“The lower your decolletage, the less the need for conversation.”

“Where will you go? What will you do?" he demanded."That need be no concern of yours--""The hell it isn't!" he shouted. "Everything about you is my concern."She opened her mouth to deny this but the look of him stopped her. For a long tense moment he studied her and when he spoke his voice was low and furious and yearning."I don't give a bloody damn if I never share your bed, your name, or your house -- you are still my concern. You can leave, take yourself from my ken, disappear for the rest of my life but you cannot untangle yourself from my -- my concern. That I have of you, Miss Bede, for that, at least, I do not need your permission."His words shocked her. She looked decades hence and she saw a specter of what might have been haunting her every moment, her every act, for the rest of her life."Your concern is misplaced.""It's mine to misplace," he said steadily.”

“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, Ginesse. Don't you see? You are my Zerzura. You are my undiscovered country, both my heart's destination and journey. Gold and temples, jewels and gems don't hold one bit of your enticement. You are my Solomon's mine, my uncharted empire. You are the only home I need to know, the only journey I want to take, the only treasure I would die to claim. You are exotic and familiar, opiate and tonic, hard conscience and sweet temptation. And now I have no more words to give you, Ginesse. I only have my heart, and you already own that.”

“If you forget your lines, you had better mumble with conviction.”

“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.”

“Resist demonstrating that your worldliness was more fiction than fact,” he whispered. “You, Lady Agatha, in the common parlance with which you are so fascinatingly familiar, ‘ain’t so tough.”