She looked up at him and said,"What did you say?" "You have beautiful eyes." "You told my father that he has beautiful eyes?" He smiled. "No. You distracted me. I told your father that, while I was very grateful for the lesson, I doubt I would ever need of it again- because I was planning to court only one woman in my lifetime.

She winced, knowing what was to come, "Calpurnia." She closed her eyes again, embarrassed by the extravagant name - a name with which no one but a helplessly romantic mother with an unhealthy obsession with Shakespeare would have considered saddling a child.

And as the bullet ripped through his flesh, Ralston was consumed by a single thought: I never told her that I loved her.

He was struck dumb at the words though he should not be surprised; his wife kept him in a perpetual state of speechlessness.

Lord Nicholas St. John was their only hope, and she had been on the roof when he arrived, for heaven's sake. Ladies did not go traipsing about on rooftops. And certainly gentlemen did not frequent the homes of those ladies who did traipse about on roortops. It did not matter if the rooftop in question was in dire need of repair. Or that the lady in question had no choice.

Ralston didn't care. He turned on his brother as the surgeon knelt next to him and inspected the wound. "She could have been killed!" And what about you?" This time, it was Callie who spoke, her own pent-up energy releasing in anger, and the men turned as one to look at her, surprised that she and found her voice. "What about you and your idiotic pland to somehow restore my honor by playing guns out in the middle of nowhere with OXFORD?" She said the baron's name in disdain. "Like children? Of all the ridiculous, unnecessary, thoughtless, MALE things to do...who even FIGHTS duels anymore?!

She had wanted more than she could have. She had wanted him, and more... she had wanted him to want her. In the name of something bigger than tradition, bolder than reputation, more important than a silly title.