“She needed to know more. “But that means…”“It means I love you, Violet. I have never said that aloud to another human being.”He said it quickly and tonelessly. As if he was afraid of the words. Violet stood basking in those words the way she might a sunbeam after a long, gray day. She closed her eyes. And she knew she was lit from within.“Do not let me just stand here having said those words,” he said stiffly. “It’s undignified.”“I love you, too,” she said softly, hurriedly. Feeling abashed. Eyes still closed. Egads. So this was what it was like to be in love. Awkward and foolish, indeed.”

“I love you," she murmured. The words ... it was as though an entire sun had exploded in his chest.He'd been ridiculous. His thrashing thoughts, his grand confusion and torment and helplessness -- it was only love, had always been love, he supposed. It was no precipice he stood at, or rather precipices have little meaning when one finally acknowledges that one has wings. Connor stepped off."I love you, too."Such grave, inadequate words for what it was he felt.”

“And though she could scarcely even feel them, her lips formed the words, and sound emerged, sounding frayed, and small and cracked, forged in her somehow before she was born, since before time, words meant only for him.“I love you.”Three of the most powerful words in the world offered to one of the most powerful men in London in such a small voice.And at first she thought nothing at all had happened. He didn’t blink. But then she realized she’d somehow set him . . . softly ablaze. Emotion burned from him, and his eyes . . . she would never forget his eyes in this moment.His hands remained at his sides.Which is when she noticed they were trembling.God help her, that’s when she felt tears begin to burn at the back of her eyes.One got away. And she brushed her hand roughly against it.And the man who never cleared his throat . . . cleared his throat. And his voice, in truth, wasn’t a good deal louder than hers.“Then it’s just as well that I love you, Genevieve.”

“Moreover,' he mused relentlessly, 'I think that you'll be dreaming of me perhaps until the day you die.'She clapped her book shut then and stood abruptly. 'It was only,' she ground out, 'a kiss.''Was it?' He was laughing now.'And moreover,' she all but growled, 'you, Lord Rawden, murmured my name rather feverishly into my throat, as I recall.'His smile disappeared. Good God, but a man didn't like to be reminded of the things he did or said in the heat of passion. She was a very good player. He eyed her somewhat cautiously.'And you were breathing rather like a bellows,' she continued. 'Like a mating bull.''A mating bull?' Trust a country girl to arrive at this particular analogy.”

“Don’t be tedious, Lavay. If it’s so necessary for you to know,” he said ungraciously. “She won a contest.”There was a short stunned silence.“You…played a game?” Lavay said this slow, flat incredulity, hilarity suppressed, clearly trying to picture it. “And you lost to a…girl. What manner of contest was this? Ribbon-tying?”Flint felt ridiculous now, in retrospect, which was doing nothing to settle his temper. “I challenged her to aim a dart…let’s just say it landed rather serendipitously in the right spot,”he finished curtly. “She was lucky.”“You speak metaphorically, Captain? She aimed a dart as in the vein of Cupid?”

“He had one of those chins what…” One of the innkeeper’s hands went up to squeeze his chin into two little folds. “…a chin what looks like an arse.” “A chin dimple? A cleft?”“Not cleft so much as dented, Mr. Eversea. And blue eyes. Went nicely with his costume.” Dumbstruck silence followed this observation. The innkeeper sighed. “It’s me wife. If ye gets yerself a wife one day, Mr. Eversea, ye’ll come ou’ wi’ things like that, too, mark my words, mark my words. ‘This matches wi’ that or with this,’ and so on. They talk like that, women do. She makes me look a’ things and give opinions. She’ll turn me into a girl yet.” This seemed unlikely, but all Colin said was, “Blue eyes and an arse chin. Thank you, that’s very helpful, Mr. Croker.”

“He began to stand, and saw Lyon stiffen, poised to do whatever he needed to do. He, like Lyon, could throw himself on a pyre, too. Because fire cleansed. She’d won, and he’d lost.It had stopped mattering. Her happiness was indistinguishable from his own. No matter what became of him, he wanted her to know he loved her.“You’d best get out of here, Redmond. Your secret is safe with me.”Lyon’s eyes flared in wary surprise. He froze. And his smile, when it came, was slow, and crooked, and he looked very like Lavay when Lavay was being insufferably knowing.“Ah. You do love her more than life. Splendid. And that, my dear Lord Flint, is what I came here today to discover.”Whatever he felt was between him and Violet. “Go before I change my mind, Redmond.”