They were all dressed in their finest as though life really were some magical stage play in which every moment ought to be illuminated with its own bright spotlight.

He turned his dark eyes on the girl whom he had dreamed of so often over the previous months. Beside him, at that very moment of existence, at the heart of torrential downpour, she was exquisitely real, and she, too, seemed content to go on sitting there forever.

She was a vision in a white gown her dark hair forming a hazy halo around her rosy heart-shaped face. Her long lashes fluttered to touch her cheeks and then her eyes opened fully in his direction. Her small round mouth flexed in an immediate and knowing smile. That's the girl I'm going to marry Henry thought.

Her heart the damned thing had begun to race and she only hoped that the rapid inflation and deflation of her chest wasn't visible beneath her fitted bodice.

I can't imagine what my life was before. I can't imagine ever being without you for very long again.

Don't go looking for boys in the dark They will say pretty things then leave you with scars. Do go looking for boys in the park For that is where the true gentlemen are.

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.