“It was often in small moments that significant things were revealed.”

“The sight of a sullen teenager is common no matter where you go. Teenagers want things so powerfully and can never seen to get them, and to add insult to injury, people make light of your feelings because you are a teenager. They say time will mend a broken heart and they're often right. But not where my feelings for Hardy were concerned.”

“I understood finally that the thing Ishould have feared most was not loss, butnever loving. The price for safety was the regretI felt at this moment. And yet I wouldhave to live with it for the rest of my life”

“She smiled at him, though her hazel-green eyes were wary beneath the brim of a sodden hat. Right at that moment, staring at her across the hall, Gideon Shaw, cynic, hedonist, drunkard, libertine, fell hopelessly in love.”

“As we talked, I had the sense of uncovering something precious and long-buried, fully formed. Our conversation was a process of removing layers, some of them easily dusted away. Other layers, requiring chisels or axes, were left alone for now. We revealed as much as we dared about what had happened during the years that separated us. But it wasn't what I had expected, being with Hardy again. There was something in me that remained stubbornly locked away, as if I were afraid to let out the emotion I had harbored for so long.”

“I think the busiest people are often the loneliest.”

“I think you'll have to marry me, Miss Fielding.""To save your reputation?"Derek grinned, bending to kiss the flash of pale throat revealed by the robe. "Someone has to make a respectable man of me.”