“This thing between them, this bond—it wasn’t just passion,and it wasn’t wicked.It was love, and it was divine.”

“He wasn’t sure how he ought to feel about this. On the other hand . . . boiled meat!”

“He was no fool; he knew that love existed. But he also believed inthe power of the mind, and perhaps even more importantly, the power of the will. Frankly, he saw noreason why love should be an involuntary thing.If he didn’t want to fall in love, then by damn, he wasn’t going to. It was as simple as that. Ithad to be assimple as that.”

“And then, well . . . He might have slept for a bit. He rather hoped he was sleeping, because he was quite certain he’d seen a six-foot rabbit hopping through his bedchamber, and if that wasn’t a dream, they were all in very big trouble. Although really, it wasn’t the rabbit that was so dangerous as much as the giant carrot he was swinging about like a mace. That carrot would feed an entire village.”

“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.”

“Honoria had a plan.It had come to her in church that morning. (The ladies went; the gentlemen somehow managed to get out of it.) It wasn’t terribly complicated; she needed only a sunny day, a halfway acceptable sense of direction, and a shovel.”

“He’d spent his life being a perfect gentleman. He’d never been a flirt. He’d never been a rogue. He hated being the center of attention, but by God, he wanted to be the center of her attention. He wanted to do the wrong thing, the bad thing. He wanted to pull her into his arms and carry her to her bed. He wanted to peel every last inch of her clothing from her body, and then he wanted to worship her. He wanted to show her all the things he wasn’t sure he knew how to say.”