“Her hand reached up and took a strand of his hair between her fingers. “Simple as that.”She gently pulled on that curl and let it go. “It’s so springy.”They’d barely grazed at the truth, but I she was satisfied—and distracted. By his hair, of all things.“I feel like a sheep that has been overlooked during spring shearing,” he murmured.“Yes, adorably fluffy.”Another time he might have protested the use of that adjective. But now he was all too relieved. “Would you like me to pull my chair closer, so you may fondle my hair with greater ease?” he asked.She beamed at him. “Why, yes, I’d like exactly that.”

“What did you do to your hair? I don’t like it asmuch.”His brow knitted. “How do you like it?”“I prefer the curls.”He looked as if she’d told him she preferred him with three eyes. “You used to make fun of them. You told me that if Bo Peep had a child with one of her sheep it would have hair like mine.”She burst out laughing—and gasped at the pain that shot through her scalp. “You are not making it up, are you? Did I really say that?”“Sometimes you called me Goldilocks.”She had to remind herself not to laugh again. “And you married me? I sound like a very odious sort of girl.”“I was a very odious sort of boy, so you might say we were evenly matched.”She didn’t know enough to comment upon that, but when he was near, she was… happier.”

“She touched him, placing her hand over his curled fingers, straightening them so that they were palm to palm, then she interlaced her fingers with his. Her fingertips were icy. A silent, dangerous thrill coursed through him. He wanted to pull her atop him and show her what awaited a foolish young woman who slipped into a man's bedroom in the dead of the night after having devoured him all evening with those dark, intense eyes of hers, setting his blood to simmer over three long hours.”

“«She sat at the bow of a pleasure craft a stone's throw away, under the shade of a white parasol, a diligent tourist out to reap all the beauty and charm Copenhagen had to offer. She studied him with a distressed concentration, as if she couldn't quite remember who he was. As if she didn't want to. He looked different. His hair reached down to his nape, and he'd sported a full beard for the past two years. Their eyes met. She bolted upright from the chair. The parasol fell from her hand, clanking against the deck. She stared at him, her face pale, her gaze haunted. He'd never seen her like this, not even on the day he left her. She was stunned, her composure flayed, her vulnerability visible for miles. As her boat glided past him, she picked up her skirts and ran along the port rail, her eyes never leaving his. She stumbled over a line in her path and fell hard. His heart clenched in alarm, but she barely noticed, scrambling to her feet. She kept running until she was at the stern and could not move another inch closer to him (…) Gigi didn't move from her rigid pose at the rail, but she suddenly looked worn down, as if she'd been standing there, in that same spot, for all the eighteen hundred and some days since she'd last seen him. She still loved him. The thought echoed wildly in his head, making him hot and dizzy. She still loved him.»”

“I despaired for a while during the rail journey-how did one deal with such ingrainedcowardice? Then I realized that there is no such thing as courage in the absence of cowardice.Courage is also a choice: It’s what happens when one refuses to give in to fear.”She rested her head against the bedpost and gazed at him. “Your trust gives me courage.”He understood her perfectly. “And your courage gives me faith.”She smiled a little. “Do you trust me?”“Yes,” he answered without any hesitation.“Then trust me when I say that we will be all right.”He trusted her. And he knew then that they would be all right, the two of them. Together.”

“That's right. Carrington didn't want to marry the likes of me. He had to be dragged kicking and screamingto the negotiation table.”“Did you enjoy the dragging?” He glanced down at her.“Yes, I rather did,” she confessed. “It was amusing threatening to strip his house bare to the last plank on the floor and the last spoon in the kitchen.”“My parents are convinced of your grief.” She heard the smile in his voice. “They said tears streameddown your face at his funeral.”“For nearly three years of hard work down the drain, I cried like a bereaved mother.”

“Do you think I should be paying my addresses to Mrs. Martin, my dear Miss Fitzhugh?” he whispered. “Martin doesn’tlook the sort to have enough stamina to service two women.And goodness knows you could probably exhaust Casanova himself.”Again this insinuation that she must be a sufferer of nymphomania. Behind her fan, she put her lips very close to his ear. “You’ve no idea, my Lord Hastings, the heated yearningsthat singe me at night, when I cannot have a man. My skin burns to be touched, my lips kissed, and my entire body passionately fondled.”Hastings was mute, for once. He stared at her with something halfway between amusement and arousal.She snapped shut her fan and rapped his fingers as hard as she could, watching with great satisfaction as he choked back ayelp of pain.“By anyone but you,” she said, and turned on her heels.”