“Pippin?""Yes, Dash?""How did we get here?""Aboard this ship?" she teased. "Nate ordered the sails raised and then --""Very funny," he said, cutting her off. "You know what I mean. Here. To this place.""Oh, this place," she said, her face growing solemn. "I've wondered that as well, and all I can think of is that we are like our stars.""How so?""You and I are the two outer stars, and the one between us is everything that keeps us apart."He set his lips together and gazed out at the waves. "Like this ocean," he offered.”

“He said someday I would come home and regret ever leaving."She murmured something, perhaps her own remembrance of a place lost. "Do you?" she said after some time."Yes . . . I mean to say, no," he corrected. "Oh, bother, I don't know.""Don't fret over it. You can't get back the time you've lived, and all you have is what is before you," she said sagely."Egads, I find myself betrothed to a bluestocking," he teased. "Who was that, Aristotle?"She laughed. "No, Aunt Bedelia.”

“She started to rise, for she feared Dash might become angry, lose his temper as he had before with Finn, but this Dash, this man who was struggling to find his footing, planted his feet solidly on the deck."She married someone else, Finn," he said quietly. "There was no battle to fight once she'd done that. I'd lost, and sometimes when you lose, there is nothing you can do but move on."Finn sighed and shook his head, the arguments and problems of adults far beyond his ken, but he still persisted, struggling to understand. "Did you?""Did I what?""Move on? After you lost her?"Again, Dash shook his head. "Nay, I didn't. Not at all.""'Cause you loved her?"Dash looked away. "Aye. Without her, I lost my course and sailed about the seas rather like the Dutchman.”

“Don't you think Lady Standon deserves a man who sets her heart afire? Don't you deserve the same?"She leaned forward and poked him in the chest. Actually stabbed her finger into his coat as if he were a chicken on the spit. Rather like Lady Standon's harridan of a housekeeper."I would think," she said, "a man in your position would want more. So much more."More? Whatever did that mean? More?He had no idea what she was talking about.But in a flash he had a devilish inkling of what she meant.”

“Enough, Aunt Josephine," Jack said, cutting her off, ignoring the stubborn light in her eyes. Oh, she was a Tremont all right, and one of the "mad" Tremonts at that, but she was no longer in charge of this house.He was. And it was about time he took the reins of this manor and ran it as he saw fit."There will be no next time," he told her."But Jack, my dear boy--"He rose from Miranda's side. "There will be no next time. For any of you. I have had enough of seeing my friends, my family, let alone the woman I love risk life, limb, and for what?" He paced the room. "There will never be an end to this if something isn't done, so I am ending it. Here and now.""But Jack--" Miranda protested.He swung around on her. "And not a word from you. Do you think I want my wife risking her life on such an improper fashion?""You love me?" she whispered."Yes," he barked at her.She grinned up at him. "You want to marry me?""Should have years ago." He paced back and forth. "I lost you once, Miranda, I shall not lose you again." He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at everyone in the room, daring them to defy him.”

“The storm has passed." He nodded toward the clearing skies. "The stars have come out." He paused and gazed upward. "I miss them when I'm not at sea. Out on the ocean they sparkle all around you. 'Tis like standing at the gates of heaven.""Sounds glorious.”

“So she hadn't completely lost her sense of propriety -- and for some reason he was glad of that. Yet even as he looked at her, there was that mischievous sparkle in her eyes again despite her protest.A sparkle. An odd light as incongruous as her red hair.No, he was imagining things. But where was the expected admonishment on propriety, the lecture on proper restraint? Just when he thought he understood the lady, knew how to knot up her corset strings and keep her at sixes and sevens, she'd turned the tide on him.What had she said? You are not a man easily understood.Perhaps she understood him better than he'd given her credit for.”