The Duke And I

       "And if you say that's because you lot barged into her home like a herd of mentally deficient sheep, I'm disowning all three of you."
       "Where is he? Bridgerton!" he bellowed.
Three chestnut heads swiveled in his direction. Simon stomped across the grass, murder in his eyes.
"I meant the idiot Bridgerton."
"That, I believe," Anthony said mildly, tilting his chin toward Colin, "would refer to you."
        His mouth captured hers, trying to show her with his kiss what he was still learning to express in words. He loved her. He worshiped her. He'd walk across fire for her. He still had the audience of her three brothers.
Slowly breaking the kiss, he turned his face to the side. Anthony, Benedict, and Colin were still standing in the foyer. Anthony was studying the ceiling, Benedict was pretending to inspect his fingernails, and Colin was staring quite shamelessly. He gave her a sly, sideways look.
        "Did you bring it?"
"My list? Heavens, no. What can you be thinking?"
His smile widened. "I brought mine."
Daphne gasped. "You didn't!"
"I did. Just to torture Mother. I'm going peruse it right in front of her, pull out my quizzing glass
"You don't have a quizzing glass."
He grinned, the slow, devastatingly wicked smile that all Bridgerton males seemed to possess. "I bought one just for this occasion."
"Anthony, you absolutely cannot. She will kill you. And then, somehow, she'll find a way to blame me."
"I'm counting on it."
        Anthony sneezed and pushed them aside. "Mother, I am trying to have a conversation with the duke."
Violet looked at Simon. "Do you want to have this conversation with my son?"
"Not particularly."
"Fine, then. Anthony, be quiet."
        There were rules among friends, commandments, really, and the most important one was Thou Shalt Not Lust After Thy Friend's Sister.
       She wandered over to the enclosed range, a rather modern-looking contraption that Cook had purchased earlier in the year. "Do you know how to work this?" she asked .
"No idea. You? "
Daphne shook her head. "None." She reached forward and gingerly touched the surface of the stove top. "It's not hot. "
"Not even a little bit? "
She shook her head. "It's rather cold, actually. "
Brother and sister were silent for a few seconds .
"You know," Anthony finally said, "cold milk might be quite refreshing ."
"I was just thinking that very thing!"
       The look Anthony shot at his sister was so comically malevolent Simon nearly laughed. He managed to restrain himself, but mostly just because he was fairly certain that any show of humor would cause Anthony's fist to lose its battle with his brain, with Simon's face emerging as the conflict's primary casualty.
       It is a truth universally acknowledged that a married man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of an heir.
      "Daphne Bridgerton, I don't -'
"like my tone, I know." Daphne grinned. "But you love me."
Violet smiled warmly and wrapped an arm around Daphne's shoulder. "Heaven help me, I do."
Daphne gave her mother a quick peck on the cheek. "It's the curse of motherhood. You're required to love us even when we vex you."
Violet just sighed. "I hope that someday you have children-'
"Just like me, I know." Daphne smiled nostalgically and rested her head on her mother's shoulder. Her mother could be overly inquisitive, and her father had been more interested in hounds and hunting than he'd been in society affairs, but theirs had been a warm marriage, filled with love, laughter, and children. "I could do a great deal worse than follow your example, Mother," she murmured.
       Colin's chuckles grew more heartfelt. "You really ought to have more faith in your favorite brother, dear sis."
"He's your favorite brother?" Simon asked, one dark brow raised in disbelief.
"Only because Gregory put a toad in my bed last night," Daphne bit off, "and Benedict's standing has never recovered from the time he beheaded my favorite doll."
"Makes me wonder what Anthony's done to deny him even an honorable mention," Colin murmured.
"Don't you have somewhere else to be?" Daphne asked pointedly.
Colin shrugged. "Not really."
"Didn't," she asked through clenched teeth, "you just tell me you promised a dance to Prudence Featherington?"
"Gads, no. You must have misheard."
"Perhaps Mother is looking for you, then. In fact, I'm certain I hear her calling your name."
Colin grinned at her discomfort. "You're not supposed to be so obvious," he said in a stage whisper, purposely loud enough for Simon to hear. "He'll figure out that you like him."
Simon's entire body jerked with barely contained mirth.
"It's not his company I'm trying to secure," Daphne said acidly. "It's yours I'm trying to avoid."
Colin clapped a hand over his heart. "You wound me, Daff." He turned to Simon. "Oh, how she wounds me."
"You missed your calling, Bridgerton," Simon said genially. "You should have been on the stage."
"An interesting idea," Colin replied, "but one that would surely give my mother the vapors." His eyes lit up. "Now that's an idea. And just when the party was growing tedious. Good eve to you both." He executed a smart bow and walked off.
      "Daphne," he said with controlled gentleness, "What is wrong?"
She sat down opposite him and placed a hand on his cheek. "I'm so insensitive," she whispered. "I should have known. I should never have said anything."
"Should have known what?" he ground out.
Her hand fell away. "That you can't - that you couldn't"
"Can't what?"
She looked down at her lap, where her hands were attempting to wring each other to shreds. "Please don't make me say it," she said.
"This," Simon muttered, "has got to be why men avoid marriage."
      Heartache, Daphne eventually learned, never really went away; it just dulled. The sharp, stabbing pain that one felt with each breath eventually gave way to a blunter, lower ache - the kind that one could almost, but never quite, ignore.  

The Viscount Who Loved Me

Love's about finding the one person who makes your heart complete. Who makes you a better person than you ever dreamed you could be. Its about looking in the eyes of your wife and knowing all the way to your bones that she's simply the best person you've ever known.

Suddenly it was too hard to be in his presence, too painful to know that he would belong to someone else.

Before she knew what she was about, she was jumping about like a crazy woman, yelling, "Yes! Yes! I win!"
"You don't win," Anthony snapped.
"Oh, it feels like I've won," she reveled.

Anthony Bridgerton leaned back in his leather chair,and then announced, "I'm thinking about getting married."
Benedict Bridgerton, who had been indulging in a habit his mother detested, tipping his chair drunkenly on the back two legs, fell over.
Colin Bridgerton started to choke.
Luckily for Colin, Benedict regained his seat with enough time to smack him soundly on the back, sending a green olive sailing across the table.
It narrowly missed Anthony's ear.

"My mother is convinced that yellow is a happy color and that a happy girl would get a husband."

A man with charm is an entertaining thing, and a man with looks is, of course, a sight to behold, but a man with honor - ah, he is the one, dear reader, to which young ladies should flock.

"This has to be the most self-centered thing I've ever said, but no, I think you just wanted to vex me.

The ranks of society are once again filled with Ambitious Mamas, whose only aim is to
see their Darling Daughters married off to Determined Bachelors.

It was funny, he reflected later, how one's life could alter in an instant, how one minute everything could be a certain way, and the next it's simply ... not.

"Do you miss a parent you never knew?" he whispered.
Kate considered his question for some time. His voice had held a hoarse urgency that told her there was
something critical about her reply. Why, she couldn't imagine, but something about her childhood clearly
rang a chord within his heart.
"Yes," she finally answered, "but not in the way you would think. You can't really miss her, because you didn't know her, but there's still a hole in your life, a big empty spot, and you know who was supposed
to fit there, but you can't remember her, and you don't know what she was like, and so you don't know
how she would have filled that hole." Her lips curved into a sad sort of smile. "Does this make any sense?"

Anthony nodded. "It makes a great deal of sense sometimes there are reasons for our fears that we can't
quite explain. Sometimes it's just something we feel in our bones, something we know to be true, but
would sound foolish to anyone else."

Something she knew she did not have the right to ask him about. But she wished, oh, how she
wished, that when he was ready to face his fears, she could be the one to help him.

Be careful what you wish for, her mind thundered.

He was no fool; he knew that love existed. But he also believed in the power of the mind, and perhaps even more importantly, the power of the will. Frankly, he saw no reason why love should be an involuntary thing.
If he didn't want to fall in love, then by damn, he wasn't going to. It was as simple as that.It had to be as
simple as that.

By the following morning, Anthony was drunk. By afternoon, he was hungover.
His head was pounding, his ears were ringing, and his brothers, who had been surprised to discover him
in such a state at their club, were talking far too loudly.
Anthony put his hands over his ears and groaned. Everyone was talking far too loudly.
"Kate boot you out of the house?" Colin asked, grabbing a walnut from a large pewter dish in the middle
their table and splitting it open with a viciously loud crack.
Anthony lifted his head just far enough to glare at him.
Benedict watched his brother with raised brows and the vaguest hint of a smirk. "She definitely booted
him out," he said to Colin. "Hand me one of those walnuts, will you?"
Colin tossed one across the table. "Do you want the crackers as well?"
Benedict shook his head and grinned as he held up a fat, leather-bound book. "Much more satisfying to
smash them."
"Don't," Anthony bit out, his hand shooting out to grab the book, "even think about it."
"Ears a bit sensitive this afternoon, are they?"
If Anthony had had a pistol, he would have shot them both, hang the noise.
"If I might offer you a piece of advice?" Colin said, munching on his walnut.
"You might not," Anthony replied. He looked up. Colin was chewing with his mouth open. As this had
been strictly forbidden while growing up in their household, Anthony could only deduce that Colin was
displaying such poor manners only to make more noise. "Close your damned mouth," he muttered.
Colin swallowed, smacked his lips, and took a sip of his tea to wash it all down. "Whatever you did,
apologize for it. I know you, and I'm getting to know Kate, and knowing what I know-"
"What the hell is he talking about?" Anthony grumbled.
"I think," Benedict said, leaning back in his chair, "that he's telling you you're an ass."
"Just so!" Colin exclaimed.
Anthony just shook his head wearily. "It's more complicated than you think."
"It always is," Benedict said, with sincerity so false it almost managed to sound sincere.
"When you two idiots find women gullible enough to actually marry you," Anthony snapped, "then you
may presume to offer me advice. But until then ...shut up."
Colin looked at Benedict. "Think he's angry?"
Benedict quirked a brow. "That or drunk."
Colin shook his head. "No, not drunk. Not anymore, at least. He's clearly hungover."
"Which would explain," Benedict said with a philosophical nod, "why he's so angry."
Anthony spread one hand over his face and pressed hard against his temples with his thumb and middle
finger. "God above," he muttered. "What would it take to get you two to leave me alone?"
"Go home, Anthony," Benedict said, his voice surprisingly gentle.  

Dark Destiny

There was a certain feminine satisfaction in having the last word, delivering her line smartly, and breaking the connection between them quickly and decisively.

You can't go back; I can't go back either, but we can go on.

Trust. Such an easy word. Such an impossible quality.

"My heart is very much alive and in your hands. Do your best not to destroy it."
"You are very lucky it isn't it my hands... The only thing I know to do with hearts is incinerate them!"
"Ouch!"

"I am not going to say you are right because I could not take it if you smirked."
"I do not smirk," Vikirnoff claimed.
"Yes, you do. And I detest that after all these centuries, you are making sense. Frankly, its scary."
"It is only that you are not making sense sunce you acquired a lifemate. I hope that does not happen to all men. It would be a shame."
"Your sense of humor is not improving," Nicolae pointed out dryly.
"I do not have a sense of humor." Vikirnoff answered.
"I had not noticed," Nicolae teased.

Smooth Talking Stranger

- I forced myself to take another bite of bread, chewing casually. But inside I felt stricken, filled with unexpected yearning. And I realized the problem: no one I knew would have come up with that day for me. "This is a man", I thought, "who could break my heart."

- I think the busiest people are often the loneliest.

- Sometimes when we're not paying attention, relationships happen.

- There is no rule that requires two people in love to be exactly alike.
In fact, there is some scientific evidence to suggest that on a genetic level, the people who are the most opposite are the most likely to have a healthy and long-lasting pairing. But really, who can explain the mysteries of attraction? Blame it on Cupid. The moon. The shape of a smile.  Both of you can thrive on your differences, as long as you respect them. You say tomato, he says tomahto. Let it happen, Dive in head first.  We usually learn the most about ourselves from people who are different from us.
Miss Independent

- Dear Jack,
I love you, too. And I think I know the secret to a long and happy marriage - just choose someone you can't live without. For me, that would be you. So if you insist on being traditional . . .Yes.
Ella

- He wasn't mine anywhere except in my heart.

- I wondered how much of me would be left after tomorrow.

- I'm a big believer in putting things off, In fact, I even put off procrastinating.

- One glance and I knew exactly who and what he was. The classic alpha male, the kind who had spurred evolution forward about five million years ago by nailing every female in sight. They charmed, seduced, and behaved like bastards, and yet women were biologically incapable of resisting their magic DNA.

- "No more Dane," he eventually said with unnerving finality.
I tried to be funny. "I can't decide if that means you don't want me to see him again or if you're planning to kill him."
"It means if the first thing happens, the second thing is likely to follow.

- "You think I'd cheat on you?" I demanded with all the innocent outrage I could muster.
"With another guy, no. With a cheeseburger . . . in a heartbeat."

- Dear Miss Independent,
I've decided that of all the women I've ever known, you are the only one I will ever love more than hunting, fishing, football, and power tools. You may not know this, but the other time I asked you to marry me, the night I put the crib together, I meant it. Even though I knew you weren't ready. God, I hope you're ready now.
Marry me, Ella. Because no matter where you go or what you do, I'll love you every day for the rest of my life.
Jack

- "I've got about ten things to say to you right now. But at least nine of them would make me sound like a psycho."
In spite of the seriousness of the situation, I nearly smiled. "What's the tenth thing?" I asked his shirtfront.
He paused, considering it. "Never mind," he grumbled. "That one would make me sound like a psycho, too."

- Jack Travis was a novelty in my experience, an old-fashioned man's man. None of the boys I had gone to college with had been anything more than that, just boys trying to figure out who they were and what their place in the world was. Dane and his friends were sensitive, environmentally aware guys who rode bikes and had Facebook accounts. I couldn't imagine Jack Travis ever blogging or worrying about finding himself, and it was pretty certain that he didn't give a damn about whether or not his clothes were sustainably produced.

- Getting to a higher spiritual level is like increasing your credit score. You get a lot more points for sinning and repenting than if you have no credit history at all.

- "You told me you believed marriage was for other people."
"You're the only man who could make me believe that it's for me, too. Although when you get down to it, love is what's real. I still say marriage is just a piece of paper."
Jack smiled. "Let's find out," he said, and he pulled me down to the bed with him.

- "Where's your instruction manual?" I asked him. "What's the baby customer-service number?"

- "I'm not running away from my fears," I told Dane. "I'm running away from my relatives."

- "From what I was able to hear," Dane said, "Tara dumped off a surprise baby with your mother, who's planning to sell it on eBay."
"Social Services," I said. "She hasn't thought of eBay yet."

- Dane was shaking his head firmly. "Don't bring it here, Ella. No babies."
I gave him a dark look. "What if it were a baby polar bear or a baby Galapagos penguin? I bet you'd want it then."
"I'd make an exception for endangered species," he allowed.
"This baby is endangered. It's with my mother.

- We were each other's only link to the past . . . that was the strength of our bond, and also our weakness. 

- Dane picked up on the second ring. "How's Operation Baby Rescue going?"
"I've rescued the baby. Now I'd like someone to rescue me."
"Miss Independent never needs to be rescued."
I felt the hint of a genuine smile appear on my face, like a crack in the winter ice.

- "Oh, right. I forgot. You've always been a know-it-all. Well, you're about to find out how much you don't know."
"Believe me," I muttered, "I'm the first one to admit that I have no clue about any of this stuff. I had nothing to do with it. This isn't my baby."
"Then give it to Social Services." She was getting agitated. "Whatever happens to him will be your fault, not mine. Get rid of him if you can't handle the responsibility."
"I can handle it," I said, my voice quiet. "It's okay, Mom. I'll take care of him. You don't have to worry about anything."
She subsided like a child who had just been mollified by a lollipop. "You'll have to learn the way I did," she said after a moment, reaching down to adjust her toe ring.
A hint of satisfaction edged her tone as she added, "The hard way.

- "Hello?"
"How's it going?" Dane asked.
I relaxed at the familiar voice. "I'm having a fling with a younger man," I told him. "He's kind of short for me, and there's a little incontinence problem . . . but we're working to get beyond all that."

- It sounds like if it weren't for your boyfriend, you'd be eating meat."
"Probably," I admitted. "But I agree with Dane's take on the issues, and most of the time it's not a problem for me. Unfortunately, I'm temptable."
"I like that in a woman. It almost makes up for your conscience.

- "I should have told you to go to hell," I muttered.
He smiled smugly. "I knew you wouldn't."
"How?"
"Because women who are willing to cheat a little can always be talked into cheating a lot. Admit it, Ella. It's not so bad being a carnivore."
I reached for a chunk of bread and dabbed it in soft yellow butter. "I'm not a carnivore, I'm an opportunistic omnivore.

- "Oh, Dane and I won't ever get married."
Jack gave me an alert glance. "Why not?"
"Neither of us believes in it. It's just a piece of paper."
He appeared to consider that. "I've never understood why people say something is just a piece of paper. Some pieces of paper are worth a hell of a lot. Diplomas. Contracts. Constitutions."
"In those cases, I agree the paper is worth something. But a marriage contract and all that goes with it, the ring, the big meringuepuff wedding dress, doesn't mean anything. I could make Dane a legal promise that I would love him forever, but how can I be certain I will? You can't legislate emotions. You can't own someone else. So the union is basically a property-sharing agreement. And of course if there are children, you have to work out the terms for co-parenting . . . but all of that can be handled without marriage. The institution has outlived its usefulness."

- Neither of us seemed able to be close to anyone. Not even each other. Closeness meant the one you loved the most would cause you the most damage.

- How did you unlearn that? It was woven deep between every fiber and vessel. You couldn't cut it out.

- I realized that my kisses with Dane had become a form of punctuation, the quotations or the hasty dash at the end of a conversation.

- Babies were dangerous . . . they made you fall in love before you knew what was happening.

- The baby woke up before you did. I took him to the other room to let you get a little more sleep. We've been watching a game."
"Did he cry?"
"Only when he realized the Astros were having another first-round play-off flame out. But I told him there's no shame in crying over the Astros. It's how we Houston guys bond."

- "What are you listening to?"
"I picked up a DVD for Luke while I was out. Something with Mozart and sock puppets."
A grin rose to my lips. "At this stage I don't think Luke can see more than ten inches beyond his face."
"That explains his lack of interest. I thought maybe he preferred Beethoven.

- I reflected that for all the people you lost touch with or couldn't hold on to, life occasionally made up for it by giving you the right person at the right time.

- Tell me everything, I would say. All about the blues, and the time your heart was broken, and what scares you the most, and the thing you've always wanted to do but haven 't yet.

- "You can ask Jack about getting into Eternal Truth."
"You want Jack to go to church?" Hardy asked blankly. "Honey, he'd be struck by lightning as soon as he went in the front door."
Haven grinned at him. "Compared to you, Jack is a choirboy."
"Since he's your big brother," he told her kindly, "I'll let you keep your illusions."

- Sometimes when we're not paying attention, relationships happen. There is no rule that requires two people in love to be exactly alike.

- "Can't you just tell me now?"
"No, I need someone to eat with."
A slight smile rose to my lips. "Am I supposed to believe that I'm your only option?"
"No. But you're my favorite option."

- He's a fascinating gentleman. Old-school. I tried to talk him into attending one of my services, but he said he wasn't finished sinning yet, and he'd let me know when he was.

- I wish you were a mind-reader. I want you to know everything but I don't want to have to tell you. Because there are some things I don't want to say out loud.

- "How much do you have in common with
this guy?"
"Not much. Basically we're polar opposites. But do you want to know the main attraction, the weird part? . . . It's the talking."
"Talking about what?"
"About anything," I said earnestly. "We get started and it's like sex, this back-and forth, and we're both so there, do you know what I mean? We rattle each other. And some conversations seem to be happening on a few different levels at once. But even when we're disagreeing on something, there's a weird kind of harmony in it. A connection. To be honest," I half whispered, "I don't feel as safe with him as I do with you."
"I know."
A ghost of a smile touched my lips. "How do you know?"
"Think about what safety is, Ella."
"Trust?"
"Yes, partly. But also an absence of risk."
He unstuck a strand of hair from my damp cheek and tucked it back. "Maybe you need to take a risk. Maybe you need to be with someone who rattles you a little."

- Both of us were quiet with the recognition that something was ending, and something was beginning. 

- "Wow," I remarked to an older man who had just turned away from a group. "That's what I call a birthday cake. You think someone's going to jump out of that thing?"
"Hope not," he said in a gravelly voice. "They might catch fire from all the candles."

- My parents never said it. They thought you shouldn't wear out the words If the feeling is there, you might as well admit it. Saying the words, or not saying them, doesn't change a damn thing.

- "What does your gut tell you?"
"My gut and I aren't currently speaking to each other.

- The feelings cut too deep for them to be put on display.

- "What are you going to call the place?"
"I haven't decided yet. Carrington wants to call it Clippety-Do-Da or Hairway to Heaven . . . but I told her we have to be a little bit classier."
"Julius Scissors," I suggested.
"Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow," Jack joined in.
Liberty covered her ears. "I'll go out of business in the first week.

- I had learned that there were substitutes for a mother who couldn't be a mother. You could find love with other people. You could find it in places you weren't even looking. But the original wound would never heal. I would carry it with me forever, and so would Tara. That was the trick . . . accepting it, going on with your life, knowing it was part of you.

- We're all creatures of complex needs and desires. The only certain thing in a romantic relationship is that you will both change, and one morning you will wake up, go the mirror, and see a stranger. You will have what you wanted, and discover you want something different. You think you know who you are, and then you'll surprise yourself. In all the choices in front of you, Restless, one thing is clear: love is not something to be thrown away lightly. There was something about this man, beyond coincidences of timing and opportunity, that drew you to him. Before you give up on the marriage . . . give him a chance. Be honest with him about the needs that aren't being met, the dreams you want to pursue. Let him find out who you really are. Let him help you in the work of opening that door, so the two of you can finally meet after all these years. How do you know he can't satisfy your emotional needs? How can you be sure he doesn't long for magic and passion just as you do? Can you state with absolute certainty that you know everything there is to know about him? There are rewards to be gained from the effort, even if it fails. And it will take courage as well as patience, Restless. Try everything you can . . . fight to stay with a man who loves you. Just for now, put aside the question of what you might have had with someone else, and focus on what you can have, what you do have, at this very moment. I hope you'll find new questions, and that your husband might be the answer.

- I feel like I've been shut in a closet, and he's on the other side, and he doesn't have the key to unlock the door.

- If you pretend everything's fine long enough, everything eventually becomes fine.

- I didn't think there was any way to convince Jack that he wanted more than I had to give, that to people who'd been damaged the way I had been, fear and the will to survive would always be more powerful than attachment. I could only love in a limited way I had learned this lesson so many times before. It was the great inner truth that didn't require the support of logic.

- Every time I loved, I lost, and I was diminished. I wondered how much of me would be left after tomorrow.

- Tara and I were fellow survivors, responding to our wasteland of a childhood in opposite ways. She feared being alone just as much as I feared not being alone. It was entirely possible that time would prove us both wrong, and the secret of happiness would always elude us. All I knew for certain was that the boundary of isolation was the only thing that had ever kept me safe.

- I understood finally that the thing I should have feared most was not loss, but never loving. The price for safety was the regret I felt at this moment. And yet I would have to live with it for the rest of my life It was a confirmation of a connection that already existed. And it was a bond that extended far beyond the borders of a shared living space.

- We would have stayed together even without a marriage certificate . . . but I believed in the permanence it represented. It was a piece of paper you could build a life on.  

Nineteen Minutes

When you don't fit in, you become superhuman. You can feel everyone else's eyes on you, stuck like Velcro. You can hear a whisper about you from a mile away. You can disappear, even when it looks like you're still standing right there. You can scream, and nobody hears a sound.

You become the mutant who fell into the vat of acid, the Joker who can't remove his mask, the bionic man who's missing all his limbs and none of his heart.

You are the thing that used to be normal, but that was so long ago, you can't even remember what it was like.  

Can you hate someone for what they have done, but still love them for whom they had been?

A mathematical formula for happiness: Reality divided by Expectations.There were two ways to be happy:improve your reality or lower your expectations.

Happiness is what you choose to remember.

If you were drifting with a thousand other people, could you really still say you were lost?

Whether or not belive in Fate comes down to one thing: who you blame when something goes wrong. Do you think it's your fault - that if you'd tried better, worked harder, it wouldn't have happened? Or do you just chalk it up to circumstance?

I know poeple who'll hear about the people who died, and will say that it was God's will. I know people who'll say it was bad luck. And then there's my personal favorite: They were just in the wrong place at hte wrong time.

Then again, you could say the same thing about me, couldn't you? One person's trauma is another's loss of innocence.

If you gave someone your heart and they died, did they take it with them? Did you spend the rest of forever with a hole inside you that couldn't be filled?

Something still exists as long as there's someone around to remember it.

But will you miss me?  More importantly - will I miss you?  Does either one of us really want to hear the answer to that question?

The first question she was asked was What do you do? as if that were enough to define you. Nobody ever asked you who you really were, because that changed. You might be a judge or a mother or a dreamer. You might be a loner or a visionary or a pessimist. You might be the victim, and you might be the bully. You could be the parent, and also the child. You might wound one day and heal the next.

Love [is] supposed to move mountains, to make the world go round, to be all you need, but it [falls] apart at the deatils. It [can't] save a single person.

She suddenly remembered studying the brain in science class- how a steel rod pierced a man's skull, and he opened his mouth to speak Portuguese, a language he'd never studied. Maybe it would be like this, now, for Josie. Maybe her native tongue, from here on in, would be a string of lies.

Everyone knew that if you divided reality by expectation, you got a happiness quotient. But when you invert the equation - expectation divided by reality - you didn't get the opposite of happiness. What you got, Lewis realized, was hope.

Imagine a world that seemed so much bigger than you. Imagine waking up one morning and finding a piece of yourself you didn't even know existed.

 A child who suffers from PTSD has made unsuccessful attempts to get help, and as the victimization continues, he stops asking for it. He withdraws socially, because he's never quite sure when interaction is going to lead to another incident of bullying.

Different people have different responses to stress. In Peter's case, I saw an extreme emotional vulnerability, which, in fact, was the reason he was teased. Peter didn't play by the codes of boys. He wasn't a big athlete. He wasn't tough. He was sensitive. And difference is not always respected, particularly when you're a teenager. Adolescence is about fitting in, not standing out.

Everyone would remember Peter for nineteen minutes of his life, but what about the other nine million? Lacy would be the keeper of those, because it was the only way for that part of Peter to stay alive. For every recollection of him that involved a bullet or a scream, she would have a hundred others: of a little boy splashing in a pond, or riding a bicycle for the first time, or waving from the top of a jungle gym. Of a kiss good night, or a crayoned Mother's Day card, or a voice off-key in the shower. She would string them together - the moments when her child had been just like other people's. She would wear them, precious pearls, every day of her life; because if she lost them, then the boy she had loved and raised and known would really be gone.

Isn't it amazing how, when you strip away everything, people are so much alike?

When I was little, I used to pour salt on slugs. I liked watching them dissolve before my eyes. Cruelty is always sort of fun until you realize that something's getting hurt. It would be one thing to be a loser if it meant that no one paid attention to you, but in school, it means you're actively sought out. You're the slug, and they're holding all the salt. And they haven't developed a conscience. There's a word we learned in social studies: schadenfreude. It's when you enjoy watching someone else suffer. The real question though, is why? I think part of it is self preservation. And part of it is because a group always feels more like a group when it's banded together against an enemy. It doesn't matter if that enemy has never done anything to hurt you-you just have to pretend you hate someone even more than you hate yourself. You know why salt works on slugs? Because it dissolved in the water that's part of a slug's skin, so the water on the inside its body starts to flow out. They slug dehydrates. This works with snails, too. And with leeches. And with people like me. With any creature, really, too thin-skinned to stand up for itself.

I think a persons life is supposed to be like a DVD. You can see the version everyone else sees, or you can choose the directors cut-the way he wanted you to see it, before everything else got in the way. There are menus, probably, so that you can start at the good spots and not have to relive the bad ones. You can measure your life by the number of scenes you've survived, or the minutes you've been stuck there. Probably, though, life is more like one of those dumb video surveillance tapes. Grainy, no matter how hard you stare at it. And looped: the same thing, over and over.

"You came back fighting and furious at me. You told me you'd been looking for mermaids, and I interrupted you... I said that next time, you had to take me with you."
"Was there a next time?"
"Well, you tell me, you don't need water to feel like you're drowning, do you?"

"What's the difference between spending your life trying to be invisible, or pretending to be the person you think everyone wants you to be? Either way, you're faking.

There was a difference between people looking at you because they wanted to be like you, and people looking at you because your misfortune brought them one rung higher. You can feel people staring: it's like heat that rise from the pavement during summer, like a poker in the small of your back. You don't have to hear a whisper, either, to know that it's about you.

I use to stand in front of the mirror in the bathroom to see what they are staring at. I wanted to know what made their heads turn, what it was about me that was so incredibly different. At first I couldn't tell. I mean, I was just me.
Then one day. When I looked in the mirror, I understood. I looked into my own eyes and I hated myself, maybe as much as all of them did.
That was the day I started to believe they might be right.

And that was the greatest heartbreak of all- no matter how spectacular we want our children to be, no matter how perfect we pretend they are, they are bound to disappoint. As it turns out, kids are more like us than we think: damaged, through and through.

Once the world was pulled out from beneath your feet, did you ever get to stand on firm ground again?

"If there isn't a them, there can't be an us."

What she hadn't realized was that sometimes when your vision was that sharp and true, it could cut you.  That only if you'd felt such fullness could you really understand the ache of being empty.

If you spent your life concentrating on what everyone else thought of you, would you forget who you really were?

She stared at Peter, and she realized that in that one moment, when she hadn't been thinking, she knew exactly what he'd felt as he moved through the school with his backpack and his guns. Every kid in this school played a role: jock, brain, beauty, freak. All Peter had done was what they all secretly dreamed of: be someone, even for just nineteen minutes, who nobody else was allowed to judge.

To be truly popular, it has to look like something you are, when in reality, it's what you make yourself.

But then again, maybe bad things happen because it's the only way we can keep remembering what good is supposed to look like.

 You can't undo something that's happened; you can't take back a word that's already been said out loud.

But there was a part of her that wondered what would happen if she let them all in on the secret that some mornings, it was hard to get out of bed and put on someone else's smile; that she was standing on air, a fake who laughed at all the right jokes and whispered all the right gossip and attracted the right guy, a fake who had nearly forgotten what it felt like to be real, and who, when you got right down to it, didn't want to remember, because it hurt even more than this.

Hope, Patrick knew, was the exact measure of distance between himself and the person who'd come for help.

He was a detective, but he didn't detect anything. It fell into his lap, already broken,
every time.

A trial was a stupid word, considering that an attempt was never good enough: you were supposed to toe the line, period.

When the truth came out, and no one wanted to be around her anymore, it stood to reason Josie wouldn't want to be around herself either.

Lacy truly believed that when you asked a patient How do you feel?, what was wrong wasn't nearly as important as what was right.

Happiness was relative what made you happy once might not make you happy now. 

"Listen," she said. "I may not be what you want right now, but I'm all you've got."

 It struck Lacy that she didn't really know what color a chameleon was before it started changing.

Bleeding heart, he'd called her.
Well. He should know.
He'd been the first to rip it to pieces.

She had tried to hide the discomfort behind the mask of competence that she usually wore, only to realize that in her hurry, she must have left it behind somewhere.

Success would come only at the expense of losing her cool, at the risk of turning into
someone she did not want to be.

Lie to yourself until it's true.

When you're hurting deeply, you go inward.

Nobody wants to admit to this, but bad things will keep on happening. Maybe that's because it's all a chain, and a long time ago someone did the first bad thing, and that led someone else to do another bad thing, and so on. You know, like that game where you whisper a sentence into someone's ear, and that person whispers it to someone else, and it all comes out wrong in the end.
But then again, maybe bad things happen because it's the only way we can keep remembering what good is supposed to look like.

"You couldn't argue the facts; you could only change the lens through which you looked at them."

"The problem isn't with rock lyrics, it's with the fabric of this society itself.

Since it had gotten so quiet in the room that you could hear the sound of your own doubts...

People had figured out all sorts of ways to make things seem different than they truly were.

Fumbling in the dark, Josie reached underneath the frame of her bed for the plastic bag she'd stashed-her supply of sleeping pills. She was no better than any of the other stupid people in this world who thought if they pretended hard enough, they could make it so. She'd thought that death could be an answer, because she was too immature to realize it was the biggest question of all.
Yesterday, she hadn't known what patterns blood could make when it sprayed on a whitewashed wall. She hadn't understood that life left a person's lungs first, and their eyes last. She had pictured suicide as a final statement, a fuck you to the people who hadn't understood how hard it was for her to be the Josie they wanted her to be. She'd somehow thought that if she killed herself, she'd be able to watch everyone else's reaction; that she'd get the last laugh. Until yesterday, she hadn't really understood. Dead was dead. When you died, you did not get to come back and see what you were missing. You didn't get to apologize. You didn't get a second chance.
Death wasn't something you could control. In fact, it would always have the upper hand.

He remembered learning in one of his social studies classes that in the Old West, when Native Americans were thrown into jail, they sometimes dropped dead. The theory was that someone so used to the freedom of space couldn't handle the confinement, but
Peter had another interpretation. When the only company you had was yourself, and when you didn't want to socialize, there was only one way to leave the room.

You stared at the stranger in front of you and decided, categorically, that this was no longer your son. Or you made the decision to find whatever scraps of your child you still could in what he had become.
Was that even really a choice, if you were a mother?

He knew that there was a difference between something that makes you happy and something that doesn't make you unhappy. The trick was convincing yourself these were one and the same.

Why hadn't he realized this before? Everyone knew that if you divided reality by expectation, you got a happiness quotient. But when you inverted the equation-expectation divided by reality-you didn't get the opposite of happiness. What you got, Lewis realized, was hope.
Pure logic: Assuming reality was constant, expectation had to be greater than reality to create optimism. On the other hand, a pessimist was someone with expectations lower than reality, a fraction of diminishing returns. The human condition meant that this number approached zero without reaching it-you never really completely gave up hope; it might come flooding back at any provocation. Someone who was happy
would have little need to hope for change. But, conversely, an optimistic person was that way because he wanted to believe in something better than his reality. He started wondering if there were exceptions to the rule: if happy people might be hopeful, if the
unhappy might have given up any anticipation that things might get better.

"They're a-"
"-band," Patrick finished. "I know."
"They're not just a band," Orestes said with reverence, his fingers flying over the keyboard. "They're the modern voice of the collective human conscience."
"Tell that to Tipper Gore."
"Who?"
Patrick laughed. "She was before your time, I guess."
"What did you used to listen to when you were a kid?"
"The cavemen, banging rocks together," Patrick said dryly.

Everyone wants their kid to grow up and go to Harvard or be a quarterback for the Patriots. No one ever looks at their baby and thinks, Oh, I hope my kid grows up
and becomes a freak. I hope he gets to school every day and prays he won't catch anyone's attention. But you know what? Kids grow up like that every single day.

It never failed to amaze Alex how, with the brush of a hand, the track of someone's life might veer in a completely different direction.

He wished he knew what to say to make her feel better, but the truth was, he
didn't feel all that great himself and he didn't know if there were even any words in the English language to take away this kind of stunning shock, this understanding that the world isn't the place you thought it was.

"I used to stand in front of the mirror in the bathroom to see what they were staring at. I wanted to know what made their heads turn, what it was about me that was so incredibly different. At first I couldn't tell. I mean, I was just me.
Then one day, when I looked in the mirror, I understood. I looked into my own eyes and I hated myself, maybe as much as all of them did.
That was the day I started to believe they might be right.

Peter was, simply, what a person would look like if you boiled down the most raw emotions and filtered them of any social contract. If you hurt, cry. If you rage, strike out.
If you hope, get ready for a disappointment.

If only you could keep them that way: cast in amber, never growing up.

"What does it feel like?" he asked.
"What does what feel like?"
Peter thought for a moment. "Being at the top."
Josie reached across him for another packet of material and fed it into the stapler. She did three of these, and Peter was certain that she was going to ignore him, but then she spoke.   "Like if you take one wrong step," she said, "you're going to fall."

Over her shoulder was Josie-and for the first time, Alex could really see a piece of herself in her daughter. It wasn't so much the shape of the face but the shine of it; not the color of the eyes but the dream caught like smoke in them. There was no amount of expensive makeup that would make her look the way her Josie did; that was simply what falling in
love did to a person.
Could you be jealous of your own child?

She had smiled her way through the births and had offered the new mothers the support and the medical care that they needed, but the moment she'd sent them on their way, cutting that last umbilical cord between hospital and home, Lacy knew she was giving them the wrong advice. Instead of easy platitudes like Let them eat when they
want to eat and You can't hold a baby too much, she should have been telling them the truth: This child you've been waiting for is not who you imagine him to be. You're strangers now; you'll be strangers years from now.

In reality, Lacy realized, this dividing line between her and Peter had been there for years. If you kept your chin up, you might even be able to convince yourself there was
nothing separating you. It was only when you tried to cross it, like now, that you understood how real a barrier it could be.

"You're lying," he said-not angry, not accusing. Just as if he was stating the facts, in a way that she wasn't.
"I am not-"
"You can say it a million times, but that doesn't make it any more true." Peter smiled then, so guileless that Lacy felt it smart like a stripe from a whip. "You might be able to fool Dad, and the cops, and anyone else who'll listen," he said. "You just can't fool another liar."

"Can I tell you something? Off the record?"
Alex nodded.
"Before I took this job, I used to work in Maine. And I had a case that wasn't just a case, if you know what I mean."
Alex did. She found herself listening in his voice for a note she hadn't heard before-a low one that resonated with anguish, like a tuning fork that never stopped its vibration. "There was a woman there who meant everything to me, and she had a little boy who meant everything to her. And when he was hurt, in a way a kid never should be, I moved heaven and earth to work that case, because I thought no one could possibly do a better job than I could. No one could possibly care more about the outcome." He looked directly at Alex. "I was so sure I could separate how I felt about what had happened from how I had to do my job."
Alex swallowed, dry as dust. "And did you?"
"No. Because when you love someone, no matter what you tell yourself, it stops being a job."
"What does it become?"
Patrick thought for a moment. "Revenge."

Security was a mirage; being tied down hardly counted when the other end of the rope had unraveled.

He felt, sometimes, like the keeper of memories-the one who had to facilitate that invisible transition between the way it used to be and the way it would be from now on.

"I knew that all the attributes he was teased for, at age five, were going to work in his favor by the time he was thirty-five; ¦but I couldn't get him there overnight. You can't fast-forward your child's life, no matter how much you want to.

"When you look into your baby's eyes," Lacy said softly, "you see everything you hope they can be, not everything you wish they won't become."

"I didn't want to invade his privacy; I didn't want to fight with him; I didn't want anyone else to ever hurt him. I just wanted him to be a child forever." She glanced up, crying harder now. "But you can't do that, if you're a parent. Because part of your job is letting them grow up."

"What if what you know isn't what people want to hear?"

Peter tucked the glasses into the front pocket of Jordan's jacket. "I kind of like knowing you're taking care of them," he said. "And there isn't all that much I really want to see."
Jordan nodded. He walked out of the holding cell and said good-bye to the deputies. Then he headed toward the lobby, where Selena was waiting.
As he approached her, he put on Peter's glasses. "What's up with those?" she asked.
"I kind of like them."
"You have perfect vision," Selena pointed out.
Jordan considered the way the lenses made the world curve in at the ends, so that he had to move more gingerly through it. "Not always," he said.

"What's your name again?"
"Peter. Peter Granford."
Lewis opened up his mouth to speak, but then just shook his head.
"What?" The boy ducked his head. "You just, uh, looked like you were going to say something important."
Lewis looked at this namesake, at the way he stood with his shoulders rounded, as if he did not deserve so much space in this world. He felt that familiar pain that fell like a hammer on his breastbone whenever he thought of Peter, of a life that would be lost to prison. He wished he'd taken more time to look at Peter when Peter was right in front of his eyes, because now he would be forced to compensate with imperfect memories or-even worse-to find his son in the faces of strangers.
Lewis reached deep inside and unraveled the smile that he saved for moments like this, when there was absolutely nothing to be happy about. "It was important," he said. "You remind me of someone I used to know."

Lacy took the box she'd brought up from the basement and placed each item inside. Here was the crime scene: look at what was left behind and try to re-create the boy.

Love was supposed to move mountains, to make the world go round, to be all you need, but it fell apart at the details. It couldn't save a single child-not the ones who'd gone to Sterling High that day, expecting the normal; not Josie Cormier; certainly not Peter. So what was the recipe? Was it love, mixed with something else for good measure? Luck? Hope? Forgiveness?

Sometimes Josie thought of her life as a room with no doors and no windows. It was a sumptuous room, sure - a room half the kids in Sterling High would have given their right arm to enter - but it was also a room from which there really wasn't an escape. Either Josie was someone she didn't want to be, or she was someone who nobody wanted.

It's In His Kiss

"Well," he said with an affected sigh, "You have my approval, at least."
"Why?" Hyacinth asked suspiciously.
"It would be an excellent match," he continued. "If nothing else, think of the children."
She knew she'd regret it, but still she had to ask. "What children?"
He grinned. "The lovely lithping children you could have together. Garethhhh and Hyathinthhhh. Hyathinth and Gareth. And the thublime Thinclair tots."
Hyacinth stared at him like he was an idiot.
Which he was, she was quite certain of it.
She shook her head. "How on earth Mother managed to give birth to seven perfectly normal children and one freak is beyond me."
"Thith way to the nurthery." Gregory laughed as she headed back into the room. "With the thcrumptious little
Tharah and Thamuel Thinclair. Oh, yeth, and don't forget
wee little Thuthannah!"

He looked up, meeting the viscount's dark eyes with steady purpose. "I would like to marry Hyacinth," he said. And then, because the viscount did not say anything, because he didn't even move, Gareth added, "Er, if she'll have me."
And then about eight things happened at once. Or perhaps there were merely two or three, and it just seemed like eight, because it was all so unexpected.
First, the viscount exhaled, although that did seem to understate the case. It was more of a sigh, actually, a huge, tired, heartfelt sigh that made the man positively deflate in front of Gareth. Which was astonishing. Gareth had seen the viscount on many occasions and was quite familiar with his reputation. This was not a man who sagged or groaned.
His lips seemed to move through the whole thing, too, and if Gareth were a more suspicious man, he would have thought that the viscount had said, "Thank you, Lord."
Combined with the heavenward tilt of the viscount's eyes, it did seem the most likely translation.
And then, just as Gareth was taking all of this in, Lord Bridgerton let the palms of his hands fall against the desk with surprising force, and he looked Gareth squarely in the eye as he said, "Oh, she'll have you. She will definitely have you."
It wasn't quite what Gareth had expected. "I beg your pardon," he said, since truly, he could think of nothing else.
"I need a drink," the viscount said, rising to his feet. "A celebration is in order, don't you think?"
"Er, yes?"
Lord Bridgerton crossed the room to a recessed bookcase and plucked a cut-glass decanter off one of the shelves. "No," he said to himself, putting it haphazardly back into place, "the good stuff, I think." He turned to Gareth, his eyes taking on a strange, almost giddy light. "The good stuff, wouldn't you agree?"
"Ehhhh," Gareth wasn't quite sure what to make of this.
"The good stuff," the viscount said firmly. He moved some books to the side and reached behind to pull out what looked to be a very old bottle of cognac. "Have to keep it hidden," he explained, pouring it liberally into two glasses.
"Servants?" Gareth asked.
"Brothers." He handed Gareth a glass. "Welcome to the family."

"Miss Bridgerton," he said, "the devil himself couldn't scare you."
She forced her eyes to meet his. "That's not a compliment, is it?"
He lifted her hand to his lips, brushing a feather-light kiss across her knuckles. "You'll have to figure that out for yourself," he murmured.
To all who observed, he was the soul of propriety, but Hyacinth caught the daring gleam in his eye, and she felt the breath leave her body as tingles of electricity rushed across her skin. Her lips parted, but she had nothing to say, not a single word. There was nothing but air, and even that seemed in short supply.
And then he straightened as if nothing had happened and said, "Do let me know what you decide."
She just stared at him.
"About the compliment," he added. "I am sure you will wish to let me know how I feel about you."
Her mouth fell open.
He smiled. Broadly. "Speechless, even. I'm to be commended."
"You"
"No. No," he said, lifting one hand in the air and pointing toward her as if what he really wanted to do was place his finger on her lips and shush her. "Don't ruin it. The moment is too rare."

"This is a wonderful day,"
Anthony was muttering to himself. "A wonderful day." He looked up sharply at Gareth. "You don't have sisters, do you?"
"None," Gareth confirmed.
"I am in possession of four," Anthony said, tossing back at least a third of the contents of his glass. "Four. And now they're all off my hands. I'm done," he said, looking as if he might break into a jig at any moment. "I'm free."
"You've daughters, don't you?" Gareth could not resist reminding him.
"Just one, and she's only three. I have years before I have to go through this again. If I'm lucky, she'll convert to Catholicism and become a nun."
Gareth choked on his drink.

"I understand that you are an accomplished swords-man," she finally said.
He eyed her curiously. Where was she going with this? "I like to fence, yes," he replied.
"I have always wanted to learn."
"Good God," Gregory grunted.
"I would be quite good at it," she protested.
"I'm sure you would," her brother replied, "which is why you should never be allowed within thirty feet of a sword." He turned to Gareth. "She's quite diabolical."
"Yes, I'd noticed,” Gareth murmured, deciding that maybe there might be a bit more to Hyacinth's brother than he had thought.
Gregory shrugged, reaching for a piece of shortbread. "It's probably why we can't seem to get her married off."
"Gregory!" This came from Hyacinth, but that was only because Lady Bridgerton had excused herself and followed one of the footmen into the hall.
"It's a compliment!" Gregory protested. "Haven't you waited your entire life for me to agree that you're smarter than any of the poor fools who have attempted to court you?"
"You might find it difficult to believe," Hyacinth shot back, "but I haven't been going to bed each night thinking to myself, "Oh, I do wish my brother would offer me something that passes for a compliment in his twisted mind."

"I am asking you to marry me because I love you," he said, "because I cannot imagine living my life without you. I want to see your face in the morning, and then at night, and a hundred times in between. I want to grow old with you, I want to laugh with you, and I want to sigh to my friends about how managing you are, all the while secretly knowing I am the luckiest man in town."
"What?" she demanded.
He shrugged. "A man's got to keep up appearances. I'll be universally detested if everyone realizes how perfect you are."

Lady Danbury said. "You'll be seeing him tomorrow night, anyway."
"I am?" Hyacinth asked, at precisely the moment Mr. St. Clair said, "She will?"
"You're accompanying me to the Pleinsworth poetry reading," Lady D told her grandson. "Or have you forgotten?"
Hyacinth sat back, enjoying the sight of Gareth St. Clair's mouth opening and closing in obvious distress. He looked a bit like a fish, she decided. A fish with the features of a Greek god, but still, a fish.
"I really," he said. "That is to say, I can't."
"You can, and you will be there," Lady D said. "You promised."
He regarded her with a stern expression. "I cannot imagine."
"Well, if you didn't promise, you should have done, and if you love me."
Hyacinth coughed to cover her laugh, then tried not to smirk when Mr. St. Clair shot a dirty look in her direction.
"When I die," he said, "surely my epitaph will read, 'He loved his grandmother when no one else would.'"
"And what's wrong with that?" Lady Danbury asked.

And for the rest of the night, he couldn't quite forget the smell of her perfume. Or maybe it was the soft sound of her chuckle. Or maybe it was neither of those things. Maybe it was just her. But she was already in. Gareth couldn't help but stand back in admiration. Hyacinth Bridgerton was clearly a natural born athlete.

Either that or a cat burglar.

"I'm not trying to impress you," he replied, glancing up at the front of the room. "Gads," he said, blinking in surprise. "What is that?"
Hyacinth followed his gaze. Several of the Pleinsworth progeny, one of whom appeared to be costumed as a shepherdess, were milling about.
"Now that's an interesting coincidence," Gareth murmured.
"It might be time to start bleating," she agreed.
"I thought this was meant to be a poetry recitation."
Hyacinth grimaced and shook her head. "An unexpected change to the program, I'm afraid."
"From iambic pentameter to Little Bo Peep?" he asked doubtfully. "It does seem a stretch."
Hyacinth gave him a rueful look. "I think there will still be iambic pentameter."
His mouth fell open. "From Peep?"
She nodded, holding up the program that had been resting in her lap. "It's an original composition," she said, as if that would explain everything. "By Harriet Pleinsworth.The Shepherdess, the Unicorn, and Henry VIII."
"All of them? At once?"
"I'm not jesting," she said, shaking her head.
"Of course not. Even you couldn't have made this up."
Hyacinth decided to take that as a compliment.
"Why didn't I receive one of these?" he asked, taking the program from her.
"I believe it was decided not to hand them out to the gentlemen," Hyacinth said, glancing about the room. "One has to admire Lady Pleinsworth's foresight, actually. You'd surely flee if you knew what was in store for you."

"Milk?" Lady Bridgerton asked.
"Thank you," Gareth replied. "No sugar, if you please."
"Hyacinth takes hers with three," Gregory said, reaching for a piece of shortbread.
"Why," Hyacinth ground out, "would he care?"
"Well," Gregory replied, taking a bite and chewing, "he is your special friend."

"Claptrap last week," Lady D announced. "I think the priest is getting old."
Gareth opened his mouth, but before he could say a word, his grandmother's cane swung around in a remarkably steady horizontal arc. "Don't," she warned, "make a comment beginning with the words, 'Coming from you.'"
"I wouldn't dream of it," he demurred.
"Of course you would," she stated. "You wouldn't be my grandson if you wouldn't." She turned to Hyacinth. "Don't you agree?"
To her credit, Hyacinth folded her hands in her lap and said, "Surely there is no right answer to that question."
"Smart girl," Lady D said approvingly.
"I learn from the master."
Lady Danbury beamed. "Insolence aside," she continued determinedly, gesturing toward Gareth as if he were some sort of zoological specimen, "he really is an exceptional grandson. Couldn't have asked for more."
Gareth watched with amusement as Hyacinth murmured something that was meant to convey her agreement without actually doing so.
"Of course," Grandmother Danbury added with a dismissive wave of her hand, "he hasn't much in the way of competition. The rest of them have only three brains to share among them."
Not the most ringing of endorsements, considering that she had twelve living grandchildren.
"I've heard some animals eat their young," Gareth murmured, to no one in particular.

Hyacinth wrinkled her nose, as she always did when she was thinking hard. It wasn't a terribly attractive expression, but the alternative was simply not to think, which she didn't find appealing. The Smythe-Smith musicale. Thankfully, it came around just once per year, because Hyacinth was quite certain it would take a full twelve months for her ears to recover.

"I do love it when I am right," Hyacinth said triumphantly. "Which is fortunate, since I so often am."
Penelope just looked at her. "You do know that you are insufferable."
"Of course." Hyacinth leaned toward Penelope with a devilish smile. "But you love me, anyway, admit it."
"I admit nothing until the end of the evening."
"After we have both gone deaf?"
"After we see if you behave yourself."
Hyacinth laughed. "You married into the family. You have to love me. It's a contractual obligation."
"Funny how I don't recall that in the wedding vows."
"Funny," Hyacinth returned, "I remember it perfectly."

"Charlotte Stokehurst," Violet Bridgerton announced, "is getting married."
"Today?" Hyacinth queried, taking off her gloves.
Her mother gave her a look. "She has become engaged. Her mother told me this morning."
Hyacinth looked around. "Were you waiting for me in the hall?"
"To the Earl of Renton," Violet added. "Renton."
"Have we any tea?" Hyacinth asked. "I walked all the way home, and I'm thirsty."
"Renton!" Violet exclaimed, looking about ready to throw up her hands in despair. "Did you hear me?"
"Renton," Hyacinth said obligingly. "He has fat ankles."
"He's-" Violet stopped short. "Why were you looking at his ankles?"

"I'm not certain you'd know the right sort of man for you if he arrived on our doorstep riding an elephant."
"I would think the elephant would be a fairly good indication that I ought to look elsewhere."

"The two of you together are a menace," Penelope remarked.
"My aim in life," Lady Danbury announced, "is to be a menace to as great a number of people as possible, so I shall take that as the highest of compliments, Mrs.Bridgerton."
"Why is it," Penelope wondered, "that you only call me Mrs. Bridgerton when you are opining in a grand fashion?"
"Sounds better that way," Lady D said, punctuating her remark with a loud thump of her cane.

He was a puzzle. And Hyacinth hated puzzles.
Well, no, in truth she loved them.
Provided, of course, that she solved them.

"Mother," Hyacinth said with a great show of solicitude, "you know I love you dearly,"
"Why is it," Violet pondered, "that I have come to expect nothing good when I hear a sentence beginning in
that manner?"

"Of course none of those men was suitable. Half were after your fortune, and as for the other half, well, you
would have reduced them to tears within a month."
"Such tenderness for your youngest child," Hyacinth muttered. "It quite undoes me."

What I'm trying to say is that when you were born, and they put you into my arms, it's strange, because for
some reason I was so convinced you would look just like your father. I thought for certain I would look down and see his face, and it would be some sort of sign from heaven."
Hyacinth's breath caught as she watched her, and she wondered why her mother had never told her this story. And why she'd never asked.
"But you didn't," Violet continued. "You looked rather like me. And then, oh my, I remember this as if it were yesterday, you looked into my eyes, and you blinked. Twice."
"Twice?" Hyacinth echoed, wondering why this was important.
"Twice." Violet looked at her, her lips curving into a funny little smile. "I only remember it because you
looked so deliberate. It was the strangest thing. You gave me a look as if to say, 'I know exactly what I'm doing.'"
A little burst of air rushed past Hyacinth's lips, and she realized it was a laugh. A small one, the kind that takes a body by surprise."
“And then you let out a wail,” Violet said, shaking her head. "My heavens, I thought you were going to shake the paint right off the walls. And I smiled. It was the first time since your father died that I smiled."
Violet took a breath, then reached for her tea. Hyacinth watched as her mother composed herself, wanting desperately to ask her to continue, but somehow knowing the moment called for silence For a full minute Hyacinth waited, and then finally her mother said, softly, "And from that moment on, you were so dear to me. I love all my children, but you . . ." She looked up, her eyes catching Hyacinth's."You saved me."
Something squeezed in Hyacinth's chest. She couldn't quite move, couldn't quite breathe. She could only watch her mother's face, listen to her words, and be so very, very grateful that she'd been lucky enough to be her child.
"In some ways I was a little too protective of you," Violet said, her lips forming the tiniest of smiles, "and at the same time too lenient. You were so exuberant, so completely sure of who you were and how you fit into the world around you. You were a force of nature, and I didn't want to clip your wings."
"Thank you," Hyacinth whispered, but the words were so soft, she wasn't even sure she'd said them aloud.

"Don't look so upset," Hyacinth said, once it was just the two of them again. "You're quite a catch."
He looked at her assessingly. "Is one meant to say such things quite so directly?"
She shrugged. "Not to men one is trying to impress."
"Touche, Miss Bridgerton."
She sighed happily. "My three favorite words."
Of that, he had no doubt.

"Do you know what is nice about friendships as longstanding as ours?" Hyacinth interrupted.
Felicity shook her head.
"You won't take permanent offense when I turn my back and walk away."
And then Hyacinth did just that.

So he decided to stay out of it and instead turned back to Lady Bridgerton, who was, as it happened, the closest person to him, anyway. "And how are you this afternoon?" he asked.
Lady Bridgerton gave him a very small smile as she handed him his cup of tea."Smart man," she murmured.
"It's self-preservation, really," he said noncommittally.
"Don't say that. They wouldn't hurt you."
"No, but I'm sure to be injured in the cross fire."

"Children," Lady Bridgerton said with a sigh as she retook her seat. "I am never quite certain if I'm glad I had
them."

"I cannot feel like a duchess in my mother's sitting room."
"What do you feel like, then?"
"Hmmm." She took a sip of her tea. "Just Daphne Bridgerton, I suppose. It's difficult to shed the surname in
this clan. In spirit, that is."
"I hope that is a compliment," Lady Bridgerton remarked.
Daphne just smiled at her mother. "I shall never escape you, I'm afraid." She turned to Gareth. "There is nothing like one's family to make one feel like one has never grown up."

Gareth turned to Gregory. "Your sister will be safe with me," he said. "I give you my vow."
"Oh, I have no worries on that score," Gregory said with a bland smile. "The real question is,will you be
safe with her?"
It was a good thing, Gareth later reflected, that Hyacinth had already quit the room to fetch her coat and her
maid. She probably would have killed her brother on the spot.

"You're a bundle of questions this afternoon, aren't you?"
"I wouldn't have to be," she retorted, clearly regaining her wits, "if you'd actually say something of substance."
"Until next time, Miss Bridgerton," he murmured, slipping out into the hall.
"But when?" came her exasperated voice.
He laughed all the way out.

"I'll talk to my mother," she promised. "If I'm sufficiently annoying, I'm sure I can get the engagement period
cut in half."
"It makes me wonder," he said. "As your future husband, should I be concerned by your use of the phrase if
I'm sufficiently annoying?"
"Not if you accede to all of my wishes."
A sentence that concerns me even more," he murmured.
She did nothing but smile.

"Is there something you wish to tell me?" Violet asked gently.
Hyacinth shook her head. How did one share something such as this with one's mother?
"Oh, yes, by the by and in case you're interested, it has recently come to my attention that my affianced husband asked me to marry him because he wished to infuriate his father.
"Oh, and did I mention that I am no longer a virgin?"
No getting out of it now!
No, that wasn't going to work

"I'm trying to embroider." Hyacinth held up her handiwork as proof.
"You're trying to avoid-" Her mother stopped, blinking. "I say, why does that flower have an ear?"
It's not an ear." Hyacinth looked down. "And it's not a flower."
"Wasn't it a flower yesterday?"
"I have a very creative mind," Hyacinth ground out, giving the blasted flower another ear.
"That," Violet said, "has never been in any doubt."
Hyacinth looked down at the mess on the fabric. "It's a tabby cat," she announced. "I just need to give it a tail."

"Say whatever is in your heart," Violet said. Her lips twisted wryly. "And if that doesn't work, I suggest that
you take a book and knock him over the head with it."
Hyacinth blinked, then blinked again. "I beg your pardon."
"I didn't say that," Violet said quickly.
Hyacinth felt herself smile. "I'm rather certain you did.
"Do you think?" Violet murmured, concealing her own smile with her teacup.
"A large book," Hyacinth queried, "or small?"
"Large, I think, don't you?"
Hyacinth nodded. "Have we The Complete Works of Shakespeare in the library?"
Violet's lips twitched. "I believe that we do."
Something began to bubble in Hyacinth's chest. Something very close to laughter. And it felt so good to feel it again.
"I love you, Mother," she said, suddenly consumed by the need to say it aloud. "I just wanted you to know that."
"I know, darling," Violet said, and her eyes were shining brightly. "I love you, too. I love you, too," she said.

He took her face in his hands and kissed her, once, deeply, on the mouth. "I mean," he said, "I really love
you."
She quirked a brow. "Is this a contest?"
"It is anything you want," he promised.
She grinned, that enchanting, perfect smile that was so quintessentially hers. "I feel I must warn you, then," she said, cocking her head to the side. "When it comes to contests and games, I always win."
"Always?"
Her eyes grew sly. "Whenever it matters."
He felt himself smile, felt his soul lighten and his worries slip away. "And what, precisely, does that mean?"
"It means," she said, reaching up and undoing the buttons of her coat, "that I really really love you."
"Speaking of which, he murmured.
Hyacinth's mouth fell open as he dropped down to one knee. "What are you doing?" she squeaked, frantically looking this way and that. Lord St. Clair was surely peeking out at them, and heaven only knew who else was, too.
"Someone will see," she whispered.
He seemed unconcerned. "People will say we're in love."
"Good heavens, but how did a woman argue against that?
"Hyacinth Bridgerton," he said, taking her hand in his, "will you marry me?"
She blinked in confusion. "I already said I would."
"Yes, but as you said, I did not ask you for the right reasons. They were mostly the right reasons, but not all.
"I-I" She was stumbling on the words, choking on the emotion.
He was staring up at her, his eyes glowing clear and blue in the dim light of the streetlamps. "I am asking you
to marry me because I love you," he said

She grimaced. Her mother and father were probably giggling and whispering and ducking into a darkened
corner. Good heavens. It was downright embarrassing.

Again The Magic

"McKenna will always be a part of me, no matter where he goes. They say that people who've lost a limb sometimes feel as if they still have it. How many times I've felt that McKenna was still here, and the empty space beside me was alive with his presence." She closed her eyes and leaned forward until her forehead and the tip of her nose touched the cool glass. "I love him beyond reason," she whispered. "He's a stranger to me now, and yet he is still so familiar. I can't imagine a sweeter agony, having him so close."

"I'm sorry." Her voice cracked. "McKenna-"
"Not sorry enough." He pressed his wet face to hers, his mouth rubbing over her cheeks and chin in feverish, rough half kisses, as if he wanted to devour her. "Not nearly enough. You say you've had to live without your heart...how would you like to lose your soul as well? I've cursed every day I've had to live without you, and every night that I spent with another woman, wishing that it was you in my arms-"
"NO-" she moaned.
"Wishing," he continued fiercely, "for some way to stop the memories of you from eating away at me until there was nothing left inside. I've found no peace anywhere, not even in sleep. Not even in dreams..." He broke off and assaulted her with hungry, shuddering kisses. The taste of his tears, his mouth, made Aline disoriented and hot, her head reeling from shocks of pleasure. McKenna seemed possessed by a passion that bordered on violence, his lungs wracked with hard breaths, his hands tightening with a force that threatened to leave bruises on her tender flesh. "By God," he said with the vehemence of a man to whom entirely too much had happened, "In the past few days I've suffered the torments of the damned, and I've had enough! "

A slow smile began on Gideon's face, and his blue eyes sparkled. With a shake of his head, he put his hand on his chest, as if the sight of her was more than his heart could bear.

"Sleep, my love," He whispered, smoothing her long hair, lifting the damp locks away from the back of her neck. "I'll be here to watch over you."
"You sleep too," she said groggily, her hand creeping to the center of his chest.
"No." McKenna smiled and pressed a soft kiss against her temple. His voice was husky with wonder. "Not when staying awake is better than anything I could find in a dream.

It was likely that no one had been surprised, however, as it was clear that Aline and Mckenna belonged together. There was something invisible and yet irrefutable that made them a couple. Perhaps it was the way both of them stole quick glances at each other when one though the other wasn't looking... glances of wonder and hunger.

He uttered a curse that startled her with its foulness, and gripped her head between his hands, forcing her to stare at him. His voice was savage. "For twelve years I have been in constant torment, wanting you in my arms and believing it would never be possible. I want you for a thousand reasons other than your legs, and...no, damn it, I want you for no reason at all, other than the fact that you're you. I want to shove myself deep inside you and stay for hours...days...weeks. I want morning and noon and nightfall with you. I want your tears, your smiles, your kisses...the smell of your hair, the taste of your skin, the touch of your breath on my face. I want to see you in the final hour of my life...to lie in your arms as I take my last breath."

No miles of level desert, no jagged mountain heights, no sea of endless blue
Neither words nor tears, nor silent fears
will keep me from coming back to you.

He shook his head, staring at her like a condemned man who beheld the face of his executioner. "Aline," he whispered, "Do you know what hell is?"
"Yes." Her eyes overflowed. "Trying to exist with your heart living somewhere outside your body."
"No. It's knowing that you have so little faith in my love, you would have condemned me to a lifetime of agony." His face contorted suddenly. "To something worse than death. For thousands of nights I dreamed making love to you. No man on earth has ever hated sunrise as I do."

One should make the best choice possible given the circumstances, and then avoid second-guessing for the sake of one's own sanity.

"If I'm to change my life for you, I've got to have some hope."
"I don't want you to change your life for me. You'll have to make the same decision every day, over and over - it must be for yourself alone."

"Perhaps only those who had loved and lost could appreciate this magic..."

"Shaw...has a woman ever asked you to write a poem for her?"
"Good God, no," Gideon replied with a snicker. "Shaws don't write poetry. They pay others to write it for them and then take the credit for it."

"One can't help but marvel at the variety of ways that women had devised to make us look like flaming idiots."

...she could only wait for someone, something, to free her from the invisible chains that bound her.

"Haven't you ever wished that you could steal back just a few hours of your past?" she asked softly. "That's all I want... just a little taste of what might have been."

"...have you ever wanted something so much that you would do anything to have it - even knowing that it was bad for you?"
"Of course," Adam replied. "All truly enjoyable things in life are invariably bad for you - and they are even better when done to excess."

"Well, I find a strange comfort in the fact that he wouldn't feel this degree of animosity now, had he not loved me so much before."

Manga Collection of Quotes

Those who hurt others will also hurt themselves.
To forgive or not to forgive... are those my only choices?
I'm going to stab you through the heart with the same blade... not for the good of the world... but for myself.

Just Listen

Don't think or judge, just listen.

There comes a time when the world gets quiet and the only thing left is your own heart. So you'd better learn the sound of it. Otherwise you'll never understand what it's saying.

Music is a total constant. That's why we have such a strong visceral connection to it, you know? Because a song can take you back instantly to a moment, or a place, or even a person. No matter what else has changed in you or the world, that one song stays the same, just like that moment.

"So you're always honest," I said.
"Aren't you?"
"No," I told him. "I'm not."
"Well, that's good to know, I guess."
"I'm not saying I'm a liar," I told him. He raised his eyebrows. "That's not how I meant it, anyways."
"How'd you mean it, then?"
"I just...I don't always say what I feel."
"Why not?"
"Because the truth sometimes hurts," I said.
"Yeah," he said. "So do lies, though."

All I'd ever wanted was to forget. But even when I thought I had, pieces had kept emerging, like bits of wood floating up to the surface that only hint at the shipwreck below.

I wondered which was harder, in the end. The act of telling, or who you told it to. Or maybe if, when you finally got it out, the story was really all that mattered.

There has to be a middle. Without it, nothing can ever truly be whole. Because it is not just the space between, but also what holds everything together.

So many versions of just one memory, and yet none of them were right or wrong. Instead, they were all pieces. Only when fitted together, edge to edge, could they even begin to tell the whole story.

This is the problem with dealing with someone who is actually a good listener. They don't jump in on your sentences, saving you from actually finishing them, or talk over you, allowing what you do manage to get out to be lost or altered in transit. Instead, they wait, so you have to keep going.

Instead, we just sat there, together but really apart, watching a show about a stranger and all her secrets, while keeping our own to ourselves, as always.

I am the middle sister. The one in between. Not oldest, not youngest, not boldest, not nicest. I am the shade of gray, the glass half empty or full, depending on your view. In my life, there has been little that I have done first or better than the one preceding or following me. Of all of us, though, I am the only one who has been broken.

I was beginning to see, though, that the unknown wasn't always the greatest thing to fear. The people who know you best can be risker, because the words they say and things they think have the potential to be not only scary but true, as well.

The past did affect the present and the future, in ways you could see and a million ones you couldn't. Time wasn't a thing you could divide easily; there was no defined middle or beginning or end. I could pretend to leave the past behind, but it would not leave me.

I thought again how you could never really know what you were seeing with just a glance, in motion, passing by. Good or bad, right or wrong. There was always so much more.

Pieces and parts were always easier to process. The full picture, the entire story, was another thing entirely. But you just never knew. Sometimes, people could surprise you.

So while it seemed like you were seeing everything, you really weren't. Just bits and pieces that looked like a whole.

 Like a word on a page that you've printed and read a million times, that suddenly looks strange or wrong, foreign. And you feel scared for a second, like you've lost something, even if you're not sure what it is.

Because this is what happens when you try to run from the past. it doesn't just catch up: it overtakes, blotting out the future, the landscape, the very sky, until there is no path left except that which leads through it, the only one that can ever get you home.

I'd been convinced I was on the outside, but really, I'd always been within arm's reach. All I had to do was ask, and I, too, would be easily brought back, surrounded and immersed, finding myself safe, somewhere in between.

Story of my life.

One week, one strong. One scared, one bold. I was beginning to understand though, that there were no such things as absolutes, not in life, or in people.

Like Owen said, it was day by day, if not moment by moment. All you could do was take on as much weight as you can bear. And if you're lucky, there's someone close enough to shoulder the rest.

It seemed safer to hold it in, where the only one who could judge was me.

That was the thing: Once, the difference between light and dark had been basic. One was good, one bad. Suddenly, though, things weren't so clear. The dark was still a mystery, something hidden, something to be scared of, but I'd come to fear the light, too. It was where everything was revealed, or seemed to be. Eyes closed, I saw only the blackness, reminding me of this one thing, the most deep of my secrets; eyes open, there was only the world that didn't know it, bright, inescapable, and somehow, still there.

As if it didnt matter what was on, but instead how hard I was listening.

One open, one closed. It was no wonder that the first image that came to mind when I thought of either of my sisters was a door. With Kirsten, it was the front one to our house, through which she was always coming in or out, usually in mid-sentence, a gaggle of friends trailing behind her. Whitney's was the one to her bedroom, which she preferred to keep shut between her and the rest of us, always.

So I learned another system: When in doubt, keep it out - out of earshot, out of the house - even if this meant, really, just keeping it in.

And while it is hard enough to take away something that makes a person happy, it's even more difficult when it seems like it's the only thing.

Not for the first time, I wished both of us could just say what we meant. But that, like so much else, was impossible

So I left him there alone to watch history repeat the same events retold again and again on his own.

It is kind of hard to hold a lot in. But for me… it's sometimes even harder to let it out

But you could also look at it the other way. Like you're saying no matter how bad things are for you, I can still relate.

"Really? Screaming?"
He shrugged. "It wasn't that bad. But there were definitely some freak-outs on both sides. Though, to be honest, the silence was worse."
"Worse than screaming?" I said.
"Much," he said, nodding. "I mean, at least with an argument, you know what's happening. Or have some idea. Silence is - it could be anything. It's just-"
"So freaking loud," I finished for him.
He pointed at me. "Exactly."

Whether it was a song, a person, or a story, there was a lot you couldn't know from just an excerpt, a glance, or part of a chorus.

I wanted to tell him so. Find the right words, string them together in the ideal way, knowing that here they would have the best chance of sounding perfect.

On my way to the living room, where my family was gathered, I stopped to look at the photo in the foyer. As always, my eyes were drawn to my own face first, then those of my sisters, and finally my mother, looking so small between us. But I saw it differently now. When that picture was taken, we were all gathered around my mother, sheltering her. But that was just one day, one shot. In the time since, we had arranged and rearranged ourselves so many times. We'd all gathered around Whitney, even when she didn't want us to, and Kirsten and I had gotten closer when she pushed us both away. We were still in flux, as had been clear at the table that night as I watched my mother and sisters come together again. Then, I'd been convinced I was on the outside, but really, I'd always been within arm's reach. All I had to do was ask, and I, too, would be easily brought back, surrounded and immersed, finding myself safe, somewhere in between.

There was no short answer to this; like so much else, it was a long story. But what really makes any story real is knowing someone will hear it. And understand.

This was how I was dealing with everyone and everything lately, taking the good when it came, and the bad the same way, knowing each would pass in its own time.

The world is speaking to you every day, you just don't know how to listen.

Sometimes it seems safer to hold it all in, where the only person who can judge is yourself.

I am still the center sister. But I see it differently now. There has to be a middle. Without it, nothing can truly be whole. Because it is not just the space between, but also what holds everything together.

More Than A Mistress

Why do I want to run from happiness?

Nodame Cantible

How much courage do you think I’ve gathered just to say those words?

Slightly dangerous

I do not admire greatness that has no substance.

And of course the word love has many shades of meaning, as do many, many of the words in our living, breathing language

Ruthless Game

"Of course I can do this. I'm pregnant, not brain-damaged. My condition doesn't change my personality."

Sebastian it is. You can tell me what a patron saint is later, since I have no knowledge of such things. Sebastian Kane.
"Sebastian Kane Cannon. You're going to marry me and use my last name, right?"
"Is that supposed to be a proposal?"

"We have to actually choose a name," Kane murmured above her head. "We can't keep calling him 'baby.' When he's fifteen he might resent it."

One thing about Kane - he never did anything by halves.

"Listen, Sebastian," he whispered. "That beautiful sound belongs to us for the rest for our lives. That's your mother. She's sunshine. No matter what happens in our lives, we have that."

"Are you going to win every argument?" He was pretty certain he'd asked her that once before. May be twice.
"Only the important ones."

On the other hand, she never looked as -big- as she did at that moment.
"What?" Rose demanded, glaring up at him.
The warning signal flashed bright red in Kane's head. Telling a woman she was as big as a beach ball wouldn't win any points. How did one describe how she looked? A basketball? Volleyball? He studied her furious little face. Yeah. He was in big trouble no matter what he said. Description was out of the question. He needed diplomacy, something that flew out of the window when he was near her and she said the words like contractions.

"You are such a chicken. Bock. Bock. Bock."
He refused to allow her very bad chicken impression to ruffle his feathers. He was above petty name-calling.