“Playful,” Amanda repeated, shaking her head. The idea contradicted all her long-held ideas of romance and sex. One did not “play” in bed. What did he mean?Was he implying that sexual partners enjoyed jumping on the mattress and throwing pillows, as children did?”

“He’d tried to tell Aimi to do something once, and that hadn’t gone well at all. One thing he did know: when a woman got an idea into her head, there was no changing it.”

“He did not care upon what terms he satisfied his passion. He had even a mad, melodramatic idea to drug her.”

“God take what He would," she said. And He did, and He did, and He did and then gave her Halle who gave her freedom when it didn't mean a thing.”

“Jem’s knees gave out, and he sank to the trunk at the foot of his bed, still playing. He played Will breathing the name Cecily, and he played himself watching the glint of his own ring on Tessa’s hand on the train from York, knowing it was all a charade, knowing, too, that he wished that it wasn’t. He played the sorrow in Tessa’s eyes when she had come into the music room after Will had told her she would never have children. Unforgivable, that, what a thing to do, and yet Jem had forgiven him. Love was forgiveness, he had always believed that, and the things that Will did, he did out of some bottomless well of pain. Jem did not know the source of that pain, but he knew it existed and was real, knew it as he knew of the inevitability of his own death, knew it as he knew that he had fallen in love with Tessa Gray and that there was nothing he or anyone else could do about it.”

“Scared by the noise, Millie looked down at her brothers. Then she held out both arms and Tom's stomach turned cold. She was going to jump to him, like she did from the back of the sofa. She was going to jump, confident that he'd catch her, like he always did.”