Webs of deceit were not only tangled, they were also very lonely.
Fading into the wallpaper was so much safer than being noticed.
Nothing causes more pain, frustration, and disappointment than unfulfilled expectations.
Never again was she going to sit by while life went on around her. Never again was she going to wait for fate to hand her what she wanted. From now on, she was going to reach out and grab her dreams and not let go.
Give me a kiss, and to that kiss a score; Then to that twenty, add a hundred more. Robert Herrick, 1648.
I suppose you have already informed God that you will require at least three sons to ensure the Tremore line?
She met his gaze over the plums. “The point is, we all care, to some degree, what others think of us.
I never understood until this happened to me was that if one’s always going to new places, one never stops long enough to see the beauty in the old places.
Marriage is a partnership Phillip, not a feudal kingdom. Until you can accept that I have the right to dictate the course of my on life, I will not marry you. Until you can accept my wishes and my opinions are just worthy of consideration as yours, I will not marry you. Until you can accept that what I would give up to be your wife is just as important as what you offer in exchange, I will not marry you.
It never does any good to dwell on what could go wrong. There is risk in everything.
I always let you decide. If you decide wrong, I work to change your mind.
The point is, all my life I’ve hung back, never going after what I really wanted, trying to be content with settling for less. Meanwhile, life went on all around me, but I was never really a part of it.
But I do know about fear. I’ve faced it, more than once. That’s what one has to do with fear, by the way. Face it and defeat it because you can’t ever run far enough or fast enough to escape from it.
Being good all the time was a bad bargain.
We’re your friends. Our job is to tease you mercilessly about your foibles, rag you about your upright, honorable nature, and point out to you when you’re being a complete dolt.
My mama told me from the time I was a little girl not to go chasin’ after boys.” She paused and gave him a wry smile. “I just wasn’t very good at listenin’.
When she turned at the sound of his calling her name, he felt the world tilt a little sideways, and he knew that even if a decade passed before he saw her again, he would still remember every detail of her face – the exact blue of her eyes and the luminous glow of her skin and the delicate arch of her brow. Worse, he suspected he’d still feel the same sensations a decade from now – a dry throat, a pounding heart, and an inability to say a single word.
This was the dawn of a new day, and a new Emma Dove. Never again was she going to sit by while life went on around her. Never again was she going to wait for fate to hand her what she wanted. From now on, she was going to reach out and grab her dreams and not let go. She had never been more scared in her life.
Why did the best answers to unfounded criticism always come to a person while stewing about the situation afterward?
I cared,” he said behind her. “But as I said, we should never have been friends. Friendship is not possible between a marquess and the daughter of the family chef. That is the world we live in.” She forced herself to look at him over her shoulder. “No, Phillip. That’s the world you live in.