It had been an awful thing to lose Henry the first time, to matrimony, but to discover what a false front he was capable of was another kind of blow, and it had left her almost speechless. Then there was the fury with herself—for she had known what Henry’s love was, and still she had gone back to suffer a little more at his hands.

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.

It is well known that a man, when wooing a lady to be his wife, must first win over the females she most confides in—her friends, of course, and her sister, if she has one.

Even when a girl is married she still never completely leaves her mother and father's home.

She should have know that villains often come with pretty faces.

She had rarely been near Henry since then, and the sight of him now was like a concentrated dose.

She was trying to sound tough and impatient, but she knew that vulnerable desire to be wooed was still brimming in her tone.