“He'd tried caring before. It had nearly destroyed him.”

“He was proud and stubborn, and all the ton looked up to him. Men curried his favor, women flirted like mad. And all the while he'd been terrified every time he'd opened his mouth.”

“He was discovering that may be there was more him than his name. And may be, when all was said and done, he'd still be whole.”

“But he wanted to smile. He would have done, if he'd been able. Surely that had to be the most important thing.The jabbing at his leg stopped for a bit, then started up again. Then there was a lovely, short pause, and then-Damn, that hurt.But not enough to cry out. Although he might have moaned. He wasn't sure. They'd poured hot water on him. Lots of it. He wondered if they were trying to poach his leg.Boiled meat. How terribly British of them.He chuckled. He was funny. Who knew he was so funny?"Oh, my God!" he heard Honoria yell. "What did I do to him?"He laughed some more. Because she sounded ridiculous.Almost as if she were speaking through a foghorn.Oooorrrrhhhh myyy Grrrrrrrrrd.He wondered if she could hear it,too.Wait a moment..Honoria was asking what she'd done to him?Did that mean she was wielding the scissors now?He wasn't sure how he ought to feel about this.On the other hand...boiled meat!He laughed again,deciding he didn't care.God,he was funny.How was it possible no one had ever told him he was funny before?”

“No, Belle needed him. He had to save her from a disastrous marriage. And then, he supposed, he'd simply marry her himself.John wasn't unaware that he was about to pull one of the greatest about-faces in history. He could only hope that Belle would understand that he had realized she'd had been right all along. People made mistakes, didn't they? After all, he wasn't some infallible storybook hero.”

“He'd been waiting for a love fraught with passion and drama; it hadn't even occurred to him that true love might be something that was utterly comfortable and just plain easy.”

“She had been born for this man, and she had spent so many years trying to accept the fact that he had been born for someone else...”