“Nothing seduces vanity like the word "help".”

“I want you cool and regal, earthy and impertinent, spoiling for a fight and abashed at your own temper. I want you flushed with exertion and rosy with sleep. I want you teasing and provocative, somber and thoughtful. I want every emotion, every mood, every year in a lifetime to come. I want you beside me, to encourage and argue with me, to help me and let me help you. I want to be your champion and lover, your mentor and student.”

“He stopped. She heard the intake of his breath. “You are my country, Desdemona.” Yearning, harsh and poignant and she felt herself swaying toward him. “My Egypt. My hot, harrowing desert and my cool, verdant Nile, infinitely lovely and unfathomable and sustaining.”She gasped.His gaze fell, shielded by his lashes. An odd, half-mocking smile played about his lips. “You’ll never hear old Blake say something like that.”She swallowed, unable to speak, her senses abraded by his stimulating words, her pulse hammering in anticipation? Trepidation?“Remember my words next time he calls you a bloody English rose.”

“Why did you refuse to marry me then?” he demanded.She should be quiet; she should just stay mute. But she was angry and hurt. Only moments before he’d been saying such lovely things; now he was being horrible. “Why can’t you help yourself?” she countered, shouting back.“What?”“Why are you compelled to come after me?” she demanded, setting her hands on her hips.For a moment, he just stared at her as if she was daft.“Because I love you,” he finally said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.“What?” She’d waited to hear him say those words for what seemed like an eternity, and now he’d said them just as casually and unconcernedly as he might have said, “I like that dress” or “Spot is a good name for a dog.”“Because I love you,” he repeated. “Why else would I?”“I don’t know. Because you’re mad?” she suggested. How dare he say he loved her here, in such a manner, with so little fanfare?He was watching her carefully. “You seem upset.”“Oh. Do I?” she asked sweetly. Behind her, the horse shifted uneasily. Smart horse. “Perhaps it’s because I do not believe you.”

“He wanted her. Her. Nothing could take that away from her. Ever. He wanted her, not the status he thought her purloined name could bring him”

“The knowledge that she was needed by something living, that she could benefit another creature, produce happiness, or contentment, or just a feeling of security--somehow it filled a part of her as nothing else had.”

“I love you,” she whispered, gazing up into his pale gray eyes.He smiled crookedly, for a moment looking at her with a dazzled air. He had, she realized sadly, no experience hearing those words. He didn’t know how to react. “I figured as much.”This time, she didn’t hit him.”