed her. "At least we'll have that in common."

"Beatrix," Amelia said over her shoulder as they proceeded through the hallway. "Perhaps you should reconsider your attire. Poor Captain Phelan may find it somewhat shocking."
"But he's already seen me like this," came Beatrix's voice from behind Christopher, "and I've already shocked him. What is the point in changing clothes? Captain, would you feel more comfortable if I took my breeches off?"
"No," he said hastily.
"Good, I'll keep them on. Really, I don't see why women shouldn't dress like this all the time. One can walk freely and even leap. How is one to chase after a goat in skirts?"

"I carry thoughts of you like my own personal constellation. How far away you are, my dearest friend, but no farther than those fixed stars in my soul."

The boy heaved a sigh. "I would ask to go with you," he said, " but I have to finish my lessons. I so look forward to the day when I know everything. Then I won't have to read any more books or do any more counting."
Beatrix smiled. "I don't wish to be discouraging, Rye, but it's not possible to know everything."
"Mama does." Rye paused reflectively. "At least, Papa says we must pretend she does, because it makes her happy."
"Your father," Beatrix informed him with a laugh, " is one of the wisest men I've ever known"

"...it was better to answer, no matter how ineptly, thank to withhold a reply.  Because sometimes silence could wound someone nearly as badly as a bullet.

Breaking Dawn

You nicked-named my daughter after the Lock Ness Monster!

 Leah: "That is easily the freakin' grossest thing I've ever heard in my life. Yuck. If there was anything in my stomach, it would be coming back."

Seth: "They are vampires, I guess. I mean, it makes sense, and if it helps Bella, it's a good thing, right?"

Leah and Jake stare at Seth.

Seth: "What?"

Leah: "Mom dropped him a lot when he was a baby."

Jake: "On his head apparently."

Leah: "He used to gnaw on the crib bars, too."

Jake: "Lead paint?"

Leah: "Looks like it."

Seth: "Funny. Why don't you two shut up and sleep?"

I'm a little worried about Edward. Can vampires go into shock?

So this was different. I was amazing now - to them and to myself. It was like I had been born to be a vampire. The idea made me want to laugh, but it also made me want to sing. I had found my true place in the world, the place I fit, the place I shined. 

"I'll meet you at the altar"

"I'll be the one in white!"

"You make your own kinds of mistakes, and I'm sure you'll have your share of regrets in life. But commitment was never your problem, sweetie. You have a better chance of making this work than most forty-year-olds I know. My little middle-aged child. Luckily, you seem to have found another old soul."

"Jasper? What do vampires do for bachelor parties? You're not taking him to a strip club, are you?"

"So it's still standing?" he managed to get out between his snickers. "I would've thought you two had knocked it to rubble by now. What were you doing last night? Discussing the national debt?" Emmett howled with laughter. 

We did not hope for the same things, but we all hoped.

"Stop being so...optimistic, its getting on my nerves."

"No problem. Do you want me to be all gloom and doom or just shut up?"

"Just shut up."

"Can do."

"Really? Doesn't seem like it."

How did people do this - swallow all their fears and trust someone else so implicitly with every imperfection and fear they had... 

And it was different because I'd already lost her so many times, so many ways, in my head. And different because she was never really mine to lose.

And different because this wasn't my fault. 

"At least he's alive and well. I love him enough that I want that. I want him to have what's best for him." She sighed. "I just don't want to stick around to watch.


Did you know that 'I told you so' has a brother,Jacob?" she asked cutting me off. "His name is 'Shut the hell up'.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all those who live without love.

For instance, this new idea that You-Know-Who can kill with a single glance from his eyes. That's a basilisk, listeners. One simple test: Check whether the thing that's glaring at you has got legs. If it has, it's safe to look into its eyes, although if it really is You-Know-Who, that's still likely to be the last thing you ever do.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

• It is our choices, Harry, that show us what we truly are, far more than our abilities.
• I shall never truly be gone unless none here are loyal to me.
• Help shall always be given at Hogwarts, to those who ask for it.
• Your scar is legend. As, of course, is the wizard who gave it to you.
• Fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself.
• Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain
• Hermione, however, clapped a hand to her forehead. "Harry -- I think I've just understood something! I've got to go to the library!" And she sprinted away, up the stairs.
  "What does she understand?" said Harry distractedly, still looking around, trying to tell where the voice had come from.
  "Loads more than I do." said Ron, shaking his head.
  "But why's she got to go to the library?"
  "Because that's what Hermione does," said Ron, shrugging. "When in doubt, go to the library."
• You won't tease him, will you?" she added anxiously.
  "Wouldn't dream of it," said Fred, who was looking like his birthday had come early.
  "Definitely not," said George, sniggering.
• Of all the trees we could've hit, we had to pick one that fights back.

Tempt Me at Twilight

It was unfair that people who longed for love the most, searched the hardest for it, found it so elusive.

In the fairy tale you mentioned last night, I would probably be the villain. But it's possible the villain would treat you far better than the prince would have.

"Kev," Win said calmly, stepping forward, "I would like to talk to you about something."
Merripen, attentive as always to his wife, gave her a frowning glance. "Now?"
"Yes, now."
"Can't it wait?"
"No," Win said equably. At his continued hesitation, she said, "I'm expecting."
Merripen blinked. "Expecting what?"
"A baby."
They all watched as Merripen's face turned ashen. "But how . . ." he asked dazedly, nearly staggering as he headed to Win.
"How?" Leo repeated. "Merripen, don't you remember that special talk we had before your wedding night?" He grinned as Merripen gave him a warning glance. Bending to Win's ear, Leo murmured, "Well done. But what are you going to tell him when he discovers it was only a ploy?"
"It's not a ploy," Win said cheerfully.
Leo's smile vanished, and he clapped a hand to his forehead. "Christ," he muttered. "Where's my brandy?" And he disappeared into the house.
"I'm sure he meant to say "congratulations,"" Beatrix remarked brightly, following the group as they all went inside.

"She was yours, if you'd truly wanted her," Harry continued, a pitiless smile touching his lips. "But I wanted her more."

"I've never wanted to be loved. And God knows no one's done it yet."

"I've never known anyone more ill equipped for happiness. He wouldn't know what to do with it."

It was finally becoming clear to her that love wasn't about finding someone perfect to marry.  Love was about seeing through to the truth of a person, and accepting all their shades of light and dark.  Love was an ability.

"I don't think Harry cares about being forgiven," Poppy said glumly.
"Of course he does. Men love to be forgiven. It makes us feel better about our inability to learn from our mistakes."

"And there's one more thing to be aware of," Cam said with a wintry softness that disguised all hint of feeling. "If you succeed in marrying her we're not losing a sister. You're gaining an entire family who will protect her at any cost."

Cam had once told her that the Rom believed the entire world was their home. As long as you were with your family you were home.

The London season is like one of those Drury Lane melodramas in which marriage is always the ending. And no one ever seems to give any thought as to what happens after. But marriage isn't the end of the story it's the beginning. And it demands the efforts of both partners to make a success of it.

"Be careful dear that you don't end up as the queen of a lonely kingdom.

"I don't want to be a widow, I don't want Michael Bayning, and I don't want you to joke about such things, you tactless clod-pole!"
As all three of them stared at her open mouthed, Poppy leapt up and stalked away, her hands drawn into fists.
Bewildered by the immediate force of her fury it was like being stung by a butterfly. Harry stared after her dumbly. After a moment, he asked the first coherent thought that came to him. "Did she just say she doesn't want Bayning?"
"Yes," Win said, a smile hovering on her lips. "That's what she said. Go after her, Harry."
Every cell in Harry's body longed to comply. Except that he had the feeling of standing on the edge of a cliff, with one ill-chosen word likely to send him over. He gave Poppy's sister a desperate glance. "What should I say?"
"Be honest with her about your feelings," Win suggested.
A frown settled on Harry's face as he considered that. "What's my second option?"


“Don’t ever trust men with good intentions. They’ll always disappoint you.”

“My God. Something else we agree on.” Leo gave the companion a half-mocking, half-uneasy glance. “We have to stop doing this, Marks. My stomach is starting to turn.”


“And Poppy, remember that someday you will meet a frog who will turn into a handsome
prince.”
“Good,” Beatrix said. “Because all she’s met so far are princes who turn into frogs.”


“I think,” he said slowly, “that you should marry a man who would appreciate you.”
She made a face. “Those are in short supply.”
He smiled. “You don’t need a supply. You just need one.”


“I-I don’t like courtship. It’s very stressful. And disappointing.”


Beatrix was the first to speak. “Have you been compromised, Poppy?” she asked with concern. “As Win was last year?”
“Yes, she has,” Leo replied, while Poppy let out a little moan. “It’s a bad habit our family’s gotten into."


Leo’s attention was diverted as Poppy buried her face against his shoulder. “I’m going to die of humiliation,” she said.
“No, you won’t,” Leo replied. “I’m an expert on humiliation, and if it were fatal, I’d have died a dozen times by now.”
“You can’t die a dozen times.”
“You can if you’re a Buddhist,” Beatrix said helpfully.
Leo smoothed Poppy’s shining hair. “I hope Harry Rutledge is,” he said.
“Why?” Beatrix asked.
“Because there’s nothing I’d rather do than kill him repeatedly.”

"I’ve found that life is far kinder to shallow people."


“Sometimes when you’re making the best of a situation, it turns out far better than you could have hoped for.”


She had been in love with a prince, and she had ended up in the arms of a villain, and it would be so much easier if she could continue to view everything in those simplistic terms. Except that her prince was not nearly as perfect as he had seemed . . . and her villain was a caring, passionate man.

Mind Game

"You missed him," she said. Somehow it didn't seem possible. He was so sure of himself, almost invincible in his manner
"I hit what I was aiming at," he answered quietly.
"We have to keep moving. I'm hoping I slowed them down, but we can't count on it." He forced the oars through the water with his powerful arms and the boat shot through the channel toward open water "I didn't feel anything."
His gaze brushed her face, an odd little caress she felt all the way through her body, just as if he'd touched her with his fingers. "I wasn't aiming at you."
She caught the fleeting glint of his white teeth in what could have been a brief smile. One dark eyebrow rose in response. "Has anyone ever told you your sense of humor needs a little work?"
"No one's ever accused me of having a sense of humor before. You keep insulting me. First you accuse me of missing, and then you try to tell me I have a sense of humor."
His face was made of stone, his tone devoid of all expression. His eyes were flat and ice cold, but Dahlia felt him laughing. Nothing big, but it was there in the boat between then, and the terrible pressure in her chest lifted a bit. "And it needs work," she pointed out. "Get it right." She even managed a brief smile of her own to match his.

“You learned several forms of martial arts."
"Yes, and for the most part, because I was doing something physical and most of my instructors enjoyed what they were doing, it was fun. Later, as I got older and they were serious about training me, I was faster than the instructors, and some of them would get angry."
"Honey, that's entirely understandable. You're barely five feet tall, and you can't weigh a hundred pounds. To make matters worse, you're a girl. Kicking some man's butt is not ladylike.”

“I think my vision's blurred," he murmured.
She responded with a hesitant laugh. "If that's all that happened, you're a heck of a better kisser than I am. I can't stand up."
"I'm afraid to touch you. We might go up in flames."
She sighed. "The story of my life... cell phones have a way of disliking the bayou and the river. It must be water thing."
"But what about when you weren't in the bayou? Surely Calhoun gave you a cell phone to keep in touch when you were in town."
"I melted two of them. He decided it wasn't worth it."
He looked down at her to see if she was teasing him. Her gaze was all too serious. "You melted them?"
She nodded. "I melt things. Accidentally."
Nicholas wasn't touching that. Considering all that melting going on inside of him any time he was close to her he could believe she'd melted a couple of phones. After all, they were much smaller than he was. His breath chuffed out and he took her hand, deciding to try to diffuse the situation. "Try not to melt any body parts.”

“His energy is very malevolent Don't get sick or I'll start asking you if the baby is all right in front of him.”

As a child he had grown up without a mother or even a grandmother. He had never really explored emotional relationships or marriage. He'd never been given advice on the matter. The closest he'd really come to seeing a relationship was watching Ryland Miller pursue Lily. The man had lost his mind. Nicholas had a feeling he'd joined the ranks of en losing their mind over women.

“You listen to me this one time, Dahlia. If something goes wrong, anything at all, you haul butt out of here fast. You have the cell phone and the number. Call Lily. The Ghost Walkers will be here as soon as possible."
She caught him before he could turn away. "You listen to me this one time, Nicholas. If anything goes wrong, don't be a hero. Haul your butt out of there and in one piece. We'll call Lily, and she can send the others.”

There were a thousand secrets in her eyes, a thousand wounds. A lifetime of distrust and betrayal. Isolation. How did one overcome such things? Nicholas wanted to believe in fairy tales. She'd read her share, hoping for miracles, but in the end, there was no hundred acre wood to play in with her little stuffed animals. There was pain and crushing disillusionment and betrayal.

Suddenly Gator was framed in the doorway, grinning at them, his black unruly hair tumbling into his face and his piercing blue eyes bright with laughter. "Oh, I see you are most friendly with each other. And Lily was so worried." He turned his head. "Ian Tucker, come look at this. Our man has found himself a little kitty cat."
"Shut up, Gator, or I'm going to shoot you." Nicholas put the gun away and looked down at dahlia. She had the covers pulled up to her chin. Her eyes were enormous and getting bigger by the moment as more Ghost Walkers crowded into the doorway to gape at the sight of Nicholas, the loner, in bed with Dahlia
"And you said he didn't know what to do with a woman," Tucker Addison accused the tallest of the group, Ian McGillicuddy.  
"I stand corrected." Ian gave Nicholas a small salute Dahlia made a small distressed squeak.
Nicholas picked up the gun. "I'm going to start shooting if the lot of you don't get out and close the door."
 "What a poor sport," Gator groused. "And this is my house.”

“Do you think anything else can go wrong tonight?"  Kaden turned to look at Nicholas coming up behind her and nodded.
"Yes ma'am. I'd say all kinds of things could go wrong.”

"...Just don't break my heart my heart, Dahlia. I've never handed it over to anyone before."
She placed both hands over his. "I've never had anyone's heart. I don't know the first thing about keeping hearts. You're taking a terrible risk."
"That's what I do best."

"Are you feeling relaxed now?"
"I was until you started throwing around the L-word. That's enough to scare anyone”

“Cute? You think he's cute? What's cute about him?”
“Well, yes. He's got that smile, that really bad boy smile, and a great backside.”
  “On page eighty of the relationship manual, it clearly states, you cannot look at another man's backside, especially if you think it's great.”

The men gasped at Nicholas. "That's the most I've heard him say in three years." Sam said. He turned to the others. "You ever hear him talk that much?"
"I wasn't sure he could talk," Tucker Addison replied straight-faced.  
"He talks," Dahlia said defensively
"Begging your pardon, ma'am, but he's just plain anti-social," Sam pointed out, "Always had been, always will be.”

“That be the jealousy talking," Gator said, in no way perturbed. "I can't help the way the women love me. I was born with the gift."
The men hooted and made rude noises. "You were born with a gift of bullshitting." Sam pointed out, "but that's about it." He looked at Dahlia. "Pardon me, ma'am, but its the truth."
"I rather thought it was," she agreed.

“I don't suppose you cook?" Tucker inquired hopefully.
"Did you think because she can start fires she'd be great with a grill”? Gator asked.

“Baby don't do this." He whispered the words. Why did he thought if she cried she'd feel better? It was too much, too much sorrow for her. He pulled her beneath him, lying over her, somehow trying with his body to protect her from the grief.
She came awake, her eyes wide, black. Swimming with tears. "Nicholas? What is it?"
He touched his face, the lines of worry there "You're crying, honey. I thought it would be good for you to cry, but not like this, not in your sleep where I can't share it with you."
"I can't be crying." Dahlia wiped at the tears on her face with a kind of horror. "I never cry."
"You are crying."
"I can't stop." She looked desperate.
"Make me stop, Nicholas, Make it stop.”

“You aren't worried are you?"
"Why should I be worried? It's just another day in the neighborhood. You know - bombs, fires, people shooting at you. Why should I be worried? Especially since we could be clothes shopping or boarding a plane. I'm not in the least worried."
"Hmmm," he mused allowed. "I read about this in the relationship manual. It's called womanly sarcasm and usually means a man is in deep trouble.”

Delirium

It occurs to me that for a long time she has been doing her own version of resisting.

La C'ordo D'Oro

Loath to depart. This isn’t music about an end. As long as you don’t close off a road on your own, the road always stays open. That’s why it isn’t a song about parting ways. It’s about the beginning that follows a departure.

Sweet Relationship

I am most afraid of being alone. That is why I do so much for others. ”