“waiting for you is the hardest part.”

“I'll never look at you in any way but complete admiration.” He stroked her hair soothingly. “You will never be a millstone about my neck. Rather you're the sunshine that brightens my day.” He swallowed. “Don't you see? You brought me into the daylight. You've embraced parts of me that I was never able to let see light. Don't make me retreat again into the night. (Winter Makepeace)”

“She threw one leg over his and straddled his lap, then reached under herself and found him again.He tore his mouth from hers. “Wait.”“No.” She looked him frankly in the eyes. “I don’t care if you spill at once. I need you inside me now.”His beautiful eyes widened and then narrowed. “You’ll not always hold the reins, my lady.”She smiled sweetly. “Naturally not, but I do now.”

“It hardly mattered. She was tired of waiting for him to acknowledge who he was. Tired of donning a false mask of gaiety when she was so much more—felt so much more—beneath. No one had ever noticed her mask. No one but him. If he couldn’t or wouldn’t make the first move, then damn it, she would.”

“He was aware, suddenly, of the chill condensing clammily on his skin, the smell of damp cobblestones, of the very air flowing in and out of his lings.But most of all he was aware of the woman, this woman, his woman, standing so proudly, waiting patiently for him, only him.He walked toward her and knew with every fiber of his being that he walked to life itself.”

“He looked up. “Is it time already?” She nodded. He rose and waited as she gathered her things. The dog followed them out the door, but then he bounded down the stairs to the drive. The animal sniffed intently at something on the ground and then rolled, happily rubbing his head and neck in whatever it was. Lord Swartingham sighed. “I’ll have one of the stable boys wash him before he enters the Abbey again.” “Mmm,” Anna murmured thoughtfully. “What do you think of ‘Adonis’?” He gave her a look so full of incredulous horror that she was hard-pressed not to laugh. “No, I suppose not,” she murmured.”

“That thought—that she was carrying his babe—steadied him enough to start off again. It was a strange but not unwelcome feeling to know that she carried his child. That someday she would hold a babe against her pretty white breast and that the child would be part of him as well.For the first time in a very long while, he yearned to see tomorrow.”