After Henry's treatment of her she wasn't sure that men could honestly love women but she wanted to believe it. She wanted to be told pretty things and for the frightening clip of her heart to slow to something more reasonable.

What was it about that short creature with her wild hair and spurious air of purity and why would anyone much less two men love her and to such disastrous ends.

The living are made of nothing but flaws. The dead, with each passing day in the afterlife, become more and more impeccable to those who remain earthbound.

A lady must retain always her composure. Even in a rainstorm, she must appear joyous and dry. When she loses her composure, then the respect of her peers and her staff will follow in short order.

Things only looked wrong when there was someone to see you.

Girls," their mother interjected, "you must both stop being strange - it is unattractive. And don't forget your hats. It would be absolutely the end for me if you two came down with freckles at a time like this.

That was how the heroine of a book would play it and Diana was still writing her own story the best heroines she'd always believed took their fate into their own hands.