“Do you know what a balance wheel is?” She shook her head slightly. “There’s one in every clock or watch. It rotates back and forth without stopping. It’s what makes the ticking sound...what makes the hands move forward to mark the minutes. Without it, the watch wouldn’t work. You’re my balance wheel, Poppy.” -Harry Rutledge”

“But Harry . . . even if we had met and married three years ago, you’d still say it wasn’t enough time.”“You’re right. I can’t think of a single day of my life that wouldn’t have been improved with you in it.”“Darling,” she whispered, her fingertips coming up to stroke his jaw, “that’s lovely. Even more romantic than comparing me to watch parts.”Harry nipped at her finger. “Are you mocking me?”“Not at all,” Poppy said, smiling. “I know how you feel about gears and mechanisms.”

“Annabelle’s eyes stung as she stared at him, while need and inexhaustible tenderness gathered like an ache in her body. “I realized something,” she said huskily, “when I was standing outside the foundry, watching it burn and knowing you were inside.” She swallowed hard against the thickness in her throat. “I would rather have died in your arms, Simon, than face a lifetime without you. All those endless years… all those winters, summers… a hundred seasons of wanting you and never having you. Growing old, while you stayed eternally young in my memories.” She bit her lip and shook her head, while her eyes flooded. “I was wrong when I told you that I didn’t know where I belonged. I do. With you, Simon. Nothing matters except being with you. You’re stuck with me forever, and I’ll never listen when you tell me to go.” She managed a tremulous smile. “So you may as well stop complaining and resign yourself to it.”

“I have nothing to offer you," he finally said in a guttural voice."Nothing."Win's lips had turned dry. She moistened them, and tried to speak through a thrill of anxious trembling. "You have yourself," she whispered."You don't know me. You think you do, but you don't. The things I've done, the things I'm capable of--you and your family, all you know of life comes from books. If you understood anything--""Make me understand. Tell me what is so terrible that you must keep pushing me away."He shook his head."Then stop torturing the both of us," she said unsteadily. "Leave me, or let me go.""I can't," he snapped. "I can't, damn you." And before she could make a sound, he kissed her.”

“Did it fall out?" Leo asked. "Is she bald?""No, not at all. It's just that her hair is...green."To look at Leo's face, one would think it was Christmas morning. "What shade of green?""Leo, hush," Win said urgently. "You are not to torment her. It's been a very trying experience. We mixed a peroxide paste to take the green out, and I don't know if it worked or not. Amelia was helping her to wash it a little while ago. And no matter what the result is, you are to say nothing.""You're telling me that tonight, Marks will be sitting at the supper table with hair that matches the asparagus, and I'm not supposed to remark on it?" He snorted. "I'm not that strong.""Please, Leo," Poppy murmured, touching his arm. "If it were one of your sisters, you wouldn't mock.""Do you think that little shrew would have any mercy on me, were the situations reversed?" He rolled his eyes as he saw their expressions. "Very well, I'll try no to jeer. But I make no promises."Leo sauntered toward the house in no apparent hurry. He didn't deceive either of his sisters. "How long do you think it will take him to find her?" Poppy asked Win."Two, perhaps three minutes," Win replied, and they both sighed.”

“I don’t want to be a widow, I don’t want Michael Bayning, and I don’t want you to joke about such things, you tactless clodpole!”As all three of them stared at her openmouthed, Poppy leapt up and stalked away, her hands drawn into fists.Bewildered by the immediate force of her fury—it was like being stung by a butterfly—Harry stared after her dumbly. After a moment, he asked the first coherent thought that came to him. “Did she just say she doesn’t want Bayning?”“Yes,” Win said, a smile hovering on her lips. “That’s what she said. Go after her, Harry.”Every cell in Harry’s body longed to comply. Except that he had the feeling of standing on the edge of a cliff, with one ill-chosen word likely to send him over. He gave Poppy’s sister a desperate glance. “What should I say?”“Be honest with her about your feelings,” Win suggested.A frown settled on Harry’s face as he considered that. “What’s my second option?”

“I love you dammit,"she brushed her lips teasingly against his."How much?" He made a slight sound, as if the soft kiss had affected him intensely."Without limit. Beyond forever.”