This thing between them, this bond—it wasn’t just passion, and it wasn’t wicked. It was love, and it was divine.

What?" "You're so neat," she said, looking almost embarrassed. He glanced pointedly over his shoulder. "There are four hundred on the other side of this door." "But you're ruining me." "I can't do it neatly?

He shook his head in wonder. "You are magnificent." "I keep telling everyone that," she said with a nonchalant shrug, "but you seem to be the only one to believe me.

Heartache, Daphne eventually learned, never really went away; it just dulled. The sharp, stabbing pain that one felt with each breath eventually gave way to a blunter, lower ache—the kind that one could almost—but never quite—ignore.

It's just that I don't think friends tie friends to the bedpost." James choked on his tea. "Caroline, you have no idea.

Mother,” Hyacinth said with a great show of solicitude, “you know I love you dearly—” “Why is it,” Violet pondered, “that I have come to expect nothing good when I hear a sentence beginning in that manner?

sometimes there are reasons for our fears that we can’t quite explain. Sometimes it’s just something we feel in our bones, something we know to be true, but would sound foolish to anyone else.