Good night.' Diana summoned all the dignity that she could manage in her bedraggled state and began to move back up the beach. Her dress was soaked and her stockings dotted with sand and her heart couldn't possibly withstand any more.

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

Henry was thinking of the younger Holland sister of the way she could go from being an impetuous girl to a knowing woman in a few seconds and never lose the stars in her eyes.

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.

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

Though her emotions had not deviated from a jittery frailty she knew that in her own room she could at least attempt sleep and that if she dreamed she might then finally be with Henry.

The headiest loves were the loves that couldn't be.