Darling Wife Quotes

Think for a minute, darling: in fairy tales it's always the children who have the fine adventures. The mothers have to stay at home and wait for the children to fly in the window.

Charlotte, darling," Henry said to his wife, who was staring at him in gape-mouthed horror. Jessamine, beside her, was wide eyed. "Sorry I'm late. You know, I think I might nearly have the Sensor working-" Will interrupted. "Henry," he said, "You're on fire. You do know that don't you?

Charlotte, darling, Henry said to his wife, who was staring at im in gape-mouthed horror. Jassamine, beside her, was wided eyed. Sorry im late. You know, i think i might nearly have the sensor working- Will interrupted. Henry, he said, your on fire. You do know that, don't you? Oh, yes, Henry said eagerly. The flames were now nearly to his shoulder. I've been working like a man possessed all day. Charlotte, did you hear what i said about the sensor? Charlotte dropped her hand from her mouth. Henry! She shrieked. Your arm! Henry glanced down at his arm, and his mouth dropped open. Bloody hell!

Quite often you drive me mad, but more often I'm just mad about you. And that darling, that's the best love there is.

Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze. Hair: brown. Lips: scarlet. Age: five thousand three hundred days. Profession: none, or "starlet" Where are you hiding, Dolores Haze? Why are you hiding, darling? (I Talk in a daze, I walk in a maze I cannot get out, said the starling). Where are you riding, Dolores Haze? What make is the magic carpet? Is a Cream Cougar the present craze? And where are you parked, my car pet? Who is your hero, Dolores Haze? Still one of those blue-capped star-men? Oh the balmy days and the palmy bays, And the cars, and the bars, my Carmen! Oh Dolores, that juke-box hurts! Are you still dancin', darlin'? (Both in worn levis, both in torn T-shirts, And I, in my corner, snarlin'). Happy, happy is gnarled McFate Touring the States with a child wife, Plowing his Molly in every State Among the protected wild life. My Dolly, my folly! Her eyes were vair, And never closed when I kissed her. Know an old perfume called Soliel Vert? Are you from Paris, mister? L'autre soir un air froid d'opera m'alita; Son fele -- bien fol est qui s'y fie! Il neige, le decor s'ecroule, Lolita! Lolita, qu'ai-je fait de ta vie? Dying, dying, Lolita Haze, Of hate and remorse, I'm dying. And again my hairy fist I raise, And again I hear you crying. Officer, officer, there they go-- In the rain, where that lighted store is! And her socks are white, and I love her so, And her name is Haze, Dolores. Officer, officer, there they are-- Dolores Haze and her lover! Whip out your gun and follow that car. Now tumble out and take cover. Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze. Her dream-gray gaze never flinches. Ninety pounds is all she weighs With a height of sixty inches. My car is limping, Dolores Haze, And the last long lap is the hardest, And I shall be dumped where the weed decays, And the rest is rust and stardust.

I want to live and work alone. If we get married, do I have to live with you? No, he said. Will you marry me? Do I have to act like a wife? I don’t really want to be a wife. No, you don’t need to be a wife, he said. Will you marry me? If we get married, will we be able to sleep with other people? Yep, he said. Will you marry me? Can I maintain total control of my life? I need total control of my life. Yes, darling. I’m not trying to control you. At all. Will you marry me? I probably don’t want kids. That’s fine. I already have three. They’re great. Will you marry me? If I marry you and it doesn’t work, can we just get divorced? Sure, he said brightly.

THE BAGPIPE WHO DIDN'T SAY NO It was nine o'clock at midnight at a quarter after three When a turtle met a bagpipe on the shoreside by the sea, And the turtle said, "My dearie, May I sit with you? I'm weary." And the bagpipe didn't say no. Said the turtle to the bagpipe, "I have walked this lonely shore, I have talked to waves and pebbles--but I've never loved before. Will you marry me today, dear? Is it 'No' you're going to say dear?" But the bagpipe didn't say no. Said the turtle to his darling, "Please excuse me if I stare, But you have the plaidest skin, dear, And you have the strangest hair. If I begged you pretty please, love, Could I give you just one squeeze, love?" And the bagpipe didn't say no. Said the turtle to the bagpipe, "Ah, you love me. Then confess! Let me whisper in your dainty ear and hold you to my chest." And he cuddled her and teased her And so lovingly he squeezed her. And the bagpipe said, "Aaooga." Said the turtle to the bagpipe, "Did you honk or bray or neigh? For 'Aaooga' when your kissed is such a heartless thing to say. Is it that I have offended? Is it that our love is ended?" And the bagpipe didn't say no. Said the turtle to the bagpipe, "Shall i leave you, darling wife? Shall i waddle off to Woedom? Shall i crawl out of your life? Shall I move, depart and go, dear-- Oh, I beg you tell me 'No' dear!" But the bagpipe didn't say no. So the turtle crept off crying and he ne'er came back no more, And he left the bagpipe lying on that smooth and sandy shore. And some night when tide is low there, Just walk up and say, "Hello, there," And politely ask the bagpipe if this story's really so. I assure you, darling children, the bagpipe won't say "No.

Oh, the troubles I go through for my wife.” A thrill went up my spine at his words. “Am I really? We don’t need to have a ceremony or register with the church?” “Darling, we burned down the church.

Royce understood then why she had come: she had come to finish the task her relatives had begun; to do to him what he had done to her brother. Unmoving, he watched her, noting that tears were pouring down her beautiful face as she slowly bent down. But instead of reaching for his lance or her dagger, she took his hand between both of hers and pressed her lips to it. Through his daze of pain and confusion, Royce finally understood that she was kneeling to him, and a groan tore from his chest: "Darling," he said brokenly, tightening his hand, trying to make her stand, "don't do this…" But his wife wouldn't listen. In front of seven thousand onlookers, Jennifer Merrick Westmoreland, countess of Rockbourn, knelt before her husband in a public act of humble obeisance, her face pressed to his hand, her shoulders wrenched with violent sobs. By the time she finally arose, there could not have been many among the spectators who had not seen what she had done. Standing up, she stepped back, lifted her tear-streaked face to his, and squared her shoulders. Pride exploded in Royce's battered being—because, somehow, she was managing to stand as proudly—as defiantly—as if she had just been knighted by a king.

Darling, can your mother offer you some advice?" "No." I answer quickly on a small smile. She returns my smile and sits me on the end of the bed. "When you become a wife, you become the core of your husband." She smiles fondly. "Let him think he's in charge, let him think you can't live without him, but never let him take your independence or identity, darling. They need their egos stroked, these men.

Darling," he said distractedly,"about the moon..." "Yes?" "I don't think it matters whether you want it or not." "What are you talking about?" "The moon. I think it's yours." Victoria yawned, not bothering to open her eyes. "Fine. i'm glad to have it." "But--" Robert shook his head. He was growing fanciful. the moon didn't belong to his wife. It didn't follow her, protect her. It certainly didn't wink at anybody. But he stared out the window the rest of the way home, just in case

Caroline's lips thinned, her face flushed. "My husband, sir, has more secrets in his tiny, insignificant mind than the entire British War Department has had on file since its inception." She huffed with pure, disgusted outrage, lowering her gaze to the floor to murmur, "I'll kill him.

You deserve a husband who wants you, Caroline, just as you are, and you know I do. But as much as I need you, I don’t want you if you’re here right now from a feeling of guilt, or pity, or some odd sense of self-righteousness or duty.” He abruptly glanced down once again to his brandy. “Because I also believe, even with my numerous faults, that I deserve a wife who wants me in return, just as I am. Anything less isn’t worth the pain.

Where is your false, your treacherous, and cursed wife?" "She's gone forrard to the Police Office," returns Mr Bucket. "You'll see her there, my dear." "I would like to kiss her!" exclaims Mademoiselle Hortense, panting tigress-like. "You'd bite her, I suspect," says Mr Bucket. "I would!" making her eyes very large. "I would love to tear her, limb from limb." "Bless you, darling," says Mr Bucket, with the greatest composure; "I'm fully prepared to hear that. Your sex have such a surprising animosity against one another, when you do differ.

That night, when SanJuanna had cleared the main course and brought dessert in, my mother called for quiet and said, "Boys, I have an announcement to make. Your sister made the apple pies tonight. I'm sure we will all enjoy them very much." "Can I learn how, ma'am?" said Jim Bowie. "No, J.B. Boys don't bake pies," Mother said. "Why not?" he said. "They have wives who make pies for them." "But I don't have a wife." "Darling, I'm sure you will have a very nice one someday when you're older, and she'll make you many pies. Calpurnia, would you care to serve?" Was there any way I could have a wife, too? I wondered as I cut through the browned C and promptly shattered the entire crust.

Good Lord, His Grace the Ass hiding in the bushes,” Apollo muttered. “Whatever are you doing here?” “Ah, Kilbourne, you’ve regained your voice,” Wakefield drawled. “Pity, but I presume my wife is thrilled. And you are?” He looked pointedly at Montgomery.

They’re like little boys, men. Sometimes of course they’re rather naughty and you have to pretend to be angry with them. They attach so much importance to such entirely unimportant things that it’s really touching. And they’re so helpless. Have you never nursed a man when he’s ill? It wrings your heart. It’s just like a dog or a horse. They haven’t got the sense to come in out of the rain, poor darlings. They have all the charming qualities that accompany general incompetence. They’re sweet and good and silly, and tiresome and selfish. You can’t help liking them, they’re so ingenuous, and so simple. They have no complexity or finesse. I think they’re sweet, but it’s absurd to take them seriously.

Diana wept a tear after we made love and said, My Earthly darling, I must bid you farewell… She could have been my wife, But her time, I didn't dare wish to waste.

Hubert Humphrey’s wife is said to have advised him: “Darling, for a speech to be immortal it need not be interminable.

I am sorry, my darling, he told her. That was not fair of me, or well done. When I am with you, I want to forget what I am, but I cannot change it. A silent Brother can have no wife, no love.

Roarke didn't quite make it to Eve's office. He found her down the corridor, in front of one of the vending machines. She and the machine appeared to be in the middle of a vicious argument. "I put the proper credits in, you blood-sucking, money-grubbing son of a bitch." Eve punctuated this by slamming her fist where the machine's heart would be, if it had one. ANY ATTEMPT TO VANDALIZE, DEFACE, OR DAMAGE THIS UNIT IS A CRIMINAL OFFENSE. The machine spoke in a prissy, singsong voice Roarke was certain was sending his wife's blood pressure through the roof. THIS UNIT IS EQUIPPED WITH SCANEYE, AND HAS RECORDED YOUR BADGE NUMBER. DALLAS, LIEUTENANT EVE. PLEASE INSERT PROPER CREDIT, IN COIN OR CREDIT CODE, FOR YOUR SELECTION. AND REFRAIN FROM ATTEMPTING TO VANDALIZE, DEFACE, OR DAMAGE THIS UNIT. "Okay, I'll stop attempting to vandalize, deface, or damage you, you electronic street thief. I'll just do it." She swung back her right foot, which Roarke had cause to know could deliver a paralyzing kick from a standing position. But before she could follow through he stepped up and nudged her off balance. "Please, allow me, Lieutenant." "Don't put any more credits in that thieving bastard," she began, then hissed when Roarke did just that. "Candy bar, I assume. Did you have any lunch?" "Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know it's just going to keep stealing if people like you pander to it." "Eve, darling, it's a machine. It does not think." "Ever hear of artificial intelligence, ace?" "Not in a vending machine that dispenses chocolate bars.

I feel about Olenka the way I think God might. I know so much about her. Nothing has been hidden from me. It’s rare, in the real world, that I get to know someone so completely. I’ve known her in so many modes: a happy young newlywed and a lonely old lady; a rosy, beloved darling and an overlooked, neglected piece of furniture, nearly a local joke; a nurturing wife and an overbearing false mother. And look at that: the more I know about her, the less inclined I feel to pass a too-harsh or premature judgment. Some essential mercy in me has been switched on. What God has going for Him that we don’t is infinite information. Maybe that’s why He’s able to, supposedly, love us so much.

October 17, 1946 D’Arline, I adore you, sweetheart. I know how much you like to hear that — but I don't only write it because you like it — I write it because it makes me warm all over inside to write it to you. It is such a terribly long time since I last wrote to you — almost two years but I know you'll excuse me because you understand how I am, stubborn and realistic; and I thought there was no sense to writing. But now I know my darling wife that it is right to do what I have delayed in doing, and that I have done so much in the past. I want to tell you I love you. I want to love you. I always will love you. I find it hard to understand in my mind what it means to love you after you are dead — but I still want to comfort and take care of you — and I want you to love me and care for me. I want to have problems to discuss with you — I want to do little projects with you. I never thought until just now that we can do that. What should we do. We started to learn to make clothes together — or learn Chinese — or getting a movie projector. Can't I do something now? No. I am alone without you and you were the "idea-woman" and general instigator of all our wild adventures. When you were sick you worried because you could not give me something that you wanted to and thought I needed. You needn’t have worried. Just as I told you then there was no real need because I loved you in so many ways so much. And now it is clearly even more true — you can give me nothing now yet I love you so that you stand in my way of loving anyone else — but I want you to stand there. You, dead, are so much better than anyone else alive. I know you will assure me that I am foolish and that you want me to have full happiness and don't want to be in my way. I'll bet you are surprised that I don't even have a girlfriend (except you, sweetheart) after two years. But you can't help it, darling, nor can I — I don't understand it, for I have met many girls and very nice ones and I don't want to remain alone — but in two or three meetings they all seem ashes. You only are left to me. You are real. My darling wife, I do adore you. I love my wife. My wife is dead. Rich. PS Please excuse my not mailing this — but I don't know your new address.

If Piper and Rudy hadn't seen me, I'd have done the inside work myself." Roarke lifted an eyebrow as he secured the first string and took out another. "I might have some mild objection to my wife dating strange men." She went back to the tray, took another pretty canape at random. "I wouldn't have slept with any of them... unless the job called for it." She grinned at him. "And I would have thought of you the whole time." "It wouldn't have taken very long -- since I'd have cut off his balls and handed them to you." He kept stringing lights as she choked on her wine. "Jesus, Roarke, I'm only kidding." "Mmm-hmm. Me, too, darling. Hand me another string of these.

You poor darling," said his wife, coming quickly to his side. She cradled his head against her breasts, a position he unaccountably loathed as much as she was fond of putting him in it, but which he tolerated now for tactical reasons. "What you need is a nice strong drink," she said.

I've just come to my room, Livy darling, I guess this was the memorable night of my life. By George, I never was so stirred since I was born. I heard four speeches which I can never forget... one by that splendid old soul, Col. Bob Ingersoll, — oh, it was just the supremest combination of English words that was ever put together since the world began... How handsome he looked, as he stood on that table, in the midst of those 500 shouting men, and poured the molten silver from his lips! What an organ is human speech when it is played by a master! How pale those speeches are in print, but how radiant, how full of color, how blinding they were in the delivery! It was a great night, a memorable night. I doubt if America has seen anything quite equal to it. I am well satisfied I shall not live to see its equal again... Bob Ingersoll’s music will sing through my memory always as the divinest that ever enchanted my ears. And I shall always see him, as he stood that night on a dinner-table, under the flash of lights and banners, in the midst of seven hundred frantic shouters, the most beautiful human creature that ever lived... You should have seen that vast house rise to its feet; you should have heard the hurricane that followed. That's the only test! People might shout, clap their hands, stamp, wave their napkins, but none but the master can make them get up on their feet. {Twain's letter to his wife, Livy, about friend Robert Ingersoll's incredible speech at 'The Grand Banquet', considered to be one of the greatest oratory performances of all time}

The bus-driver was whistling, perhaps in anticipation of his wife, who would be a woman with ample breasts, those of a realized maturity. It would be impossible that he did not have, from my point of view, a wife and children, indeed, a happiness such as I could not imagine to be real, even like some legend out of the golden ages. He had spoken numerous times during our journey of his old woman waiting, and he was going home.

And by the way, my dear,' he said, 'you might just mention to Mrs. Sutton that if she must read the morning paper before I come down, I should be obliged if she would fold it neatly afterwards.' 'What an old fuss-box you are, darling,' said his wife. Mr. Mummery sighed. He could not explain that it was somehow important that the morning paper should come to him fresh and prim, like a virgin. Women did not feel these things. ("Suspicion")

As a child, my wife hated her school and wished she could leave. Years later, when she was in her twenties, she disclosed this unhappy fact to her parents, and her mother was aghast: ‘But darling, why didn’t you come to us and tell us?’ Lalla’s reply is my text for today: ‘But I didn’t know I could.

BRIDE How long have I been wed to myself? Calling myself darling, dressing for my own pleasure, each morning choosing perfume to turn me on. How long have I been alone in this house but not alone? Married less to the man than to the woman silvering with the mirror. I know the kind of wife I need and I become her: the one who will leave this earth at the same instant I do. I am my own bride, lifting the veil to see my face. Darling, I say, I have waited for you all my life.

Be my friend…be my wife…my duchess. I promise to love you with every breath in my body and every emotion in my heart until the end of my days, Katherine. I vow it.

Darling, the bath's absolutely right. Will you marry me?' She snorted. 'You need a slave, not a wife.

But after years of Dad saying, ‘Fear keeps you safe, darling, because, as we know, the worst can happen,

Trust, darling, I will let no one – not king or god or mortal – stand in the way of making you my wife.

It’s true I’ve never been pregnant, but I know it’s like to lose the possibility of a baby. So of course I sympathize with Elizabeth, Phil! Deeply! My heart breaks for her. I’ve cried and cried for her each time she’s lost another baby. It’s just that sometimes I want to say to her, “Darling, maybe you don’t get to be a mother, but you still get to be a wife.

Suffice it to say that [Everest] has the most steep ridges and appalling precipices that I have ever seen, and that all the talk of an easy snow slope is a myth.… My darling this is a thrilling business altogether, I can’t tell you how it possesses me, and what a prospect it is. And the beauty of it all! George Leigh Mallory, in a letter to his wife,  June 28, 1921

The pain of it was crippling him. He couldn’t breathe. Be a man! Be a Dardano. Alessandro felt the protective wall shoot up around his heart in one quick instant. Dardanos weren’t weak and stupid like he had been. Dardanos didn’t let their emotions blind them. Love was for fools. Love made men stupid. But oh, she would never make him stupid again. Oh, how Alessandro would make his darling wife pay.

My dad, who my mom always refers to as DH for Darling Husband, was protrayed as a 'let's look on the bright side of things' kind of guy, the pillar my everbumbling mother leans on in times of distress.

Oh, the troubles I go through for my wife.” A thrill went up my spine at his words. “Am I really? We don’t need to have a ceremony or register with the church?” “Darling, we burned down the church.” “Oh yeah.

When you were sick you worried because you could not give me something that you wanted to and thought I needed. You needn’t have worried. Just as I told you then there was no real need because I loved you in so many ways so much. And now it is clearly even more true — you can give me nothing now yet I love you so that you stand in my way of loving anyone else — but I want you to stand there. You, dead, are so much better than anyone else alive. . . . My darling wife, I do adore you. I love my wife. My wife is dead.

For my wife for Valentine’s Day, A proposition, if I may— Three clues for you, You know what to do— And if you want your present to claim, You’re going to have to play my game Now here’s the clue that I speak of: Tell me, darling Nikki, what is sweeter than Love?

I got a book deal, I told Neil grumpily. I’m going to write a book about the TED talk. And all the…other stuff I couldn’t fit into twelve minutes. He was writing at the kitchen table and looked up with delight. Of course you did. They’re paying me an actual advance, I said. I can pay you back now. That’s wonderful, my clever wife. I told you it would all work out. But I’ve never written a book. How could they pay me to write a book? I don’t know how to write a book. You’re the writer. You’re hopeless, my darling, he said. I glared at him. Just write the book, Amanda. Do what I do: finish your tour, go away somewhere, and write it all down in one sitting. They’ll get you an editor. You’re a songwriter. You blog. A book is just…longer. You’ll have fun. Fine, I’ll write it, I said, crossing my arms. And I’m putting EVERYTHING in it. And then everyone will know what an asshole I truly am for having a best-selling novelist husband who covered my ass while I waited for the check to clear while writing the ridiculous self-absorbed nonfiction book about how you should be able to take help from everybody. You realize you’re a walking contradiction, right? he asked. So? I contain multitudes. Can’t you just let me cling to my own misery? He looked at me. Sure, darling. If that’s what you want. I stood there, fuming. He sighed. I love you, miserable wife. Would you like to go out to dinner to maybe celebrate your book deal? NO! I DON’T WANT TO CELEBRATE. IT’S ALL MEANINGLESS! DON’T YOU SEE? I give up, he said, and walked out of the room. GOOD! I shouted after him. YOU SHOULD GIVE UP! THIS IS A HOPELESS FUCKING SITUATION! I AM A TOTALLY WORTHLESS FRAUD AND THIS BOOK DEAL PROVES IT. Darling, he called from the other room, are you maybe expecting your period? NO. MAYBE. I DON’T KNOW! DON’T EVEN FUCKING ASK ME THAT. GOD. Just checking, he said. I got my period a few days later. I really hate him sometimes.

The first to formulate concrete proposals, however, drawing on the comparison between the treatment of blacks and Russia’s Jews, was a married couple, once darlings of the American Left: William English Walling, the founding chairman of the NAACP, and his Russian-born Jewish wife, Anna Strunsky.

If you're so miserable,' my daughter said delicately, 'why don't you leave him?' Oh my darling girl, I might have said, what a good question. In her worldview, bad marriages were simply terminated, like unwanted pregnancies. She knew nothing about this subculture of women who stayed, women who couldn't logically explain their allegiances, who held tight because it was the thing they felt most comfortable doing, the thing they actually liked. she didn't understand the luxury of the familiar, the known: the same hump of back poking up under the cover in bed, the hair tufting in the ear. The husband. A figure you never strove toward, never work yourself up over, but simply lived beside season upon season, which started building up like bricks spread thick with sloppy mortar. A marriage wall would rise up between the two of you, a marriage bed, and you would lie in it gratefully.

Greg looked at Aunt Dahlia. “You need to leave.” “I already told her that,” Ham growled. Greg ignored Ham like he didn’t exist and said to Aunt Dahlia, “I’ll ask the manager to have you removed.” “Since I dine here once a month, I doubt he’ll choose removing me over removing the lot of you.” She twirled her finger in the air to indicate us all. “Do you think,” Nina started and I looked at her to see her looking at Max, “that this is normal? I mean, does this kind of thing happen to other people in the world? I really want to know.” Max smiled at his wife. I looked back at Aunt Dahlia to see, scarily, she was looking at me. “You need to phone your father.” “No, she doesn’t.” This was said by Kami Maxwell. I leaned forward and plonked my forehead on the table. --- “Is there a problem here?” A mild-mannered-looking suited man I suspected was the manager entered the situation. “No, I’m simply having a word with my niece,” my aunt replied. “Yes, this woman interrupted my wife’s dinner in an extremely unpleasant way,” Greg contradicted. “She’s not your wife,” Ham grunted. Uh-oh. Shocking the crap out of me, Greg, with narrowed eyes and anger contorting his face, instantly fired back at Ham, “She’ll always be my wife.” I went still. The table went still. I fancied the restaurant went still as I was pretty certain I watched ice form in a thick layer, crackling and groaning all around Ham. “Well shit.” His words were sarcastic but that didn’t mean they weren’t dripping icicles. “See I’m in a position to apologize since I fucked your wife against the wall before we left to come here.” This was when I plonked my head on the table again. “Oh my,” Nina breathed as she glanced at Max. “We haven’t done that in a while, darling. We should do that again.

My friendship with Jack remains strained. I want to believe that he was duped, but he has always been far too clever to fall for another man's ruse. So we have added yet one more thing to our relationship about which we never speak. Sometimes I think we will break beneath the weight of it, but on those occasions I have but to look at my wife in order to find the strength to carry on. I am determined to be worthy of her and that requires that I be a far stronger and better man than I had ever planned to be. We see Frannie from time to time, not as often as we'd like unfortunately. She did eventually marry, but that is her story to tell. Dear Frannie, darling Frannie. She shall always remain the love of my youth, the one for whom I sold my soul to the devil. But Catherine, my beloved Catherine, shall always be the center of my heart, the one who, in the final hour, would not let the devil have me.

On the morning of November 22nd, a Friday, it became clear the gap between living and dying was closing. Realizing that Aldous [Huxley] might not survive the day, Laura [Huxley's wife] sent a telegram to his son, Matthew, urging him to come at once. At ten in the morning, an almost inaudible Aldous asked for paper and scribbled "If I go" and then some directions about his will. It was his first admission that he might die ... Around noon he asked for a pad of paper and scribbled LSD-try it intermuscular 100mm In a letter circulated to Aldous's friends, Laura Huxley described what followed: 'You know very well the uneasiness in the medical mind about this drug. But no 'authority', not even an army of authorities, could have stopped me then. I went into Aldous's room with the vial of LSD and prepared a syringe. The doctor asked me if I wanted him to give the shot- maybe because he saw that my hands were trembling. His asking me that made me conscious of my hands, and I said, 'No, I must do this.' An hour later she gave Huxley a second 100mm. Then she began to talk, bending close to his ear, whispering, 'light and free you let go, darling; forward and up. You are going forward and up; you are going toward the light. Willingly and consciously you are going, willingly and consciously, and you are doing this beautifully — you are going toward the light — you are going toward a greater love … You are going toward Maria's [Huxley's first wife, who had died many years earlier] love with my love. You are going toward a greater love than you have ever known. You are going toward the best, the greatest love, and it is easy, it is so easy, and you are doing it so beautifully.' All struggle ceased. The breathing became slower and slower and slower until, 'like a piece of music just finishing so gently in sempre piu piano, dolcamente,' at twenty past five in the afternoon, Aldous Huxley died.

She ate it and cried. Soon, he put the melting ice cream away. "Shura," Tatiana whispered, "darling, forget what should have been. Remember all that was." "Tatiasha, babe," Alexander whispered, coming back to bed to be covered, "my one and only wife, forget our age, our splendid youth, forget it all and let our crazy love make us young.

After Ian left for the Greenleaf Inn, where he planned to stop for the night before continuing the trip to his own home, Elizabeth stayed downstairs to put out the candles and tidy up the drawing room. In one of the guest chambers above, Jordan glanced at his wife’s faint, preoccupied smile and suppressed a knowing grin. “Now what do you think of the Marquess of Kensington?” he asked. Her eyes were shining as she lifted them to his. “I think,” she softly said, “that unless he does something dreadful, I’m prepared to believe he could truly be your cousin.” “Thank you, darling,” Jordan replied tenderly, paraphrasing Ian’s words. “I’m happy to see your opinion of him is already improving.

My darling wife,” he murmured softly, “ ’tis probable that I shall be most heavily set upon within the next few moments. The front door, as solid as it is, cannot be properly defended, and they will come before long to ram it down. ’Twould please me much if you…” Erienne’s head was already shaking before he finished. Strangely she experienced no fright, no fear. She was in her home, and a grim determination lay beneath her composed exterior. “I will stay with you.” She tapped the pistol with the tip of her finger and informed him bluntly, “The man who harms you will not live out the day. I will see to that.” There was a level sternness in her gaze that made Christopher glad she was his wife and not a foe. -Christopher & Erienne

Parents, do your daughters come home smelling like an orchard? Is their giggle quotient higher than usual? They may be in thrall to the dangerous wine cooler. Gateway drug of the terminally insecure, its usage results in excessive clumsiness and the condition ‘trophy wife-itis.’ The lethalness of which only manifests after age thirty-five and ends in gutter living and suicide.

While sculpting me nude completes your Fuck-It List for now, I happened to add a very important item to mine today, one that my life would not be complete without.” I got down on one knee and opened the pouch, taking out the two-carat, pear-shaped halo diamond engagement ring. “Charlotte Darling, will you help me make my ultimate bucket-list wish come true? Will you be my wife?

There is something so indescribably sweet and satisfying, to a man, in the knowledge that he has forgiven his wife—forgiven her freely, and with all his heart. It seems as if that had made her, as it were, doubly his own; he has given her a new life, so to speak; and she is in a way become both wife and child to him. So you shall be for me after this, my little scared, helpless darling.

And then I tell the patient, ‘No communication with wife allowed for the next ninety days.’ ” Ghosh turned to face the patient, and repeated the sentence. The patient nodded. “Okay, you can communicate, say ‘Good morning, darling,’ and all that, but no sex for three months.” The patient grinned. “Okay, you can have sex, but you must wear a condom.” “I use interruptus,” the patient said, speaking for the first time in a heavy East European accent. “You use what? Interruptus? Pull and pray? Good God, man! No wonder you have five kids! It’s noble of you to try to get off the train at an earlier station, but it’s unreliable. No sir. Interrupt the interruptus, man, unless you want to reach your half dozen this year.” The patient looked embarrassed. “You know what we call young men who use coitus interruptus?” Ghosh said. The population expert shook his head. “We call them Father! Daddy. Pater. Pappa. Père. No sir, I have done the interrupting for you. Give me three months and you can tell your missus that she is not to worry because you will be shooting blanks, and there will be no more interruptions and you will be staying for dessert, coffee, and cigars.

Tradition now dictated that anyone could try and pull the couple apart. Whoever succeeded in separating them at their ribbons would be able to sit beside the couple as they feasted in celebration. The field became a tumble of laughing mates and contestants as males tried to remove males and females tried to remove females. Jacob grabbed his newly healed bride and floated out of the reach of the would-be renders, a cry of protest rising from below them. Gideon and Legna were left unmolested, Gideon’s imposing reputation having a quelling effect on the nerves of any who might have approached. He was kissing his bride when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned and saw Damien arching a challenging brow at him. Legna laughed, delighted as Gideon gave the Prince a dirty look. Her humor lasted about two seconds. That was when Damien’s partner in crime tapped Legna’s shoulder. Siena gave the bride a feline grin. “Oh, you bitch,” Legna choked out, laughing in her shock at the excellent maneuver on the Queen’s part. “Uh-uh,” the Queen scolded, her collar winking in the firelight. “That’s not very diplomatic of you, Ambassador.” “You realize this means war,” Legna said archly. “As if I would settle for anything less,” Siena returned. Legna and Gideon sighed, looking at each other and rolling their eyes. Husband grabbed hold of wife by their joined arms and then they braced their feet. Legna felt slim, strong arms around her waist and shoulders, and Gideon was seized in a similar hold by the determined Damien. “Darling?” Legna said. “Yes, love.” “Yes?” “Definitely yes.” The Vampire and Lycanthrope pulled, and immediately found themselves holding nothing but air. They both fell over hard into the dirt, dazedly watching a pair of ribbons floating down to the ground. “Oh look, they won,” Legna remarked from her and Gideon’s new position a few feet away. “How about that,” Gideon mused. “See you both at dinner. Congratulations on your victory.” The couple popped off to who knows where, leaving indignant but dubiously victorious royalty behind.

A wife complains to her husband, “Do you realize that since we were married two years ago you haven’t once taken me to the movies? It wasn’t that way when you were courting. I think you’re beginning to take me for granted.” When the penitent husband returns from work the following evening he says, “Darling, what about going to the movies after dinner?” And she replies, “You’re only suggesting it because I complained!

Coming close, Tatiana brought her freckled face to him. She glanced around, saw that Dr. Sayers was looking right at them, and said, “God, I won’t get a chance to kiss you, will I? I can’t wait until I can kiss you out in the open.” Her hands patted his chest. “Soon we’ll be out of the thick forest,” she whispered. “Kiss me anyway,” Alexander said. “Really?” “Really.” Tatiana bent, her serene hand remaining on his chest, and her honey lips softly kissed Alexander’s own lips. She pressed her cheek against his. “Shura, open your eyes.” “No.” “Open them.” Alexander opened them. Tatiana gazed at him, her eyes shining, and then she blinked three times quick. Straightening up, she put on her serious face and raising her hand in a salute, said, “Sleep well, Major, and I’ll see you.” “I’ll see you, Tania,” said Alexander. She walked to the end of his bed. No! he wanted to cry out. No, Tania, please come back. What can I leave her with, what can I say, what one word can I leave with her, for her? What one word for my wife? “Tatiasha,” Alexander called after her. God, what was the curator’s name…? She glanced back. “Remember Orbeli—” “Tania!” Dr. Sayers yelled across the ward. “Please come now!” She made a frustrated face and said quickly, “Shura, darling, I’m sorry, I have to run. Tell me when I see you next, all right?” He nodded. Tatiana walked away from Alexander, past the cots, touching a convalescent’s leg and bringing a small smile to the man’s bandaged face. She said good night to Ina and stopped for a second to adjust someone’s blanket. At the door she said a few words to Dr. Sayers, laughed, and then turned to Alexander one last time, and in Tatiana’s eyes he saw her love, and then she was out the door and gone.

Sile looked momentarily stymied, then shook his head sharply. "You won't go alone." "I can't ask anyone--" "You aren't asking," Sile said firmly. "I'm insisting--" "Grandfather, nay," Runach said, stunned. "I couldn't allow it." "Allow it?" Sile repeated, looking as if the gale were readying for another good blow. "Who do you think you are, whelp, to tell me what to do?" "I believe, your Majesty," Aisling said quietly, "he's someone who loves you..." Runach didn't dare smile, because his grandfather would have made the effort to get up out of his chair so he could deliver a brisk blow to the back of a grandson's head, of that he was certain. "Besides, I'm going to go along to keep him safe." Sile closed his eyes briefly before he leaned forward and looked at Aisling seriously. "You, my gel?" "Me, Your Majesty." Runach watched his grandfather look at his wife in consternation. "Are you listening to this?" he asked in disbelief. "She isn't even spawn of mine, and yet she exhibits this unsettling 'independence'." "I find it quite admirable, husband." Runach pushed away from the wall and walked over to squat down by Aisling's chair. He looked up at her. "I want you to stay here." She looked at him for a moment or two, then reached out and touched his scarred cheek. "This is my quest, and I must see it through to the end, wherever that end might lie." "I'll think about it," he said, and by that he meant not a chance in hell. He rose and glanced at his grandfather. "I appreciate your concern, but I'm going alone." Sile rubbed his hands over his face. "Breagha?" "Aye, my love?" "When did I lose control over my progeny?" "Several centuries ago, I believe, dear." "It seems more recent than that." "I don't think so, darling.

Are you ready to go for a sail?" John MacGuire asked his wife. A young, handsome man, he stood on the edge of a wide sandy beach, wearing summer shorts and his favorite T-shirt. He pointed toward the water behind him, to the sailboat that bobbed gently in the quiet bay. "It's the perfect day." "I can't sail. I'm sick. I don't know what happened, but I can't seem to open my eyes." Phoebe MacGuire took a quick breath as panic filled her soul and the sounds and smells of the hospital threatened to pull her out of her dream. "I'm seventy-six years old now, John. How did I get to be so old? I'm scared." "No need to be scared, my darling, not when I'm here.” "But you're not really here," she whispered, knowing his image was nothing but a memory, and her love had been gone for a very long time. "I miss you, Phoebe," he said softly, his voice as gentle as the morning breeze.

Chang-bo took to his bed, or rather to the quilts on the floor that was all they had left. His legs swelled up like balloons with what Mrs. Song had come to recognize as edema — fluid retention brought on by starvation. He talked incessantly about food. He spoke of the tofu soups his mother made him as a child and an unusually delicious meal of steamed crab with ginger that Mrs. Song had cooked for him when they were newlyweds. He had an uncanny ability to remember details of dishes she had cooked decades earlier. He was sweetly sentimental, even romantic, when he spoke about their meals together. He would take her hand in his own, his eyes wet and cloudy with the mist of his memories. “Come, darling. Let’s go to a good restaurant and order a nice bottle of wine,” he told his wife one morning when they were stirring on the blankets. They hadn’t eaten in three days. Mrs. Song looked at her husband with alarm, worried that he was hallucinating. She ran out the door to the market, moving fast and forgetting all about the pain in her back. She was determined to steal, beg — whatever it took — to get some food for her husband. She spotted her older sister selling noodles. Her sister wasn’t faring well — her skin was flaked just like Chang-bo’s from malnutrition — so Mrs. Song had resisted asking her for help, but now she was desperate, and of course, her sister couldn’t refuse. “I’ll pay you back,” Mrs. Song promised as she ran back home, the adrenaline pumping her legs. Chang-bo was curled up on his side under the blanket. Mrs. Song called his name. When he didn’t respond, she went to turn him over — it wasn’t diffcult now that he had lost so much weight, but his legs and arms were stiff and got in the way. Mrs. Song pounded and pounded on his chest, screaming for help even as she knew it was too late.

Nookie.” I giggle because the word itself is funny but hearing her say it makes it even more so. “I’m going to give you some advice because you’re still a new wife—and because my son can be a little shit at times. I know; I’m his mum.” She looks around as though she’s about to reveal top-secret information. “Nookie equals power and there’s a reason he wants it from you all the time. It levels the playing field. Don’t like something he’s doing? Take the nookie away. Get the results you want. Need him to see things your way but he refuses? Withhold the nookie and he’ll make the fastest attitude adjustment you’ve ever seen. Want your husband to retire because he’s going to work himself into an early grave and miss his grandchildren growing up the way he missed his kids? Close the gates of nookie and get your husband home with you instead of burying him. That’s how you work it, darling. You use the power of the nookie to get the results you want.

In Notes of a Jazz Survivor, a documentary about his drug- and jail-ravaged life, Art Pepper and his wife, Laurie, listen to his recording of “Our Song.” The entry of the saxophone, Pepper explains, is “like the most subtle hello.” Ramamani’s voice is the response to this call; it is Laurie’s hand reaching for her husband’s as they listen. Ramamani tells us not only what it is like to love, but also what it is like to be loved. When I hear her voice, darling, I feel your hand in mine.

What had happened was this: I fell out of my own map. It's an easy thing to do, especially in middle age, but really it can happen at any time. We all live by different lights - success, for some, desire for others - and take our bearings along different dreams. Some of us fly west with the night, into the unknown, urged on by adventure; others look only for the harbor lights, and stay safely in sight of home. But whichever way we choose, we come to rely on the sameness of our days, on the fact that for years at a time the road ahead looks much like the road behind, the horizon clear, the obstacles negotiable. And yet from time to time we stumble into wilderness. It can happen to anyone, at any age: the graduate putting away the cap and gown, the fifty-five-year-old rereading the layoff notice, the wife staring at the empty side of the still-warm bed. Now what? they whisper as they look ahead to a place where the landmarks disappear, and the map reads TERRA INCOGNITA.

...Women have preserved this `baby look' for as long as possible so as to make the world continue to believe in the darling, sweet little girl she once was, and she relies on the protective instinct in man to make him take care of her. As with everything a woman undertakes on her own initiative, this whole maneuvre is as incredible as it is stupid. It is amazing, in fact, that it succeeds. It would appear very shortsighted to encourage such an ideal of beauty. For how can any woman hope to maintain it beyond the age of twenty-five? Despite every trick of the cosmetics industry, despite magazine advice against thinking or laughing (both tend to create wrinkles), her actual age will inevitably show'- through in the end. And what on earth is a man to do with a grown-up face when he has been manipulated into considering only helpless, appealing little girls to be creatures of beauty? What is a men to do with a woman when the smooth curves have become flabby tires of flesh, the skin slack and pallid, when the childish tones have grown shrill and the laughter sounds like neighing? What is to become of this shrew when her face no longer atones for her ceaseless inanities and when the cries of `Ooh' and Ah' begin to drive him out of his mind? This mummified `child' will never fire a man's erotic fantasy again. One might think her power broken at last. But no, she still manages to get her own way - and for two reasons. The first is obvious: she now has children, who enable her to continue feigning helplessness. As for the second - there are simply not enough young women to go around. It is a safe bet that, given the choice, man would trade in his grown-up child-wife for a younger model, but, as the ratio between the sexes is roughly equal, not every man can have a younger woman. And as he has to have a wife of some sort. he prefers to keep the one he already possesses. This is easy to prove. Given the choice, a man will always choose a younger woman.

Darling!” Alessandro exclaimed with a cold sneer as a police guard led him into a holding cell. “What are you doing here? Did you come to tell me that the crazy fog has lifted and you’re ready to resume your place by my side?” “Not in this lifetime. That nut house is not my home, and you really are crazy if you think I’m going anywhere with you.” Alessandro’s eyes flickered dangerously. “Careful, sweetheart. You are still my wife. Let’s not forget that, eh?” Bree shook her head. “You are unbelievable. Do you feel any remorse at all for what you did?” Alessandro clenched his jaw. “I believe I expressed my remorse quite thoroughly if you recall. I begged you to forgive me and I beg for nothing, Brianna. I laid myself bare and pleaded for you to understand but all you had for me were hateful words.” “Oh, was I supposed to believe that little performance?” Bree snapped, forcing herself to block out the image of his hands cupping her face, his tears mingling with her own. “It’s hard to know because I believed you when you looked me in the eye and told me you had nothing to do with what happened to Colin.

Then the child of Zeus, Helen, decided she would mix the wine220 with drugs to take all pain and rage away, to bring forgetfulness of every evil. Whoever drinks this mixture from the bowl will shed no tears that day, not even if her mother or her father die, nor even if soldiers kill her brother or her darling son with bronze spears before her very eyes. Helen had these powerful magic drugs from Polydamna, wife of Thon, from Egypt, where fertile fields produce the most narcotics:230 some good, some dangerous. The people there are skillful doctors. They are the Healer’s people.

RICHARD FEYNMAN LETTER TO ARLINE FEYNMAN, 1946 Richard Feynman (1918–1988) shared the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on quantum electrodynamics. Unrivaled in his generation for his brilliance and innovation, he was also known for being witty, warm, and unconventional. Those last three qualities were particularly evident in this letter, which he wrote to his wife Arline nearly two years after her death from tuberculosis. Feynman and Arline had been high school sweethearts and married in their twenties. Feynman’s second marriage, in 1952, ended in divorce two years later. His third marriage, in 1960, lasted until his death. D’Arline, I adore you, sweetheart. I know how much you like to hear that—but I don’t only write it because you like it—I write it because it makes me warm all over inside to write it to you. It is such a terribly long time since I last wrote to you—almost two years but I know you’ll excuse me because you understand how I am, stubborn and realistic; & I thought there was no sense to writing. But now I know my darling wife that it is right to do what I have delayed in doing, and that I have done so much in the past. I want to tell you I love you. I want to love you. I always will love you. I find it hard to understand in my mind what it means to love you after you are dead—but I still want to comfort and take care of you—and I want you to love me and care for me. I want to have problems to discuss with you—I want to do little projects with you. I never thought until just now that we can do that together. What should we do. We started to learn to make clothes together—or learn Chinese—or getting a movie projector. Can’t I do something now. No. I am alone without you and you were the “idea-woman” and general instigator of all our wild adventures. When you were sick you worried because you could not give me something that you wanted to & thought I needed. You needn’t have worried. Just as I told you then there was no real need because I loved you in so many ways so much. And now it is clearly even more true—you can give me nothing now yet I love you so that you stand in my way of loving anyone else—but I want you to stand there. You, dead, are so much better than anyone else alive. I know you will assure me that I am foolish & that you want me to have full happiness & don’t want to be in my way. I’ll bet you are surprised that I don’t even have a girl friend (except you, sweetheart) after two years. But you can’t help it, darling, nor can I—I don’t understand it, for I have met many girls & very nice ones and I don’t want to remain alone—but in two or three meetings they all seem ashes. You only are left to me. You are real. My darling wife, I do adore you. I love my wife. My wife is dead. Rich. P.S. Please excuse my not mailing this—but I don’t know your new address.

In the center of the room Elizabeth stood stock still, clasping and unclasping her hands, watching the handle turn, unable to breathe with the tension. The door swung open, admitting a blast of frigid air and a tall, broad-shouldered man who glanced at Elizabeth in the firelight and said, “Henry, it wasn’t necess-“ Ian broke off, the door still open, staring at what he momentarily thought was a hallucination, a trick of the flames dancing in the fireplace, and then he realized the vision was real: Elizabeth was standing perfectly still, looking at him. And lying at her feet was a young Labrador retriever. Trying to buy time, Ian turned around and carefully closed the door as if latching it with precision were the most paramount thing in his life, while he tried to decide whether she’d looked happy or not to see him. In the long lonely nights without her, he’d rehearsed dozens of speeches to her-from stinging lectures to gentle discussions. Now, when the time was finally here, he could not remember one damn word of any of them. Left with no other choice, he took the only neutral course available. Turning back to the room, Ian looked at the Labrador. “Who’s this?” he asked, walking forward and crouching down to pet the dog, because he didn’t know what the hell to say to his wife. Elizabeth swallowed her disappointment as he ignored her and stroked the Labrador’s glossy black head. “I-I call her Shadow.” The sound of her voice was so sweet, Ian almost pulled her down into his arms. Instead, he glanced at her, thinking it encouraging she’d named her dog after his. “Nice name.” Elizabeth bit her lip, trying to hide her sudden wayward smile. “Original, too.” The smile hit Ian like a blow to the head, snapping him out of his untimely and unsuitable preoccupation with the dog. Straightening, he backed up a step and leaned his hip against the table, his weight braced on his opposite leg. Elizabeth instantly noticed the altering of his expression and watched nervously as he crossed his arms over his chest, watching her, his face inscrutable. “You-you look well,” she said, thinking he looked unbearably handsome. “I’m perfectly fine,” he assured her, his gaze level. “Remarkably well, actually, for a man who hasn’t seen the sun shine in more than three months, or been able to sleep without drinking a bottle of brandy.” His tone was so frank and unemotional that Elizabeth didn’t immediately grasp what he was saying. When she did, tears of joy and relief sprang to her eyes as he continued: “I’ve been working very hard. Unfortunately, I rarely get anything accomplished, and when I do, it’s generally wrong. All things considered, I would say that I’m doing very well-for a man who’s been more than half dead for three months.” Ian saw the tears shimmering in her magnificent eyes, and one of them traced unheeded down her smooth cheek. With a raw ache in his voice he said, “If you would take one step forward, darling, you could cry in my arms. And while you do, I’ll tell you how sorry I am for everything I’ve done-“ Unable to wait, Ian caught her, pulling her tightly against him. “And when I’m finished,” he whispered hoarsely as she wrapped her arms around him and wept brokenly, “you can help me find a way to forgive myself.” Tortured by her tears, he clasped her tighter and rubbed his jaw against her temple, his voice a ravaged whisper: “I’m sorry,” he told her. He cupped her face between his palms, tipping it up and gazing into her eyes, his thumbs moving over her wet cheeks. “I’m sorry.” Slowly, he bent his head, covering her mouth with his. “I’m so damned sorry.

When one has been as near to the reality of Life (which after all is Death) as I have been dearest, one only remembers the beautiful and tender moments and all the rest becomes a half veiled mist of unrealities. Try and remember me beloved as the flower you plucked and not the flower you tread upon . . . . Darling I love you—I love you—and had I loved you just a little less I might have remained with you—only after one has created a very beautiful blossom one does not drag it through the mire. The higher you set your ideal the lower it falls. I have loved you my darling as it is given to few men to be loved. I only beseech you that the tragedy which commenced in love should also end with it. . . . Ruttie Jinnah's last letter to Jinnah

We know that Mut's well-intentioned parents had betrothed and married her to the son of Huia and Tuia when she was still a child. We need to remember this, for it followed that she had accustomed to the formal nature of her married life, while the moment when she realised it's actual character still lay in fluid darkness. Thus she had nominally lost her maiden state at too early an age – but there it stopped. Hardly yet even a maiden, rather a half-grown girl, she found herself a spoilt darling, head of an aristocratic "house of women," in command of every luxury, every flattery, surrounded by the half-savage servility of naked Moorish women and kneeling eunuchs, first and titular wife and chief over fifteen other idle, passive and voluptuous females chosen for their beauty, of very varied origins, and themselves the empty and honorary apanage of a courtier who could not enjoy them.

Elizabeth snapped awake in a terrified instant as the door to her bed chamber was flung open near dawn, and Ian stalked into the darkened room. “Do you want to go first, or shall I?” he said tightly, coming to stand at the side of her bed. “What do you mean?” she asked in a trembling voice. “I mean,” he said, “that either you go first and tell me why in hell you suddenly find my company repugnant, or I’ll go first and tell you how I feel when I don’t know where you are or why you want to be there!” “I’ve sent word to you both nights.” “You sent a damned note that arrived long after nightfall both times, informing me that you intended to sleep somewhere else. I want to know why!” He has men beaten like animals, she reminded herself. “Stop shouting at me,” Elizabeth said shakily, getting out of bed and dragging the covers with her to hide herself from him. His brows snapped together in an ominous frown. “Elizabeth?” he asked, reaching for her. “Don’t touch me!” she cried. Bentner’s voice came from the doorway. “Is aught amiss, my lady?” he asked, glaring bravely at Ian. “Get out of here and close that damned door behind you!” Ian snapped furiously. “Leave it open,” Elizabeth said nervously, and the brave butler did exactly as she said. In six long strides Ian was at the door, shoving it closed with a force that sent it crashing into its frame, and Elizabeth began to vibrate with terror. When he turned around and started toward her Elizabeth tried to back away, but she tripped on the coverlet and had to stay where she was. Ian saw the fear in her eyes and stopped short only inches in front of her. His hand lifted, and she winced, but it came to rest on her cheek. “Darling, what is it?” he asked. It was his voice that made her want to weep at his feet, that beautiful baritone voice; and his face-that harsh, handsome face she’d adored. She wanted to beg him to tell her what Robert and Wordsworth had said were lies-all lies. “My life depends on this, Elizabeth. So does yours. Don’t fail us,” Robert had pleaded. Yet, in that moment of weakness she actually considered telling Ian everything she knew and letting him kill her if he wanted to; she would have preferred death to the torment of living with the memory of the lie that had been their lives-to the torment of living without him. “Are you ill?” he asked, frowning and minutely studying her face. Snatching at the excuse he’d offered, she nodded hastily. “Yes. I haven’t been feeling well.” “Is that why you went to London? To see a physician?” She nodded a little wildly, and to her bewildered horror he started to smile-that lazy, tender smile that always made her senses leap. “Are you with child, darling? Is that why you’re acting so strangely?” Elizabeth was silent, trying to debate the wisdom of saying yes or no-she should say no, she realized. He’d hunt her to the ends of the earth if he believed she was carrying his babe. “No! He-the doctor said it is just-just-nerves.” “You’ve been working and playing too hard,” Ian said, looking like the picture of a worried, devoted husband. “You need more rest.” Elizabeth couldn’t bear any more of this-not his feigned tenderness or his concern or the memory of Robert’s battered back. “I’m going to sleep now,” she said in a strangled voice. “Alone,” she added, and his face whitened as if she had slapped him. During his entire adult life Ian had relied almost as much on his intuition as on his intellect, and at that moment he didn’t want to believe in the explanation they were both offering. His wife did not want him in her bed; she recoiled from his touch; she had been away for two consecutive nights; and-more alarming than any of that-guilt and fear were written all over her pale face. “Do you know what a man thinks,” he said in a calm voice that belied the pain streaking through him, “when his wife stays away at night and doesn’t want him in her bed when she does return?

My mother’s true appeal went beyond the clash of the beautiful trust fund darling as the arm candy of an overweight trailer salesman. Carl grew up in harsh, chaotic poverty. His escape was the alcoholism that was conceived during puberty and flourished throughout adulthood. His initial career was a diesel mechanic wearing faded coveralls with oil up his nails and sweat on his brow. His earliest homes were the dingy trailers he would later profit from. His first marriage was doused with benders, acid trips, and sex crazed parties packed with orgies with a first wife who’d lost track of number of dicks shoved down her throat in the midst of intoxication. I don’t know what sparked his revelation, but at some point, Carl decided to fiercely pursue the world he envied. He wanted a life of starched, white shirts, ties, SUVs, and picket fences. He ached for the scent of steaks grilling on his sunny patio. He dreamed of white-collar southern beauty and my mother, in all her naïve innocence, was the loveliest possession he could ever obtain.

Haven’t I tired you out yet, darling?” Ian whispered several hours later. “Yes,” she said with an exhausted laugh, her cheek nestled against his shoulder, her hand drifting over his chest in a sleepy caress. “But I’m too happy to sleep for a while yet.” So was Ian, but he felt compelled to at least suggest that she try. “You’ll regret it in the morning when we have to appear for breakfast,” he said with a grin, cuddling her closer to his side. To his surprise, the remark made her smooth forehead furrow in a frown. She tipped her face up to his, opened her mouth as if to ask him a question, then she changed her mind and hastily looked away. “What is it?” he asked, taking her chin between his thumb and forefinger and lifting her face up to his. “Tomorrow morning,” she said with a funny, bemused expression on her face. “When we go downstairs…will everyone know what we have done tonight?” She expected him to try to evade the question. “Yes,” he said. She nodded, accepting that, and turned into his arms. “Thank you for telling me the truth,” she said with a sigh of contentment and gratitude. “I’ll always tell you the truth,” he promised quietly, and she believed him. It occurred to Elizabeth that she could ask him now, when he’d given that promise, if he’d had anything to do with Robert’s disappearance. And as quickly as the thought crossed her mind, she pushed it angrily away. She would not defame their marriage bed by voicing ugly, unfounded suspicions carried to her by a man who obviously had a grudge against all Scots. This morning, she had made a conscious decision to trust him and marry him; now, she was bound by her vows to honor him, and she had absolutely no intention of going back on her own decision or on the vow she made to him in church. “Elizabeth?” “Mmmm?” “While we’re on the subject of truth, I have a confession to make.” Her heart slammed into her ribs, and she went rigid. “What is it?” she asked tautly. “The chamber next door is meant to be used as your dressing room and withdrawing room. I do not approve of the English custom of husband and wife sleeping in separate beds.” She looked so pleased that Ian grinned. “I’m happy to see,” he chuckled, kissing her forehead, “we agree on that.

Charlie, I want to get married," she said. "Well, so do I, darling -" "No, you don't understand," she said. "I want to get married right now." Froggy knew from the desperate look in her eyes that Red was dead serious. "Sweetheart, are you sure now is a good time?" he said. "I'm positive," Red said. "If the last month has taught me anything, it's how unpredictable life can be - especially when you're friends with the Bailey twins. This could very well be the last chance we'll ever get! Let's do it now, in the Square of Time, before another magical being can tear us apart!" The idea made Froggy's heart fill with joy, but he wasn't convinced it was the right thing to do. "Are you sure this is the wedding you want?" he asked. "I don't mean to be crude, but the whole street is covered in a witch's remains." A large and self-assured smile grew on Red's face. "Charlie, I can't think of a better place to get married than on the ashes of your ex-girlfriend," she said. "Mother Goose, will you do the honors?" Besides being pinned to the ground by a three-ton lion statue, Mother Goose couldn't think of a reason why she couldn't perform the ceremony. "I suppose I'm available," she said. "Wonderful!" Red squealed. "And for all intents and purposes, we'll say the Fairy Council are our witness, Conner is the best man, and Alex is my maid of honor. Don't worry, Alex! This will only take a minute and we'll get right back to helping you!" Red and Froggy joined hands and stood in the middle of Times Square as Mother Goose officiated the impromptu wedding. "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today - against our will - to unexpectedly watch this frog and woman join in questionable matrimony. Do you, Charlie Charming, take Red Riding Hood as your lovably high-maintenance wife?" "I do," Froggy declared. "And do you, Red Riding Hood, take Charlie Charming as your adorably webfooted husband?" "I do," Red said. "Then it is with the power mistrusted in me that I now pronounce you husband and wife! You may kiss the frog!" Red and Froggy shared their first kiss as a married couple, and their friends cheered. "Beautiful ceremony, my dear," Merlin said. "Believe it or not, this isn't the strangest wedding I've been to," Mother Goose said.

Your arguments were convincing, though I wonder if behind them didn’t lurk a poorly thought out romance with the handicapped child: one of those clumsy but sweet-tempered emissaries of God who teaches his parents that there’s so much more to life than smarts, a guileless soul who is smothered in the same hair-tousling affection lavished on a family pet. Thirsty to quaff whatever funky genetic cocktail our DNA served up, you must have flirted with the prospect of all those bonus points for self-sacrifice: Your patience when it takes our darling dunderhead six months of daily lessons to tie his shoes proves superhuman. Unstinting and fiercely protective, you discover in yourself a seemingly bottomless well of generosity on which your I’m-leaving-for-Guyana-tomorrow wife never draws, and at length you abandon location scouting, the better to devote yourself full-time to our five-foot-something three-year-old. The neighbors all extol your make-the-best-of-it resignation to the hand Life has dealt, the roll-with-the-punches maturity with which you face what others in our race and class would find a crippling body blow.

When you've been together for a long time, it's the little things that matter. In a long marriage, you don't need words to have a row, but you don't need words to say, "I love you," either. Once, when they were at Ikea, very recently, Roger had suggested when they were having lunch in the cafeteria that they each have a piece of cake because he understood that it was an important day for Anna-Lena, and because it was important to her, it was important to him as well. Because that's how he loves her. She went on rubbing the cushion cover that was nicer in the floral pattern and glanced over at the two women in a way Anna-Lena thought was discreet. The pregnant one and her wife; Roger was looking at them as well. He was holding the realtor's prospective with the layout of the apartment in his hand and grunted, "For God's sake, darling, look at this. Why do they have to call the small room 'child's room'? It could just as well be a perfectly ordinary damn bedroom." Roger didn't like it when there were pregnant women at apartment viewings because couples expecting a baby always bid too much. He didn't like children's rooms, either. That's why Anna-Lena always asks Roger as many questions as she can think of when they walk through the children's section in Ikea: to help distract him from the incomprehensible grief. Because that's how she loves him.

Gareth?" "What is it, dearest?" She took a deep breath and reached up to touch his cheek. "I ... love you." "Oh, Juliet ..."  He actually blushed, so pleased was he by her long-overdue admission. "You couldn't have chosen a nicer time to tell me." "I should have told you ages ago, when I first knew. But I couldn't admit it then, not even to myself." "And when did you first know?" "When you took that bullet meant for the little boy. When you nearly died trying to save him — and all of us on that coach. I think I started to love you then. I think I've loved you ever since. I just ... haven't told you." "But — what about Charles?" She gave him a patient little smile. "I'll be honest, Gareth. Once, I was like everyone else in that I was always comparing the two of you. But as I've grown to know you, those comparisons have happened less and less, and when they do occur ... well, you always come out on top."  She leaned up to kiss the smile just breaking out on his face. "Lately, I've come to realize that Charles and I would never have been this happy together. We were too much alike. You, on the other hand ... well, I've never had as much fun with anyone as I have with you." "Oh, Juliet. I don't know what to say."  He was grinning fiercely. "But I will tell you this. I've always been sure." "Of what?" "That I love you." "Are you, now?" she asked, trying to muster a grin even as a tear leaked from one eye. She knuckled it away. Sniffled. Heavens, she was beginning to bawl like a baby. "Yes. And you know something else, my dear, darling little wife? I'm going to take you upstairs and prove it." Laughing,

Evie.” She glanced at Sebastian. Whatever she saw in his face caused her to walk around the bed to him. “Yes,” she said with a concerned frown. “Dearest, this is going to help you—” “No.” It would kill him. It was difficult enough already to fight the fever and the pain. If he was further weakened by a long bloodletting he wouldn’t be able to hold on any longer. Frantically Sebastian tugged at his tautly stretched arm, but the binding held fast and the chair didn’t even wobble. Bloody hell. He stared up at his wife wretchedly, battling a wave of light-headedness. “No,” he rasped. “Don’t…let him…” “Darling,” Evie whispered, bending over to kiss his shaking mouth. Her eyes were suddenly shiny with unshed tears. “This may be your best chance—your only chance—” “I’ll die. Evie…” Rising fear caused blackness to streak across his vision, but he forced his eyes to stay open. Her face became a blur. “I’ll die,” he whispered again. “Lady St. Vincent,” came Dr. Hammond’s steady, kind voice, “your husband’s anxiety is quite understandable. However, his judgment is impaired by illness. At this time, you are the one who is best able to make decisions for his benefit. I would not recommend this procedure if I did not believe in its efficacy. You must allow me to proceed. I doubt Lord St. Vincent will even remember this conversation.” Sebastian closed his eyes and let out a groan of despair. If only Hammond were some obvious lunatic with a maniacal laugh…someone Evie would instinctively mistrust. But Hammond was a respectable man, with all the conviction of someone who believed he was doing the right thing. The executioner, it seemed, could come in many guises. Evie was his only hope, his only champion. Sebastian would never have believed it would come to this…his life depending on the decision of an unworldly young woman who would probably allow herself to be persuaded by the Hammond’s authority. There was no one else for Sebastian to appeal to. He felt her gentle fingers at the side of his fevered face, and he stared up at her pleadingly, unable to form a word. Oh God, Evie, don’t let him— “All right,” Evie said softly, staring at him. Sebastian’s heart stopped as he thought she was speaking to the doctor…giving permission to bleed him. But she moved to the chair and deftly untied Sebastian’s wrist, and began to massage the reddened skin with her fingertips. She stammered a little as she spoke. “Dr. H-Hammond…Lord St. Vincent does not w-want the procedure. I must defer to his wishes.” To Sebastian’s eternal humiliation, his breath caught in a shallow sob of relief. “My lady,” Hammond countered with grave anxiety, “I beg you to reconsider. Your deference to the wishes of a man who is out of his head with fever may prove to be the death of him. Let me help him. You must trust my judgment, as I have infinitely more experience in such matters.” Evie sat carefully on the side of the bed and rested Sebastian’s hand in her lap. “I do respect your j-j—” She stopped and shook her head impatiently at the sound of her own stammer. “My husband has the right to make the decision for himself.” Sebastian curled his fingers into the folds of her skirts. The stammer was a clear sign of her inner anxiety, but she would not yield. She would stand by him. He sighed unsteadily and relaxed, feeling as if his tarnished soul had been delivered into her keeping.

Standing at the window overlooking the lawn, Jordan and Alexandra Townsende watched the couple heading toward them. “If you’d asked me to name the last man on earth I would have expected to fall head over heels for a slip of a girl, it would have been Ian Thornton,” he told her. His wife heard that with a sidewise look of extreme amusement. “If I’d been asked, I rather think I would have named you.” “I’m sure you would have,” he said, grinning. He saw her smile fade, and he put his arm around her waist, instantly concerned that her pregnancy was causing her discomfort. “Is it the babe, darling?” She burst out laughing and shook her head, but she sobered again almost instantly. “Do you think,” she asked pensively, “he can be trusted not to hurt her? He’s done so much damage that I-I just cannot like him, Jordan. He’s handsome, I’ll grant you that, extraordinarily handsome-“ “Not that handsome,” Jordan said, stung. And this time Alexandra dissolved in mirth. Turning, she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him soundly. “Actually, he rather reminds me of you,” she said, “in his coloring and height and build.” “I hope that hasn’t anything to do with why you can’t like him,” her husband teased. “Jordan, do stop. I’m worried, really I am. He’s-well, he almost frightens me. Even though he seems very civilized on the surface, there’s a forcefulness, maybe even a ruthlessness beneath his polished manners. And he stops at nothing when he wants something. I saw that yesterday when he came to the house and persuaded Elizabeth to agree to marry him.” Turning, Jordan looked at her with a mixture of intent interest, surprise, and amusement. “Go on,” he said. “Well, at this particular moment he wants Elizabeth, and I can’t help fearing it’s a whim.” “You wouldn’t have thought that if you’d seen his face blanch the other night when he realized she was going to try to brave society without his help.” “Really? You’re certain?” “Positive.” “Are you certain you know him well enough to judge him?” “Absolutely certain,” he averred. “How well do you know him?” “Ian,” Jordan said with a grin, “is my sixth cousin.” “Your what? You’re joking! Why didn’t you tell me before?

Sophie put us to rights,” Westhaven said, “and my guess is we’ve never thanked her. We’ve gone off and gotten married, started our families, and neglected to thank someone who contributed so generously to our happiness. We’re thanking Sophie now by not calling you out. If she wants you, Charpentier, then we’ll truss you up with a Christmas ribbon and leave you staked out under the nearest kissing bough.” “And if she doesn’t want me?” “She wanted you for something,” Lord Val said dryly. “I’d hazard it isn’t just because you’re a dab hand at a dirty nappy, either.” Vim didn’t want to lie to these men, but neither was he about to admit he suspected Sophie Windham, for reasons he could not fathom, had gifted him with her virginity then sent him on his way. “She lent you that great hulking beast of hers,” St. Just pointed out. “She’s very protective of those she cares for, and yet she let you go larking off with her darling precious—never to be seen again? I would not be so sure.” Vim had wondered about the same thing, except if a woman as practical as Sophie were determined to be shut of a man, she might just lend the sorry bastard a horse, mightn’t she? “I proposed to my wife, what was it, six times?” Westhaven said. “At least seven,” Lord Val supplied. St. Just sent Westhaven a wry smile. “I lost count after the second hangover, but Westhaven is the determined sort. He proposed a lot. It was pathetic.” “Quite.” Westhaven’s ears might have turned just a bit red. “I had to say some magic words, cry on Papa’s shoulder, come bearing gifts, and I don’t know what all before Anna took pity on me, but I do know this: Sophie has been out for almost ten years, and she has never, not once, given a man a second look. You come along with that dratted baby, and she looks at you like a woman smitten.” “He’s a wonderful baby.” “He’s a baby,” Westhaven said, loading three words with worlds of meaning. “Sophie is attached to the infant, but it’s you she’s smitten with.” All three of Sophie’s brothers speared him with a look, a look that expected him to do something. “If you gentleman will excuse me, I’m going to offer to take the baby tonight for Sophie. She’s been the one to get up and down with him all night for better than a week, and that is wearing on a woman.” He

Epilogue "It's a girl!" "A what?" Michael stared in shock at the midwife, who had just left his wife's chambers. "A girl, Your Grace," the woman replied nervously, perhaps worried that he would order Isabella's head cut off for not producing a male heir. A girl, Michael thought in wonder. Not for a moment had he thought his child would be a girl. For the past one hundred years, only males had been born into the Blackmore line, and he hadn't expected his offspring to be any different. "I must see them at once." Michael stood abruptly, causing the small, rotund midwife to jump with nerves. "Yes, Your Grace." She bowed fearfully—and unnecessarily, for he was only a Duke—and gestured for him to follow her into his wife's rooms. In a few long strides, he was inside Isabella's inner sanctum and rushing to the bed, where his wife lay as serene and calm as though she had merely taken a walk . "Isabella?" he croaked, tears in his eyes. "Oh, don't be so dramatic, darling!" Isabella replied with a gentle smile. "I'm perfectly all right, and so is the baby. One of the nurses shall bring her back in a minute; they're just bathing her." As though her words had been a command, the door to the antechamber opened and a second—more cheerful—midwife emerged with an armful of blankets. "Here she is, Your Grace," she said, shoving the bundle of blankets into his arms. "What, where?" the Duke asked in confusion, before looking down at the white blankets, light as a feather, that he held. There, in the midst of all the material and swaddled tight, was the face of the tiniest baby he had ever seen. "She's very small," he said in confusion to Isabella, who merely smiled. "Should she be this small?" "Actually, she's quite big," the midwife interjected, her face a picture of amusement at Michael's helpless expression. "What do you think?" Isabella asked softly, leaning over his shoulder to stare down at the baby. "I-I-I" Michael stuttered, completely overwhelmed. "You love her that much already?" Isabella teased . Unable to respond, Michael merely nodded, knowing that he probably appeared cold to the watching midwife. But his wife knew the truth, and she understood that sometimes a man didn't need words to express how much love was in his heart. And one day, his daughter would understand too.

Taking hold of the ladder, she began to climb, stopping when she got to eye level with him. That, however, turned out to be a mistake, because the moment her eyes met his, she forgot everything—even the lines she’d just committed to memory—because nothing else mattered to her except . . . him. “You wrote a scene with a strong heroine in it, and one where the hero gets dangled by his feet.” “I did.” “Why?” “Because I couldn’t figure out a better way to let you know I love you, the real you, without dangling from my feet and letting you cut me down.” Lucetta’s eyes immediately took to turning a little misty. “You . . . love me?” “I do, but before we continue this, I have to admit that hanging upside down is far less pleasant than I imagined, so if you’d be so kind, I really do need you to get me down from here.” Realizing he was completely serious, but also realizing if she cut him down he’d go plummeting to the hard floor and most likely suffer a horrible injury—which certainly wouldn’t have the night turning out well at all—Lucetta looked to the side of the stage and caught Mr. Skukman’s eye. As he, along with a good number of backstage hands, walked across the boards, whispers began circulating around the theater, growing louder after Bram got released and rose to his feet. Smiling ever so charmingly at the audience, he presented them with a small bow right before he took center stage. “Ladies and gentlemen, I must beg your indulgence for just a few more minutes because you see . . . I am . . . Mr. Grimstone.” The whispers ceased immediately. Bram smiled. “I’m Mr. Grimstone, alias Mr. Bram Haverstein, and I’ve come here tonight, with all of you as my witnesses, to proclaim my love for Miss Lucetta Plum, and . . .” He dropped to one knee. “Ask her to do me the very great honor of becoming my wife.” He reached out and took hold of Lucetta’s hand. “Miss Lucetta Plum, I am completely and irrevocably in love with you, and just so we’re clear, I’m in love with the real you, not the person you turn into when you take to the stage. I love the idea that you’re completely oblivious to your unusual beauty, can outrun a goat, and . . . you fascinate me as no one ever has. I’m asking you, in front of all of these people who will probably never buy another one of my books again if you turn me down . . .” He stopped talking and turned his head to the audience. “And just to remind everyone, I will have another novel releasing soon, although I haven’t decided on a title just yet, something about a strong-willed lady, no doubt, or . . .” “You’re getting distracted,” Lucetta interrupted. Bram immediately returned his gaze to hers. “Quite right, but . . . I’ve lost my train of thought.” “You were just about to the part where you were going to ask her to marry you,” a voice called out, a voice that sounded remarkably like Abigail’s. “Thank you, Grandmother,” he called back. “You’re welcome, darling. And just to remind you, I’m not getting any younger, so you might want to hurry this proposal business along.” Grinning, Bram shook his head, brought Lucetta’s fingers to his lips, and then sobered as he held her gaze. “I love you, Lucetta, more than I ever imagined I could, and I would be so incredibly honored if you’d agree to be my wife.” For a second, Lucetta was unable to answer him because her heart had taken to rising in her throat, but after drawing in a deep breath, she managed to nod, ignoring the tears that had filled her eyes and were blurring her vision. “I would be honored to become your wife, especially since—I’m not sure when this happened, but—I’m in love with you as well.” Bram’s hold on her hand tightened for just a second, and then he was sliding a ring on her finger she hadn’t even realized he’d been holding. Before she could take even a second to admire what felt like an enormous rock on her hand, he was standing instead of kneeling, looking intently into her eyes, before he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. The

Leo spoke before she could say a word. "I'd like to arrange a room for my wife and myself." His wife? Catherine twisted to give him an offended glance. "I want my own room. And I'm not-" "She doesn't, really." Leo smiled at the innkeeper, the rueful, commiserating smile of one put-upon man to another. "A marital squabble. She's cross because I won't let her mother visit us." "Ahhh..." The innkeeper made an ominous sound and bent to write in the registry book. "Don't give in, sir. They never leave when they say they will. When my mother-in-law visits, the mice throw themselves at the cat, begging to be eaten. Your name?" "Mr. and Mrs. Hathaway." "But-" Catherine began, nettled. She broke off as she felt the carpetbag quiver in her grasp. Dodger wanted to get out. She had to keep him hidden until they were safely upstairs. "All right," she said shortly. "Let's hurry." Leo smiled. "Eager to make up after our quarrel, darling?" She gave him a look that should have stayed him on the spot.

My father always addressed my mother as ‘’Darling’’, which was surprising for my brother’s wife. Even more shocking was the fact that he would greet his wife with a kiss when returning from a trip. This was also rather unusual in Pakistani culture, where affection towards spouses is restrained and frowned upon.

You don't understand," she says. "It's my fault." "Darling, don't say that. Don't even think it." I try to reach my arm around her back, but she pulls away. She squeezes the bag to her chest. "It's true," she says. "I haven't been the perfect wife. I've done things I regret, I know that now. Stupid things. But I never thought it'd come to this." She grabs me by the arm. There's a mad kind of look that could lead to anything. "I blame myself, at least for part of it. I have to go after him. I'm not going to rot away, the way Mum did. I need him to see me. This is my last chance." So of course I find her keys, and her phone, and I think about what to tell the girls while she books her flight to Noosa.

Colonel Woodcock obviously belonged to the 'stiff upper lip' school of army behaviour: after shouting at his wife to keep watching at the window, he got shot himself and staggered back into the bedroom, telling her, 'It's alright darling, they have only hit outlying portions of me.' Woodcock, in fact, had been hit four times - but he subsequently recovered.

After a week of moping around London like a sick dog, I decided that the only cure for my humiliating disease was to see you in the flesh and prove that nothing uncanny had taken place when I saw that miniature.” “And what happened?” she asked, praying for him to say he hadn’t been disappointed. He’d spoken lightly of falling in love, but he was yet to say the words that every inch of her soul longed to hear. He gave her that smile that always made her silly. “You know precisely what happened. Miss Flora opened the door, and my fate was sealed.” “Oh,” she said, too stirred up to summon anything more meaningful. “Straightaway I saw the qualities I’d observed in the picture, the qualities your father had described. They were all there in the lassie who tried to leave me out in the rain.” “So you thought you’d found the perfect wife.” He burst out laughing and caught her hand. “My darling Charlotte, you’re bonny, but nobody in their right mind would call you a perfect wife.” “Is that so?” she asked in a dangerous voice. “I’ll have you know that—” Her scolding ended in a gasp as he lunged forward and tumbled her back against the rumpled bedding. “Now, before you fly up into the boughs, let me finish. You’re an impatient wee lass, my love.” She regarded him with sulky displeasure, even as happiness flowed through her veins, turning the cold night to bright summer. The sheet separated their bodies, but she could feel that, like her, he was becoming interested in more than conversation. However fascinating. “It had better be good.” “It is.” He kissed her with a thoroughness that stole her breath. When he raised his head, they were both panting. “I don’t want perfection, Charlotte. I want a wife who will stand up to me, and make me crazy with wanting her, and set me laughing with joy, and turn every day into an adventure. I doubt we’ll lead a quiet life, but by God, it will be interesting and worthwhile, and purposeful and passionate.” “And

You’ll see in time, Eliza,” he said, taking her hand in his. “This is the right way. I love you and I’ll take care of you. You are simply in shock. You’ve gone through a horrifying ordeal. You need to rest. I promise, you’ll feel much better in a few days.” He pushed off his knees, then walked around the room as Donaldson went back outside, the fire now blazing. “I came here many times after I’d found you were gone. I arranged the furniture again, as you can see, and replaced the broken glass.” He ran his fingers over the back of Father’s favorite settee. “Coming here made me feel closer to you.” Eliza moved her eyes to where he paced in front of the now roaring flames. Samuel’s brow grew pensive. “I know I said we would marry at the end of this week, but I’ve decided on tomorrow instead. I have already asked a friend of mine, Reverend Edmonton, to officiate.” “What?” Eliza found her voice in an instant, and it resonated much stronger than she expected. “But you said seven days!” Samuel spun on his heel, a determined stare possessing his features. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Eliza, but we must not postpone. We can wed tonight if you’d rather.” He winked as if she would find his eagerness amusing. “I’ve arranged for our wedding to be here. I’m sure you won’t mind. We can have a special celebration sometime afterward, with our friends and family in attendance of course.” What friends and family? “Why are you doing this?” She choked on her words, her eyes burning. He tilted his head toward the ceiling and sighed. “Because we love each other, my darling. Your mind has been temporarily clouded. After we are man and wife you will be grateful for what I’ve done for you—for us.” Her

...three jobs: keep a fine house, organize an enviable social calendar, and be a tiger in the bedroom.

Wedding Vow To you my dear husband: Today I come before all our family and friends to make the rest of my lifetime vow to you. I do not know what lies ahead of our lifetime together in our marriage. Our future together might be filled with happiness, sadness and/or misery. No matters what will happen tomorrow in our marriage down the longline, But one thing for sure I can promise you, I will always keep loving you in my heart all the way until the end of my time. To you my dear darling wife: I have loved you yesterday and I love you today and I will always love you for the rest of my days. Because I love you, I can promise you this. I will provide with all my strengths and abilities, to give you the loving care until the last breath of my mouth.

You and me on the shores of river of life Standing there with you holding your hand, Just looking at you in the idleness of the moment, As I feel your breaths and beside you I stand, There is endless calm, yet I understand what you meant, So I walk with you through the serpentine gullies, And I greet life with a smile and never floundering will, While being pleased by sites of rainbows and lilies, That dance for you at their own free will, I hold on to your hand more firmly, And I turn to look at you and you smile, And I say, “I love you,” and I say it finally, You pause, and think for a while, As you slide your hand tenderly, To place it on my face, And then you kiss me sweetly, And my heart beats race, I hold your hand once again, And we continue walking through these serpentine gullies, As I rub your little finger again and again, And I feel the scent growing all over you, the scent of these happy lilies, Then we approach the river of life, And at its shores you embrace me, And you finally say, “I want to be your wife,” Then you hold me and we stare at the river, just you and me, And as we enter its water and we flow with it now, You dissolve in me and I dissolve in you, And we now flow as an essence of you and me and our love, But whenever I look back Irma, I see a reflection of you, Still at the shore, Where I hold your hand while the river of life flows by, There are no worries no torments anymore, Because we have together left them in the past to die, And as your reflection spreads over the river of life, You flow unto me, And as I accept you as my wife, In the presence of the river of life, you say, “this is how I always wanted to be!” And then I too become the river and flow within it, To flow with you into the sea of eternity, And then be there forever, only with you and with it, And experience love in its splendour of eternity, Where you live forever, And I exist within you, In this sea of feelings and love, as your only lover, While experiencing that loving embrace of you, For which I could cross any river and scale the depths of any sea, Because loving you is a discovery unto my own self, And when I dive into my life’s sea, You rise from the floor of the sea and you begin to flow through me yourself, Then my darling Irma, I let it be, Because our river of life has found its final destiny, Where I belong to you and you belong only to me, And I wish this to be our only and everlasting reality!

You darling imbecile—I think you are the nicest person I have ever known. Whatever happened to you has made you poised and tolerant, and comprehending, and anyone who knows you should be grateful for whatever produced the result.

Awake! Sun is shining, it’s Saturday morning. I sit up in bed with some stretching and yawning. My beautiful wife, the love of my life, Looks terribly grim and it signals a warning... I ask her, “My darling, what troubles you so?” She goes on to tell me her tale of woe. “I’ve booked a girls’ dinner but I’ve nothing to wear!” And now I must prepare for what she will declare.

Who are you? Go back with the others until you are judged.” He met Hest’s stare eye to eye. Hest responded with wide-eyed shock. “But… but I’m Hest Finbok! I’ve come all this way to find my wife, Alise! I hired passage on the newest and swiftest ships I could find to come in search of her. When treachery by the captain let it fall to Chalcedean pirates, I thought all was lost. But here I am! Sweet Sa, your miracles never cease! I am here, and alive, and so is my darling wife! Alise, don’t you know me? Has your mind been turned by this harsh place? I am here now, and you need no other protector than your loving husband.” His words, she thought, danced all through the truth, never touching it. Reyn, startled, stayed as he was as Hest stepped around him. “No.” It was the only word she could manage. Her throat was dry, her heart pounding. She could not find breath to say more than that, but she clung to Leftrin’s arm as if it were her only lifeline in a wild sea storm. And he did not let go of her. He stood firm at her side. Leftrin spoke in a low growl. “The lady says no.” “Take your hands off my wife!” Hest ignored Reyn’s challenge of him as he stepped around the Elderling to glare menacingly at Leftrin. “She is obviously not right in her mind! Look how she stares! She does not recognize me, poor thing! And you, you scoundrel, have taken advantage of her! Oh, my Alise, my darling, what has he done to you? How can you not recognize your own loving husband?” She felt a low rumbling from Leftrin as if he snarled like a beast. His arm in her clutch had become hard as iron. He would protect her, he would save her. All she had to do was let him. “No,” she said again, this time to Leftrin. She squeezed his arm reassuringly and then stepped out of his shelter. She stood free of him, and the wind off the river blew past her. Her unbound hair lifted in wild red snakes, and she knew a moment of dismay as she wondered how ridiculous she looked, her skin weathered, her woman’s body garbed in the bright colors of an Elderling as if she did not know her age or place in the world. Her place in the world. She squared her shoulders. As she walked forward, Reyn stepped toward her as if to offer his arm and support. She waved him off without meeting his eyes. She advanced on Hest, hoping to see some flicker of doubt in his eyes. Instead his smile only widened as if he were truly welcoming her. He actually believed that she would resume that role, would pretend to be his loving, dutiful wife. That thought touched fire in her soul. She halted before him and looked up at him. “Oh, my dear! How harshly the world has treated you!” he exclaimed. He tried to put his arms around her. She set both hands to his chest and pushed him firmly away. As he staggered backward, it pleased her that he had not expected her to be so strong. “You are not my husband,” she said in a low voice. He teetered a moment, then caught his balance. He tried to recover his aplomb. But she had seen the sparks of anger flare in his dark eyes. He tipped his head, solicitous, his voice striken. “My dear, you are so confused!” he began. She lifted her voice, pitched it for all to hear. “I am NOT confused. You are NOT my husband. You broke the terms of our marriage contract, rendering it void. From the earliest days of our marriage, you were unfaithful to me. You entered into the contract with no intent of keeping yourself to me. You have deceived me and made me an object of mockery. You are not my husband, and by the terms of our marriage contract, all that is mine comes back to me. You are not my husband, and I am not your wife. You are nothing to me.

She smirked. “Let me tell you something–the data we collected during those first weeks the UNIS array was functioning was invaluable. If the earthquake detection system works, it’ll save thousands of lives. No one’s asking you to dive the Challenger Deep, we simply want your opinion on why the UNIS was damaged. Is your schedule so damn busy that you can’t take a day to fly up to the Institute? My father’s asking for your help. Examine the sonar plate and review the video that my brother took and you’ll be home to your darling wife by tomorrow night. We’ll pay you for your time, and I’m sure Dad will even arrange a personal tour of our new whale lagoon.

And then the husband is pushed onstage in a wheelchair by the wife. He looks very weak. Muffled in blankets like an invalid. The wife is blooming. She is dressed for tennis and has the racket under her arm. She fusses over him, tucks him in, kisses him. His eyes are closed. He looks like death. She says, ‘Rest, darling, I’ll be back after my set—real real soon.

I recognized one of the qualities I most admired in my wife: the beautiful big handwriting of the illiterate that she was. Darling,

Burglars are getting very clever these days.   Last night, my wife woke me up, “Darling! Darling! There's a burglar downstairs!!”   So I go down, check every room and don't find anyone. Then I realized I don't have a wife and when I went back upstairs my bed and TV were gone.

Alexander said as soon as it got cold, they would leave. September came and it was still warm; he liked that. Better still, not only was Tatiana making them a little money, she was drinking some sparkling wine, some Bisol Brut, for which she developed a bit of a taste. After work, she would sit with Anthony, have bread and cheese, and a glass of sparkler. She closed the winery, counted the money, played with the boy, waited for Alexander to finish work, and sipped her drink. By the time they drove to the B&B, had dinner, chocolate cake, more wine, a bath, put Anthony to bed, and she fell down onto the goose down covers, arms flung above her head, Tatiana was so bubbled up, so pliant, so agreeable to all his relentless frenzies, and so ceaselessly and supernally orgasmic that Alexander would not have been a mortal man if he allowed anything to come between his wife and her Bisol Brut. Who would do a crazy thing like quit to go into dry country? This country was flowing with foaming wine, and that is just how they both liked it. He started whispering to her again, night by night, little by little. Tania . . . you want to know what drives me insane? Yes, darling, please tell me. Please whisper to me. When you sit up straight like this with your hands on your lap, and your breasts are pushed together, and your pink nipples are nice and soft. I lose my breath when your nipples are like that. The trouble is, as soon as I see you looking at me, the nipples stop being nice and soft. Yes, they are quite shameful, he whispers, his breath lost, his mouth on them. But your hard nipples also drive me completely insane, so it’s all good, Tatia. It’s all very very good. Anthony was segregated from them by an accordion room partition. A certain privacy was achieved, and after a few nights of the boy not being woken up, they got bolder; Alexander did unbelievable things to Tatiana that made her sparkler-fueled moaning so extravagant that he had to invent and devise whole new ways of sustaining his usually impeccable command over his own release. Tell me what you want. I’ll do anything you want, Tania. Tell me. What can I do—for you? Anything, darling . . . anything you want, you do . . . There was nothing Gulag about their consuming love in that enchanted bed by the window, the bed that was a quilted down island with four posters and a canopy, with pillows so big and covers so thick . . . and afterward he lay drenched and she lay breathless, and she murmured into his chest that she should like a soft big bed like this forever, so comforted was she and so very pleased with him. Once she asked in a breath, Isn’t this better than being on top of the hard stove in Lazarevo? Alexander knew she wanted him to say yes, and he did, but he didn’t mean it, and though she wanted him to say it, he knew she didn’t want him to mean it either. Could anything come close to crimson Lazarevo where, having been nearly dead, without champagne or wine or bread or a bed, without work or food or Anthony or any future other than the wall and the blindfold, they somehow managed for one brief moon to live in thrall sublime? They had been so isolated, and in their memories they still remained near the Ural Mountains, in frozen Leningrad, in the woods of Luga when they had been fused and fevered, utterly doomed, utterly alone. And yet!—look at her tremulous light— as if in a dream—in America—in fragrant wine country, flute full of champagne, in a white quilted bed, her breath, her breasts on him, her lips on his face, her arms in rhapsody around him are so comforting, so true—and so real.

Godric threw Ashton’s good arm around his shoulders and helped his friend get inside. Emily was waiting at the top of the stairs and with a panicked cry she rushed down to help them. “What happened to him?” she asked. Godric motioned for her to open the door to the drawing room. Emily did, then called for a maid to bring some water and cloths. “Lay him on the couch, Godric.” Emily indicated a blue and gold brocaded bit of furniture. She hastened to help Ashton sit down. He took a deep shaky breath that made Godric and Emily share a look of concern. “We’ve sent for a doctor,” Godric told her. “That’s all well and good, if he doesn’t bleed out before then,” Emily snapped. Godric took hold of Ashton’s shoulders and looked his friend in the eye. “Do you plan on bleeding out, Ash?” he asked, partially in jest. Ash shook his head in a wobbly sort of way. “No, Your Grace.” He chuckled. The blood loss was making him feel a little silly, not because he was losing much of it, but because the sight of blood sometimes made him lightheaded. Besides, his friend bickering with his wife was far too amusing. “See? He’ll be fine, darling.” Godric wrapped an arm around her shoulders and tucked her into his side. “Don’t you darling me, Godric. If he dares to die in my drawing room, I’ll revive him only to kill him again myself!” Emily helped remove the old binding on his arm and then peeled off Ashton’s coat. “Followed shortly by yourself.