“I adored history, not the dry dates and boring battles, but the stories and the people who populated them.”

“I think people are much the same wherever you go. Some of them good, some of them clever, and some of them with the devil in them.”

“Now I was more certain than ever of my decision. I could not love a man who did not love Jane Austen.”

“She didn't look at me and I didn't look at her. Some questions are so direct the only way to ask them is sideways.”

“She left me then, surrounded by my extravagantly simple finery and I sat for a long time, uncomfortable both with the person I had been and the person I was finally becoming. Caught between the two of them, I felt rather lonely, as one often does with a new acquaintance.”

“I stepped closer still. He closed his eyes again and covered my hand with his own. 'You smell of violets. You always smell of violets,' he said. 'You've no idea how many times I have walked these moors and smelled them and thought you were near. On and on I walked, following the scent of you, and you were never there. When I saw you in the hall tonight, I thought I had finally gone mad.”

“The other travellers do seem to have given us a wide berth,” I admitted.“Can you blame them?” He surveyed our possessions, and I found myself smiling as well.“Not precisely a partridge in a pear tree...”“But we have a raven in a cage, a lurcher on a lead, a Siamese in a basket, and a dormouse in your décolletage. We are a travelling circus.”