“I know it’s going to sound funny, but I know you’ve been hanging around with that Billie Marsh, so maybe it won’t be strange after all. Would you be my best man—or, I don’t know, my best lady?”

“But I wanted to tell you before I left how completely abjectly sorry I am for all the pain I have caused you and that if I die you were the one true love of my life. By the time you read this I will be gone but please know I am still always at your side....' Yours forever Henry William Schoonmaker”

“I know that I might die but that seems a happier end than being without you and anyway it seems to me that looking in the face of hard things and still being able to move forward even when the end includes grave danger and the possibility of death is the mark of a man.”

“I tell you Schoonmaker she doesn't know what she has. That's the heart of it. She's like some wild creature who hasn't a clue the worth of its coat.”

“Ah well that I can't tell you." Diana ducked her head so that the brim of her bonnet covered her face. "Some things must remain a mystery and for now I think I'll keep my opinion of you and your compliments to myself.”

“I can't imagine what my life was before. I can't imagine ever being without you for very long again.”

“That was how the heroine of a book would play it and Diana was still writing her own story the best heroines she'd always believed took their fate into their own hands.”