Soap Opera Quotes

This is, by far, the craziest shit I have ever seen," Kenji says. "I really never would've believed it. Not in a million years." "It's like a soap opera... But with worse acting." "I think it's kind of sweet...

I loved him, but love isn't enough. All the fairy tales, the romance novels, the soap operas; they're all lies. Love does not conquer all.

I hate when people ask what a book is about. People who read for plot, people who suck out the story like the cream filling in an Oreo, should stick to comic strips and soap operas. . . . Every book worth a damn is about emotions and love and death and pain. It's about words. It's about a man dealing with life. Okay?

Women of the Gallagher Academy, who comes here?" she asked. Just then, every girl at every table (even the newbies) stood and said in unison, "We are the sisters of Gillian." "Why do you come?" my mother asked. "To learn her skills. Honor her sword. And keep her secrets." "To what end do you work?" "To the cause of justice and light." "How long will you strive?" "For all the days of our lives," we finished and I felt a little like a character in one of my grandma's soap operas.

It was an emergency!" Seth blurted. "Read my lips - emergency reading - not some demented idea of fun. If I was starving, I would eat asparagus. If somebody held a gun to my head, I would watch a soap opera. And to save Fablehaven, I would read a book, okay, are you happy?" You had best be careful, Seth," Grandma warned. "The love of reading can be contagious." I just lost my appetite," he declared...

some soap opera, you know, real people pretending to be fake people with made-up problems being watched by real people to forget their real problems.

Life is like Friday on a soap opera. It gives you the illusion that everything is going to wrap up, and then the same old shit starts up on Monday.

...For all the days of our lives," we finished and I felt a little like a character in one of my grandma's soap operas...

For awhile I taped soap operas and watched them at night when I thought I might be forgetting what it was like to be human. After a while I stopped, because from the examples I saw on those shows, forgetting humanity was a good thing.

Are you implying that our relationship is like a Spanish soap opera?” “I’m not implying. I’m saying it.

Mahihirapan kang maghanap ngayon ng soap opera na walang elemento ng love triangle.

My life is just like a soap opera filmed in a psychiatric ward. —T-SHIRT

I knew it, I just knew it! The person who had the job of writing my life's dialogue used to work on a very low budget soap opera.

Imagine immortality, where even a marriage of fifty years would feel like a one-night stand. Imagine seeing trends and fashions blur past you. Imagine the world more crowded and desperate every century. Imagine changing religions, homes, diets, careers, until none of them have any real value.Imagine traveling the world until you're bored with every square inch. Imagine your emotions, your loves and hates and rivalries and victories, played out again and again until life is nothing more than a melo-dramatic soap opera. Until you regard the birth and death of other people with no more emotion than the wilted cut flowers you throw away.

St. Clair gets a crush on Anna. He's torn between her and Ellie, and he spends so much time running between them that he hardly has time left for Josh. And the more time that Josh spends alone, the more he realizes how alone he actually is. All of his friends will be gone the next year. Josh grows increasingly antagonistic toward school, which makes Rashmi increasingly antagonistic toward him, which makes him increasingly antagonistic toward her. And she's upset because Elie dropped her as a friend, and Meredith is upset because now St. Clair likes two girls who aren't her, and Anna is upset because St. Clair is leading her on, and then St. Clair's mom gets cancer. It's a freaking soap opera.

In order to get the things I want, it helps me to pretend I’m a figure in a daytime drama, a schemer. Soap opera characters make emphatic pronouncements. They ball up their fists and state their goals out loud. ‘I will destroy Buchanan Enterprises,’ they say. ‘Phoebe Wallingford will pay for what she’s done to our family.’ Walking home with the back half of the twelve-foot ladder, I turned to look in the direction of Hugh’s loft. ‘You will be mine,’ I commanded.

Boy bands, fan fiction, soap operas, reality TV, most shows and movies with female main characters . . . We’re still so rarely front and center, even rarer when you consider race and sexuality, and then when we do get something that’s just for us, we’re made to feel bad for liking it. We can’t win.

Soap operas got nothing on my family history.

Beware some people are just talking to you to gain information to use against you. Be careful with what you say around others because it may not be understood the way you expected. There are those who are waiting for the opportunity to spread rumors. And, with only a few words your life has been turned into a soap opera.

I spend my days watching soap operas, eating bonbons and plotting society's downfall.

Life is an X-rated soap opera.

Warner leans back, just a little. “Tell me what you want,” he says desperately. “Tell me what to do,” he says, “and I’ll do it.” “This is, by far, the craziest shit I have ever seen,” Kenji says. “I really never would’ve believed it. Not in a million years.” “It’s like a soap opera.” Ian nods. “But with worse acting.

I’m turning into an old woman. Might as well start knitting and bitching about soap operas, gas prices, and rude drivers.” – Sundown

Our epoch has been give many nicknames--the Age of Anxiety, the Atomic Age, the Space Age. It might, with equally good reason, be called the Age of Television Addiction, the Age of Soap Opera, the Age of the Disk Jockey.

Was I just curious about what the agenda might be at a vampire summit? Did I want the attention of more undead members of society? Did I want to be known as a fangbanger, one of those humans who simply adored the walking dead? Did some corner of me long for a chance to be near Bill without seeking him out, still trying to make some emotional sense of his betrayal? Or was this about Eric? Unbeknownst to myself, was I in love with the flamboyant Viking who was so handsome, so good at making love, and so political, all atthe same time? This sounded like a promising set of problems for a soap opera season.

You don’t put a soap opera star in charge of an entire galaxy.

In regard to propaganda the early advocates of universal literacy and a free press envisaged only two possibilities: the propaganda might be true, or the propaganda might be false. They did not foresee what in fact has happened, above all in our Western capitalist democracies - the development of a vast mass communications industry, concerned in the main neither with the true nor the false, but with the unreal, the more or less totally irrelevant. In a word, they failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions. In the past most people never got a chance of fully satisfying this appetite. They might long for distractions, but the distractions were not provided. Christmas came but once a year, feasts were "solemn and rare," there were few readers and very little to read, and the nearest approach to a neighborhood movie theater was the parish church, where the performances though frequent, were somewhat monotonous. For conditions even remotely comparable to those now prevailing we must return to imperial Rome, where the populace was kept in good humor by frequent, gratuitous doses of many kinds of entertainment - from poetical dramas to gladiatorial fights, from recitations of Virgil to all-out boxing, from concerts to military reviews and public executions. But even in Rome there was nothing like the non-stop distractions now provided by newspapers and magazines, by radio, television and the cinema. In "Brave New World" non-stop distractions of the most fascinating nature are deliberately used as instruments of policy, for the purpose of preventing people from paying too much attention to the realities of the social and political situation. The other world of religion is different from the other world of entertainment; but they resemble one another in being most decidedly "not of this world." Both are distractions and, if lived in too continuously, both can become, in Marx's phrase "the opium of the people" and so a threat to freedom. Only the vigilant can maintain their liberties, and only those who are constantly and intelligently on the spot can hope to govern themselves effectively by democratic procedures. A society, most of whose members spend a great part of their time, not on the spot, not here and now and in their calculable future, but somewhere else, in the irrelevant other worlds of sport and soap opera, of mythology and metaphysical fantasy, will find it hard to resist the encroachments of those would manipulate and control it.

I could probably write a book on the complexities of our relationship, on my constantly shifting emotions, my ever-changing mind, but let's just say that nothing is ever as black and white as it seems, that love is not only blind but pathetic too. It can make us into victims and fools, reduce us to the kind of people who infuriate us on soap operas, the kind you want to scream at for allowing the creep or bitch to walk all over them.

Baseball is a soap opera that lends itself to probabilistic thinking. [Dick Cramer]

I hate when people ask what a book is about. People who read for plot, people who suck out the story like the cream filling in an Oreo, should stick to comic strips and soap operas. What’s it about? Every book worth a damn is about emotions and love and death and pain. It’s about words. It’s about a man dealing with life. Okay?

When a lack of white blood cells exposes the horizon of being, one has to make a choice. To cloister yourself away in a germ-free environment, alive but alone, or to embrace the woman you love and catch your death of cold at the marriage ceremony? What a great show. It’s inner-directed script was unmatched by any other soap opera.

Even after centuries of human interacting, children still continue to rebel against their parents and siblings. Young marrieds look upon their in-laws and parents as obstacles to their independence and growth. Parents view their children as selfish ingrates. Husbands desert their wives and seek greener fields elsewhere. Wives form relationships with heroes of soap operas who vicariously bring excitement and romance into their empty lives. Workers often hate their bosses and co-workers and spend miserable hours with them, day after day. On a larger scale, management cannot relate with labour. Each accuses the other of unreasonable self-interests and narrow-mindedness. Religious groups often become entrapped, each in a provincial dogma resulting in hate and vindictiveness in the name of God. Nations battle blindly, under the shadow of the world annihilation, for the realization of their personal rights. Members of these groups blame rival groups for their continual sense of frustration, impotence, lack of progress and communication. We have obviously not learned much over the years. We have not paused long enough to consider the simple truth that we humans are not born with particular attitudinal sets regarding other persons, we are taught into them. We are the future generation's teachers. We are, therefore, the perpetrators of the confusion and alienation we abhor and which keeps us impotent in finding new alternatives. It is up to us to diligently discover new solutions and learn new patterns of relating, ways more conducive to growth, peace, hope and loving coexistence. Anything that is learned can be unlearned and relearned. In this process called change lies our real hope.

If my life were still a movie, this is the part that would end up on the cutting room floor. We were all just fill-ins for a long-running soap opera. The actors changed, but the story seldom did. Certainly not the action.

Outside of my professional life, I have known many couples over the years who had passion and electricity between them and who treated each other well. But unfortunately there is wide acceptance in our society of the unhealthy notion that passion and aggression are interwoven and that cruel verbal exchanges and bomblike explosions are the price you pay for a relationship that is exciting, deep, and sexy. Popular romantic movies and soap operas sometimes reinforce this image.

This is the opposite of love, I realize, when I look over and see my empty couch, see right through my imaginary companions. The opposite of love isn't hate; it isn't even indifference. It's fucking disembowelment. Hara-kiri. Taking a huge shovel and digging out your own heart, and your intestines, and leaving behind nothing. Nothing of yourself to give, nothing, even, to take away. Nothing but a quiet pulse and some mildly entertaining soap operas. If to love is to hand over self and heart, then this, my friend, this - to self-disembowel - is its opposite. I wish I knew how to needlepoint so I could stitch it onto a fucking pillow.

Allie.” Dean leans forward and fixes me with an eerily somber stare. “This show is fucking stupid.” “I know,” I say sheepishly. “But it’s addictive. Trust me, one episode of this crap and you’ll be hooked.” “Sorry, baby doll, but I can pretty much guarantee that’s not gonna happen.” * Dean It happened. God help me. I’m into this show. I came over tonight with the single-minded purpose of working the charm and convincing Allie to get naked with me again. Instead, I’m sipping on a margarita, I’ve just watched two hours’ worth of a French soap opera, and now I’m texting Logan to let him know I won’t make it to Malone’s. Because…God help me…I want to know what happens next.

My parents watch too many soap operas, that's their trouble. In fact, they were probably hoping I was pregnant. By my wicked married lover whom they could then murder and bury under the patio.

We are each living in our own soap opera. We do not see things as they really are. We see only our interpretations. This is because our minds are always so busy...But when the mind calms down, it becomes clear. This mental clarity enables us to see things as they really are, instead of projecting our commentary on everything.

I stood there, watching her. The whole world was a dream, I realized. Everyone was acting in a bad soap opera. The whole world was one big FOX TV show.

Oh for Christ sake What's the name of this soap opera, The Bored and The Addlebrained? At least half you Snow Girls have a serious boyfriend.

You made one phone call and got your hands on an obscure French soap opera?” I stare at him. “Fuck. The Life of Dean is truly glorious.” “Told ya.

You're just being cryptic again. It's like soap opera sex. Lots of boring dialogue and when they finally do go to bed, everything's dark and covered by blankets.

And in our dark days, with so many threatening clouds on the horizon, he concluded, we puff up a story like this to drug people, to distract their attention from the serious problems and divert them with a Romeo-and-Juliet story, one scripted, however, by a soap opera writer.

Well... I love moving in extra dimensions. Not just backwards and forwards, but up and down and around. And fins. I love swimming with fins— human feet are practically useless underwater. I love all the unique things you see on each dive. Millions of little aquatic soap operas playing out between all the creatures. And the silence. Well, it’s not really silent down there, but the roar of bubbles blocks any other sound...

Arthuriana has become a genre in itself, more like TV soap opera where people think they know the characters. All that's fair enough, but it does remove the mythic power of the feminine and masculine principles. So I prefer it in its original form, even if you have to wade through Mallory's 'Le Morte d'Arthur' -- people smashing people for pages and pages! It still has the resonances of myth about it, which makes it work for me. I don't want to know if Mordred led an unhappy childhood or not.

Every problem has a gift for you in its hands as my man Richard Bach says. You can choose to see the curse or the gift. And this one choice will determine if your life is a success story or one big soap opera.

Terrorism” is a word that has become a plague on our vocabulary, the excuse and reason and moral permit for state-sponsored violence— our violence—which is now used on the innocent of the Middle East ever more outrageously and promiscuously. Terrorism, terrorism, terrorism. It has become a full stop, a punctuation mark, a phrase, a speech, a sermon, the be-all and end-all of everything that we must hate in order to ignore injustice and occupation and murder on a mass scale. Terror, terror, terror, terror. It is a sonata, a symphony, an orchestra tuned to every television and radio station and news agency report, the soap-opera of the Devil, served up on prime-time or distilled in wearyingly dull and mendacious form by the right-wing “commentators” of the American east coast or the Jerusalem Post or the intellectuals of Europe. Strike against Terror. Victory over Terror. War on Terror. Everlasting War on Terror. Rarely in history have soldiers and journalists and presidents and kings aligned themselves in such thoughtless, unquestioning ranks.

I’m just grateful that no one has come into the shop during this soap opera. Here, try our newest donut: French vanilla with a hint of ‘my best friend is leaving forever’ tears.

Because history is the soap opera that hurts, the kabuki with real knives.

As Tristan left the darkroom he heard Lacey’s soap opera voice. “And so our two heroes part,” she said, “blinded by love, neither of them listening to the wise and beautiful Lacey”—she hummed a little—“who, by the way, is getting a broken heart of her own. But who cares about Lacey?” she asked sadly. “Who cares about Lacey?

Artemis hooked the speaker over one ear, adjusting the mike stem so it wound across his mouth. 'Foaly? Are you listening?' 'Are you kidding?' came the reply. 'This is better than human soap operas.

We look back on history, and what do we see? Empires rising and falling; revolutions and counter-revolutions succeeding one another; wealth accumulating and wealth dispersed; one nation dominant and then another. As Shakespeare’s King Lear puts it, “the rise and fall of great ones that ebb and flow with the moon.” In one lifetime I’ve seen my fellow countrymen ruling over a quarter of the world, and the great majority of them convinced – in the words of what is still a favorite song – that God has made them mighty and will make them mightier yet. I’ve heard a crazed Austrian announce the establishment of a German Reich that was to last for a thousand years; an Italian clown report that the calendar will begin again with his assumption of power; a murderous Georgian brigand in the Kremlin acclaimed by the intellectual elite as wiser than Solomon, more enlightened than Ashoka, more humane than Marcus Aurelius. I’ve seen America wealthier than all the rest of the world put together; and with the superiority of weaponry that would have enabled Americans, had they so wished, to outdo an Alexander or a Julius Caesar in the range and scale of conquest. All in one little lifetime – gone with the wind: England now part of an island off the coast of Europe, threatened with further dismemberment; Hitler and Mussolini seen as buffoons; Stalin a sinister name in the regime he helped to found and dominated totally for three decades; Americans haunted by fears of running out of the precious fluid that keeps their motorways roaring and the smog settling, by memories of a disastrous military campaign in Vietnam, and the windmills of Watergate. Can this really be what life is about – this worldwide soap opera going on from century to century, from era to era, as old discarded sets and props litter the earth? Surely not. Was it to provide a location for so repetitive and ribald a production as this that the universe was created and man, or homo sapiens as he likes to call himself – heaven knows why – came into existence? I can’t believe it. If this were all, then the cynics, the hedonists, and the suicides are right: the most we can hope for from life is amusement, gratification of our senses, and death. But it is not all.

Heart isn’t something you find in soap operas and Harlequin novels. It’s that pure essence–sheltered deep inside–that occasionally makes its way to the surface. Give heed lest it ever trend to waste.

The Patty Winters Shows were all repeats. Life remained a blank canvas, a cliche, a soap opera. I felt lethal, on the verge of frenzy. My nightly bloodlust overflowed into my days and I had to leave the city. My mask of sanity was a victim of impending slippage. This was bone season for me and I needed a vacation. I needed to go to the Hamptons.

Mindfulness brings us back to the present moment and provides the type of balanced awareness that forms the foundation of self-compassion. Like a clear, still pool without ripples, mindfulness perfectly mirrors what’s occurring without distortion. Rather than becoming lost in our own personal soap opera, mindfulness allows us to view our situation with greater perspective and helps to ensure that we don’t suffer unnecessarily.

Stars are so much more brilliant when they are allowed to shine.

Things slowed down for awhile. Sometimes that happens. The pot boils, and then, just before it can boil over, some hand — God, fate, maybe plain coincidence — lowers the heat. I mentioned this once to Wireman and he said life is like Friday on a soap opera. It gives you the illusion that everything is going to wrap up, and then the same old shit starts up on Monday.

It just wasn’t supposed to end like this.” She looks at me with red-rimmed eyes and yellow skin. Colors should be a good thing, but now, they’re marks, omens of bad tidings. “I was supposed to grow up, go to college, get a job,” she continues in that gut-clenching croak. “Meet my dream guy, marry, have k-kids. You were going to live next door and we would grow old in the same nursing home. Chuck oatmeal at each other and watch soap operas all day in our rocking chairs. That was my daydream. My perfect life. I don’t want to keep asking myself why until the end, but … ” A lone tear trails down her sunken cheek. This time I don’t reach out to wipe the water away; I let it go. Down, down, until it drips off the side of her jaw. This is humanity. This is life and death in one room.

She remained silent. There was nothing left to say. He'd said it all the night before. He had to end it. He could never leave his wife. And, in fact, she had known this. Although she loved him - and truly she did - he wasn't hers. He belonged to his wife. She'd earned him. It didn't matter that he was her first love or that she was his passion. It didn't matter that they had loved one another for more than half their lives. It didn't matter that he had married his wife on the rebound. It didn't matter that he didn't love the woman. It didn't even matter that they had turned into some soap-opera cliche. He was married to someone else and that meant that she was leftovers and destined to remain on the periphery in the shadow of another woman's marriage. But no more. She was well and truly sick of it. 

Don't think you can watch all the romantic movies, soap operas, TV shows and read all the romantic books out there and not be affected. Ninety-nine percent of the romantic stuff out there is garbage... and what you put in always comes out... UGLIER!

A society, most of whose members spend a great part of their time, not on the spot, not here and now and in the calculable future, but somewhere else, in the irrelevant other worlds of sport and soap opera, of mythology and metaphysical fantasy, will find it hard to resist the encroachments of those who would manipulate and control it.

To find love you must first be willing to give it.

forget about it; if today never becomes a yesterday, at least you can make peace with today. What already happened we can't change, but we can change what happens next!

Every single time I get sent to her, she asks me questions that sound like they came from some “How to Talk to Statistical Black Children Who Come to Your Office Often” handbook. How is your home life? (None of your business.) Have you witnessed any traumatic events lately, such as shootings? (Just because I live in the “ghetto” doesn’t mean I dodge bullets every day.) Are you struggling to come to terms with your father’s murder? (It was twelve years ago. I barely remember him or it.) Are you struggling to come to terms with your mother’s addiction? (She’s been clean for eight years. She’s only addicted to soap operas these days.) What’s good with you, homegirl, nah’mean? (Okay, she hasn’t said that, but give her time.)

You’ve been given a second chance at true love. Few of us are rarely given even a first chance. If you ruin this, you will be a bigger fool than I could ever imagine. This time when he leaves you, it really will be your fault.

We live now in an information technology. Flowers have always lived in an information technology. Flowers gather information all day. At night, they process it. This is called photosynthesis. As our neocortex comes into full use, we, too will practice photosyntesis. As a matter of fact, we already do, but compared for flowers, our kind is primitive and limited. For one thing, information gathered from daily newspapers, soap operas, sales conferences and coffee klatches is inferior to information gathered from sunlight.... Either because our data is insufficient or because our processing equipment is not fully on line, our own noctural processing is part-time work. The information our conscious minds receive during waking hours is processed by our unconscious during so called "deep sleep". We are in deep sleep only two or three hours a night. For the rest of our sleeping session, the unconscious mind is off duty. It gets bored. It craves recreation. So it plays with the material at hand. In a sense, it palys with itself. It scrambles memories, juggles images, rearranges data, invents scary or titillating stories. This is what we call "dreaming".

No one knows how to gamble and win, that’s why they call it gambling.

He reminded me of the typical soap-opera star. His words were fake, his smile was fake, and his very presence affected me like nails on a chalkboard.

Outside of my professional life, I have known many couples over the years who had passion and electricity between them and who treated each other well. But unfortunately there is wide acceptance in our society of the unhealthy notion that passion and aggression are interwoven and that cruel verbal exchanges and bomblike explosions are the price you pay for a relationship that is exciting, deep, and sexy. Popular romantic movies and soap operas sometimes reinforce this image. Most

The stories and the people in them did sound remarkable, Sylvie thought, when spoken aloud. She and the twins had rarely talked about what happened. They’d lived through it, after all, and the loss of Julia had made them quiet. But Josie’s wonder at the stories, and Izzy’s clear enjoyment of what she saw as a soap opera in which she played a small role, took the sting out of the grief woven through those times. When Sylvie spoke their family history into the air, all she heard was love.

In life, loss was the engine that set Wilder's fiction in motion. Exile propelled the powerful emotional current of the Little House books, an intensely felt nostalgia for people and places lost to her. That emotion was absent in "Free Land," relegating it to homesteading soap opera. Its loosely linked anecdotes were joined not by familial love but by Lane's, and the Post's, ideology.

Maybe I can do some writing then. The phrase made him sick. It had no meaning anymore. Like a word that is repeated until it becomes gibberish that sentence, for him, had been used to extinction. It sounded silly; like some bit of cliché from a soap opera. Hero saying in dramatic tones – Now, by God, maybe I can do some writing. Senseless. For a moment, though, he wondered if it was true. Now that she was leaving could he forget about her and really get some work done? Quit his job? Go somewhere and hold up in a cheap furnished room and write? You have $123.89 in the bank, his mind informed him. He pretended it was the only thing that kept him from it. But, far back in his mind, he wondered if he could write anything. Often the question threw itself at him when he was least expecting it. You have four hours every morning, the statement would rise like a menacing wraith. You have time to write many thousands of words. Why don't you? And the answer was always lost in a tangle of becauses and wells and endless reasons that he clung to like a drowning man at straws.(“Mad House”)

None of them were greatly interested in the election except as a national soap opera in which the closeness of the result was more exciting than the identity of the winner. Individually, they were passionate about GP fundholding, academy schools, asylum, but none of them trusted any party to keep a promise about any of these issues. Louisa struggled to believe that she could change herself, let alone the world.

I once told you that all actions have a cost, we simply must decide if they are worth paying. If you do not act in the best interest of your own happiness you will regret—and pay for it—for the rest of your life.

In writing the short novel Fahrenheit 451 I thought I was describing a world that might evolve in four or five decades. But only a few weeks ago, in Beverly Hills one night, a husband and wife passed me, walking their dog. I stood staring after them, absolutely stunned. The woman held in one hand a small cigarette-package-sized radio, its antenna quivering. From this sprang tiny copper wires which ended in a dainty cone plugged into her right ear. There she was, oblivious to man and dog, listening to far winds and whispers and soap-opera cries, sleep-walking, helped up and down curbs by a husband who might just as well not have been there. This was not fiction.

...TV was entertainment of the last resort. There was nothing on during the day in the summer other than game shows and soap operas. Besides, a TV-watching child was considered available for chores: take out the trash, clean your room, pick up that mess, fold those towels, mow the lawn... the list was endless. We all became adept at chore-avoidance. Staying out of sight was a reliable strategy. Drawing or painting was another: to my mother, making art trumped making beds. A third choir-avoidance technique was to read. A kid with his or her nose in a book is a kid who is not fighting, yelling, throwing, breaking things, bleeding, whining, or otherwise creating a Mom-size headache. Reading a book was almost like being invisible - a good thing for all concerned.

Every day we see allurements of one kind or another that tell us what we have is not enough. Someone or something is forever telling us we need to be more handsome or more wealthy, more applauded or more admired than we see ourselves as being. We are told we haven't collected enough possessions or gone to enough fun places. We are bombarded with the message that on the world's scale of things we have been weighed in the balance and found wanting. Some days it is if we have been locked in a cubicle of a great and spacious building where the only thing on the TV is a never-ending soap opera entitled Vain Imaginations. But God does not work this way.

If taking on a wife for life in an institution called marriage were a sign of male privilege, why did “husband” derive from the Germanic “house” and the Old Norse for “bound” or “bondage”?68 Why did it also come from words meaning “a male kept for breeding,” “one who tills the soil,” and “the male of the pair of lower animals.”69 Conversely, if marriage were as awful for women as many feminists claim, why is it the centerpiece of female fantasies in myths and legends of the past, or romance novels and soap operas of the present? Spartan boys who were deprived of their families were deprived, not privileged. Boys deprived of women’s love until they risked their lives at work or war were also deprived—or dead. Training boys to kill boys was considered moral when it led to survival, immoral only when it threatened survival. In these respects, “patriarchy” created male deprivation and male death, not male privilege.

Now, it’s undeniably true that male writers (including yours truly) are generally and commercially allowed to write about “girl stuff” without being penalized for doing so. In part this is the same old shit it’s always been ... I’ve said before that men who write mostly about men win prizes for revealing the human condition, while women who write about both men and women are filed away as writing “womens’ issues.” Likewise, in fantasy, the imprimatur of a dude somehow makes stuff like romance, relationship drama, introspection, and adorable animal companions magically not girly after all. In a sense, we male fantasists are allowed to be like money launderers for girl cooties." [Game of Thrones and Invisible Cootie Vectors (blog post, March 30, 2014)]

If I were your mother, I would also warn you to beware of buildings that claim to be the houses of God. If heard it said once, jokingly, that on their days off, when they are not actively intervening in human affairs or shoring up the sweetness of the earth, the orishas get together in a little apartment in a poor section of Havana around a very big screen television and laugh themselves silly a the unceasing soap opera that is our lives, all the while puffing on good Cuban cigars and swigging cheap rum. And, darling, whether you imagine one big white distant god or many more particular brown ones who like their little pleasures, I would tell you to get off your butt and out of the house if you want to make contact. If you go to a mausoleum, you'll find dead bodies. Living gods inhabit a living world.

We are all, in the last analysis, alone. And this basic state of solitude is not something we have any choice about. It is, as the poet Rilke says, "not something that one can take or leave. We are solitary. We may delude ourselves and act as though this were not so. That is all. But how much better it is to realize that we are so, yes, even to begin by assuming it. Naturally," he goes on to say, "we will turn giddy." Naturally. How one hates to think of oneself as alone. How one avoids it. It seems to imply rejection or unpopularity. An early wallflower panic still clings to the world. One will be left, one fears, sitting in a straight-backed chair alone, while the popular girls are already chosen and spinning around the dance floor with their hot-palmed partners. We seem so frightened today of being alone that we never let it happen. Even if family, friends and movies should fail, there is still the radio or the television to fill up the void. Women, who used to complain of loneliness, need never be alone any more. We can do our housework with soap-opera heroes at our side. Even day-dreaming was more creative than this; it demanded something of oneself and it fed the inner life. Now, instead of planting our solitude with our own dream blossoms, we choke the space with continuous music, chatter and companionship to which we do not even listen. It is simply there to fill the vacuum. When the noise stops there is no inner music to take its place. We must re-learn to be alone.

We go quiet as the next episode picks up exactly where it left off. Antoine manages to subdue Marie-Thérèse, and the two proceed to argue for ten minutes. Don’t ask me about what, because it’s in French, but I do notice that the same word—héritier—keeps popping up over and over again during their fight. “Okay, we need to look up that word,” I say in aggravation. “I think it’s important.” Allie grabs her cell phone and swipes her finger on the screen. I peek over her shoulder as she pulls up a translation app. “How do you think you spell it?” she asks. We get the spelling wrong three times before we finally land on a translation that makes sense: heir. “Oh!” she exclaims. “They’re talking about the father’s will.” “Shit, that’s totally it. She’s pissed off that Solange inherited all those shares of Beauté éternelle.” We high five at having figured it out, and in the moment our palms meet, pure clarity slices into me and I’m able to grasp precisely what my life has become. With a growl, I snatch the remote control and hit stop. “Hey, it’s not over yet,” she objects. “Allie.” I draw a steady breath. “We need to stop now. Before my balls disappear altogether and my man-card is revoked.” One blond eyebrow flicks up. “Who has the power to revoke it?” “I don’t know. The Man Council. The Stonemasons. Jason Statham. Take your pick.” “So you’re too much of a manly man to watch a French soap opera?” “Yes.” I chug the rest of my margarita, but the salty flavor is another reminder of how low I’ve sunk. “Jesus Christ. And I’m drinking margaritas. You’re bad for my rep, baby doll.” I shoot her a warning look. “Nobody can ever know about this.” “Ha. I’m going to post it all over the Internet. Guess what, folks—Dean Sebastian Kendrick Heyward-Di Laurentis is over at my place right now watching soaps and drinking girly drinks.” She sticks her tongue out at me. “You’ll never get laid again.” She’s right about that. “Can you at least add that the night ended with a blowjob?” I grumble. “Because then everyone will be like, oh, he suffered through all that so he could get his pole waxed.” “Your pole waxed? That’s such a gross description.” But her eyes are bright and she’s laughing as she says it.

Charity didn't mean to waste the entire afternoon. But her favorite daytime drama was on the telly. It was always the same, she thought, stretching out on the bed to watch. The sex got her interested first, and then the story. Before long she was totally hooked, and deep into the intricate plots and the glamorous goings-on. And afterwards, she just felt drained. She was sound asleep by the time Lady Margaret came home.

Come devono essere tristi, quei figli unici. Crescere in una casa piena di adulti, sempre in minoranza, sempre sconfitti, nemmeno un po' di quella stupidità sfrenata, niente scherzi da poter ripetere cento volte, nessuno con cui cantare, nessuno con cui litigare, nessuno con cui fare il principe, o lo schiavo [...] in seguito, quando i genitori cadono in disgrazia e diventano essere umani incasinati e banali e si trasformano pian piano da persone che si prendono cura di te in individui di cui ci si deve prendere cura, chi ci sarà ad affrontare con te quelle crescenti frustrazioni, a riflettere sulle migliaia di dettagli insignificanti di quella soap opera a lungo condivisa che non significa nulla per gli altri? E quando infine se ne saranno andati, chi si rivolgerà a te dicendoti: «Sì, mi ricordo il cavalluccio a dondolo rosso... sì, mi ricordo il letto immaginario sotto il biancospino»?

Ding! Princess Alpacca, pronounced like the animal, first in line to the throne of Alieya Island, a small nation below the south of France. The Queen invited her to Wessco after an attempted coup forced her family into exile last year. She doesn’t speak English and I don’t know a word of Aliesh. This is going to be a challenge. Guermo, her translator, glares at me like I’m the bubonic plague in human form—with a mixture of hatred, disgust, and just a touch of fear. She speaks in Aliesh, looking at me. And Guermo translates. “She says she thinks you are very ugly.” Princess Alpacca nods vigorously. She’s pretty in a cute kind of way. Wild curly hair, round hazel eyes, a tiny bulbous nose, and full cheeks. “She says she doesn’t like you or your stupid country,” Guermo informs me. Another nod and a blank but eager smile. “She says she would rather throw herself off the rocks to her death in the waves and be devoured by the fish than be your queen.” I look him in the face. “She barely said anything.” He shrugs. “She says it with her eyes. I know these things. If you weren’t so stupid you would know too.” More nodding. “Fantastic.” She says something to Guermo in Aliesh, then he says something back—harshly and disapproving. And now, they’re arguing. But they can stay. Guermo is obviously in love with Alpacca and she clearly has no idea. My presence will force him to admit his feelings . . . but does she return his infatuation? It’ll be like living in a Latin soap opera—dramatic, passionate, and over the top. I have to see how it ends. Ding!

We seem so frightened today of being alone that we never let it happen. Even if family, friends and movies should fail, there is still the radio or the television to fill up the void. Women, who used to complain of loneliness, need never be alone any more. We can do our housework with soap-opera heroes at our side. Even day-dreaming was more creative than this; it demanded something of oneself and it fed the inner life. Now, instead of planting our solitude with our own dream blossoms, we choke the space with continuous music, chatter and companionship to which we do not even listen. It is simply there to fill the vacuum. When the noise stops there is no inner music to take its place. We must re-learn to be alone.

Union with God is not something we acquire by a technique but the grounding truth of our lives that engenders the very search for God. Because God is the ground of our being, the relationship between creature and Creator is such that, by sheer grace, separation is not possible. God does not know how to be absent. The fact that most of us experience throughout most of our lives a sense of absence or distance from God is the great illusion that we are caught up in; it is the human condition. The sense of separation from God is real, but the meeting of stillness reveals that this perceived separation does not have the last word. This illusion of separation is generated by the mind and is sustained by the riveting of our attention to the interior soap opera, the constant chatter of the cocktail party going on in our heads. For most of us this is what normal is, and we are good at coming up with ways of coping with this perceived separation (our consumer-driven entertainment culture takes care of much of it). But some of us are not so good at coping, and so we drink ourselves into oblivion or cut or burn ourselves “so that the pain will be in a different place and on the outside.” The grace of salvation, the grace of Christian wholeness that flowers in silence, dispels this illusion of separation. For when the mind is brought to stillness, and all our strategies of acquisition have dropped, a deeper truth presents itself: we are and have always been one with God and we are all one in God (Jn 17:21).

Sheila and Hugh Resting in arms Testing your charms Repeating a ritualized “I love you” Sharing a fight Or a kiss in the night Shrugging when friends ask “What’s new?” After the wedding Her hips started spreading His hair line began to recede They remained together Out of habit now And not out of any great need He’ll show up from work Showing signs of strain While her day was spent cleaning Letting the soap operas wash her brain . . . He reads the evening paper She calls him in to eat They share their meal silently She’s bored, he’s just beat Then they climb the stairs Multiplying the monotony With each step they take The hours spent sleeping They find more satisfying Than those spent awake He removes his work clothes She puts on her curlers and cream Hoping the sheets will protect them From the demon of daily routine Then he clicks off the lamp And the darkness holds no noise For in the dark you can be anyone Housewives will be girls And businessmen boys . . . “I love you, Sheila” I love you, Hugh” But she’s deciding on dishes And his thoughts are all askew And the sheets supply refuge For this perpetual pair Neither really knowing anymore Why the other one is there

These things matter to me, Daniel, says the man with six days to live. They are sitting on the porch in the last light. These things matter to me, son. The way the hawks huddle their shoulders angrily against hissing snow. Wrens whirring in the bare bones of bushes in winter. The way swallows and swifts veer and whirl and swim and slice and carve and curve and swerve. The way that frozen dew outlines every blade of grass. Salmonberries thimbleberries cloudberries snowberries elderberries salalberries gooseberries. My children learning to read. My wife's voice velvet in my ear at night in the dark under the covers. Her hair in my nose as we slept curled like spoons. The sinuous pace of rivers and minks and cats. Fresh bread with too much butter. My children's hands when they cup my face in their hands. Toys. Exuberance. Mowing the lawn. Tiny wrenches and screwdrivers. Tears of sorrow, which are the salt sea of the heart. Sleep in every form from doze to bone-weary. Pay stubs. Trains. The shivering ache of a saxophone and the yearning of a soprano. Folding laundry hot from the dryer. A spotless kitchen floor. The sound of bagpipes. The way horses smell in spring. Red wines. Furnaces. Stone walls. Sweat. Postcards on which the sender has written so much that he or she can barely squeeze in the signature. Opera on the radio. Bathrobes, back rubs. Potatoes. Mink oil on boots. The bands at wedding receptions. Box-elder bugs. The postman's grin. Linen table napkins. Tent flaps. The green sifting powdery snow of cedar pollen on my porch every year. Raccoons. The way a heron labors through the sky with such a vast elderly dignity. The cheerful ears of dogs. Smoked fish and the smokehouses where fish are smoked. The way barbers sweep up circles of hair after a haircut. Handkerchiefs. Poems read aloud by poets. Cigar-scissors. Book marginalia written with the lightest possible pencil as if the reader is whispering to the writer. People who keep dead languages alive. Fresh-mown lawns. First-basemen's mitts. Dish-racks. My wife's breasts. Lumber. Newspapers folded under arms. Hats. The way my children smelled after their baths when they were little. Sneakers. The way my father's face shone right after he shaved. Pants that fit. Soap half gone. Weeds forcing their way through sidewalks. Worms. The sound of ice shaken in drinks. Nutcrackers. Boxing matches. Diapers. Rain in every form from mist to sluice. The sound of my daughters typing their papers for school. My wife's eyes, as blue and green and gray as the sea. The sea, as blue and green and gray as her eyes. Her eyes. Her.

Stacy said, “Baby, remember that you must love yourself first. It hurt me like crazy to know that I would never see Pam or my daughter again; so bad that I fell into a state of depression, and I wanted to give up on life.” Stacy wiped the tears from her eyes.  “I almost did… but God.” Stacy paused; she had to take a breather to get herself together. Jazz was on the other end drying her tears also.  Stacy continued, “When I gave up on me, he kept me. When I did not know which way to turn, he guided me. When I was at my lowest point he was there to show me that I am strong and I can get through all things through Christ Jesus who strengthens me!!! That setback not only showed me that God loves me, but it showed me that others love and care about me also.” She looked at Pastor G and whispered, “Thank you for being a friend.” 

A gasp caught her attention, followed by a rush of whispers that filled the sudden silence that fell over the room. People stopped talking to turn and stare. People stopped dancing. Even the orchestra stopped playing. Curious, Rose turned to see what everyone was staring at with such blatant shock. Oh, dear God. Her eyes had to be deceiving her! But no, she knew who it was she saw standing just inside the ballroom doors, looking as though he owned the place, meeting every gaze with calm, ducal arrogance. It was Grey. And everyone else knew it was him as well, because unlike every other person in that ballroom, the Duke of Ryeton did not wear a mask.

Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist . . .” Lord, I put on the belt of truth. I choose a lifestyle of honesty and integrity. Show me the truths I so desperately need today. Expose the lies I’m not even aware that I’m believing. “. . . with the breastplate of righteousness in place . . .” And yes, Lord, I wear your righteousness today against all condemnation and corruption. Fit me with your holiness and purity—defend me from all assaults against my heart. “. . . and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace . . .” I do choose to live for the gospel at any moment. Show me where the larger story is unfolding and keep me from being so lax that I think the most important thing today is the soap operas of this world. “In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one . . .” Jesus, I lift against every lie and every assault the confidence that you are good, and that you have good in store for me. Nothing is coming today that can overcome me because you are with me. “. . . Take the helmet of salvation . . .” Thank you, Lord, for my salvation. I receive it in a new and fresh way from you and I declare that nothing can separate me now from the love of Christ and the place I shall ever have in your kingdom. “. . . and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God . . .” Holy Spirit, show me specifically today the truths of the Word of God that I will need to counter the assaults and the snares of the Enemy. Bring them to mind throughout the day. “. . . And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.” Finally, Holy Spirit, I agree to walk in step with you in everything—in all prayer as my spirit communes with you throughout the day. (6:13-18)

Before his death your father begged a promise from me. He made me swear that I would look after you and your mother.” “And you have,” she insisted. He held up his hand to prevent her from saying more. “And made me give my word that I would never touch you in any manner other than brotherly.” Another rueful smile. “So you see, I preferred being able to pretend that I had kept my promise rather than face the truth of breaking my word.” He broke her heart, damn him. “He made me promise not to become attached to you,” she confided, continuing with the evening’s truthful trend. “It seems Papa saw something that neither one of us did.” “Oh, I saw it. I’ve seen it since you were eighteen years old and we danced together at some insipid ball. I don’t remember where it was, or the day of the week, but I remember that you wore a pale tea-colored gown with Belgian lace, and that you had pearls in your hair.” She couldn’t breathe. The tilt of his lips, the bleakness of his gaze, it was all too horrible. “And you wore a red cravat,” she whispered. “I thought you looked so rakish in it.” “I was rakish,” he admitted. “Your father knew that.

Oh, ho!” his brother cried, clasping him close in a fierce embrace. “Did you think you’d escape without saying hello?” Then, for Grey’s ears alone, “I’m so frigging proud of you I could just piss.” “Please don’t.” Grey gently pushed him away, meeting the other man’s bright gaze with a lump in his throat. “But thank you.” His mother hugged him as well, so overcome that she began to weep. Grey didn’t know what to do with her, but Archer gave her a handkerchief and Rose discreetly took her aside so she could compose herself. That left Grey with Bronte, who looked as though she was on the verge of tears as well, her blue eyes watery behind her mask. “You,” he said firmly. “Let you and I get one thing straight right now. I don’t care if you’ve already asked Archer. I don’t care what your groom’s family wants, or who you think you’re trying to protect. I will give you away, or there will be no wedding. Is that understood?” The cupid’s bow of his sister’s mouth trembled and for a moment he thought he had been wrong about her and now she hated him, but then she threw herself into his arms, laughing. “I love you,” she whispered against his ear before kissing his cheek. She was gone before Grey could even hug her back, which was probably just as well given the burning in his eyes. “We’ll be all over the scandal rags tomorrow,” Archer crowed with a bit too much enthusiasm. “No doubt,” Grey agreed. “I’m afraid I have provided enough entertainment for one evening. Dinner tomorrow?” His family accept the invitation with quiet aplomb and a great deal of unspoken pride, but it was obvious all the same.

Grey was here.” He hadn’t known, that was obvious from the way his eyes widened. “You lie.” Rose chuckled. “I saw him. I spoke to him. He said he came to see me. And then he ran out of here as though the hounds of hell were nipping at his heels.” Archer shook his head, an expression of disbelief on his face. “They tend to do that when Hades freezes over.” Then he offered her a grin. “He braved being seen in public just to come here and see you?” “He was watching from a balcony. I wouldn’t have known he was here if the fortune teller hadn’t told me.” His brows shot up. “And there’s a story for another time. Look, Lady Rose, I know he’s frustrating as all get-out, but you cannot expect Grey to change years of behavior in a week. You have to be patient-like waves lapping at a stone.” That was so very easily said. He wasn’t the one being pressured to find a husband. He wasn’t the one who felt as though everything she wanted was just out of reach. “You know, I suddenly find myself very interested in Lady Monteforte’s literary tastes. Shall I make the introductions?” “I will hang your puppy if you do not.” Rose grinned. He truly was the most charming of rascals. “How very fortunate for me then, that I do not own a puppy.” “For shame. Every young lady should have a puppy.” Rose made the introductions, and Archer wasted no time in asking Lady Monteforte if she cared to dance. For a moment it seemed the lady might decline, but then Rose offered to stay with Jacqueline and Archer offered the widow his arm. She hesitated before taking it. Interesting. Rose had never seen a woman react so coolly to Archer’s charm before. The Kane men were obviously losing their touch.

You’ve always been so agreeable,” he remarked with something of a rueful tone. “I don’t understand why you haven’t told me to sod off.” She couldn’t help but chuckle. “Other than the simple fact that I would never say those words to anyone?” He glanced at her, eyes sparkling. “Even so. I am humbled by your easy acceptance of me. I behaved abominably toward you years ago and yet you act as though nothing ever happened.” Rose twirled the handle of her parasol. “We cannot change the past, Mr. Maxwell. I reckon I would be a much happier woman if I could. No, all we can do is go forward.” His brow furrowed. “Does that mean you forgive me?” She laughed again. “Yes, it does. I understand why you had to abandon your courtship after my father’s misfortune and I do not blame you for it.” Kellan shook his head. “You are too good.” “No,” she insisted with a sharp shake of her head. “I am not.” Lord, if he but knew just how not good she could be! Of course, if they were married he’d realize that on their wedding night, wouldn’t he? Or could she deceive him and make him believe she was a virgin? It wouldn’t be right, but she would do it to spare his feelings, and keep her secrets. “But, I can be practical when the situation calls for it.” “Is that why you’re here with me now?” he asked with amusement. “Practicality?” Rose’s smile was coy in reply. “Perhaps. Or perhaps I like giving the gossips something to natter about.” Kellan laughed aloud. “I’ve missed your wit, Rose. You always knew how to make me laugh.” “Yes.” She twirled her parasol again. “You as well. I’m glad that we are friends again.” “Friends,” he repeated. “Is that what we are?” It had been a while since she’d flirted with a man without the benefit of a mask, but she thought she remembered how to do it. “For now.” They were smiling at each other as they passed beneath the thick shade of trees that lined the track, and Rose felt a stirring of hope in her breast. Her heart wasn’t totally under Grey’s control, and for that she was extraordinarily happy.

He told me to stay away from you.” Strong hands roamed her back in the most comforting fashion. “You should have listened.” Rose raised her face to look at him. “But then I would not have known what it was to be truly happy.” Grey’s eyes widened, and for a moment he looked young and vulnerable. “Don’t say that. I’ve made you miserable.” She smiled sadly. “True, but those nights with you at Saint’s Row? That was happiness for me. The most I’ve ever known.” His mouth opened and she pressed her fingers again his lips to close them. “You don’t have to say anything. I already know it’s not what I want to hear.” Grey frowned, and reached up to move her hand from his face. He held her fingers within his. He gave off more heat than the fire she’d fried herself in front of earlier. Heat that went straight to her bones, right to the very center of her being, radiating out into her limbs. There was nothing seductive about their embrace and yet she ached inside, that wet and willing part of herself desperate to take him inside once more. She wanted to claim him, mark him. Ruin him for anyone else. “I was happy too,” he said softly. So softly she wouldn’t have known it was him who spoke were she not watching his beautiful lips as they formed the words. “God help me, you make me forget every vow and promise I’ve ever made.” Heart pounding, Rose didn’t resist as he dropped her hand to thread his fingers in her hair, pressing against her scalp. “You make me feel like someone else,” he told her gruffly. “A good man. A worthy man, and not a selfish bastard too corrupted to ever be loved.” Her eyes burned, but Rose managed to hold the tears at bay. She bit her lip, staring at him, she knew, with her heart in her eyes. She didn’t care. “You are a good man,” she whispered. “The best I know.” Who else would cut himself off from almost all contact with people simply to keep himself from returning to a way of life he wanted to leave behind? “You shouldn’t say things like that.” “Why not? I believe them.” “Because when you say them, I want to believe them.” And then he lowered his head and captured her mouth with his own.

So you were bored and decided to come looking for me?” He trailed a finger over the exposed part of her upper chest. “Something like that.” Blushing prettily, she brushed his hand away, but not before giving his fingers a squeeze. “Well, I’m busy, so unless you want to help Heather and me in our endeavors, you will have to find some way to amuse yourself.” Grey sighed. “All right, I’ll go, but only because I’m likely to ruin whatever beautification potions you two lovely witches are brewing.” Behind Rose, the maid Heather giggled. Grey grinned at Rose’s wide-eyed disbelief as she looked at first her maid and then him. “Have you always charmed women so easily?” Grey’s humor faded. “I’m afraid so.” And then softly, “It if offends you…” She shoved her palm into his shoulder. “Don’t be an idiot. Flirt with my maid all you want. But I don’t want to hear anything from you when I smile at the footmen.” God she was amazing. He slipped his arms around her, no caring that the maid could see, even though she made a great pretense of not looking. “Are you going out tonight?” Rose pushed against his chest. “Grey, I’m all sweat and grime.” “I don’t care. Answer me, are you going out?” She arched a brow. “Are you trying to get rid of me?” “No.” He held her gaze as he lowered his head, but he didn’t kiss her. He simply let the words drift across her sweet lips. “I’d keep you here every night if I could.” She shivered delicately. Christ, he could kiss her. He could make love to her right there. “All you have to do is ask.” “I won’t have you give up your society for me.” Something flickered in her dark eyes. “It wouldn’t be much of a sacrifice.” Because of the gossip? How long before she began to resent him for it? He could just push her away and be done with it-tell her to go out and find herself a lover, but he would rather carve up the rest of his face than do that. Instead, he took the coward’s route. He didn’t ask for an explanation. He didn’t want to know what she’d heart about him or what they’d said about her. He simply smiled and decided to take advantage of what time he had left. Because he loved having her with him, and spending what had always been lonely hours in company better than any he might have deserved or ever wished for. “You are sweaty and grimy,” he murmured in his most seductive tones. “And now I find I am as well. Shall we meet in the bath in, say, twenty minutes? I’ll scrub your back if you’ll scrub mine.” Of course, when she joined him later, and their naked bodies came together in the hot, soapy water, all thoughts of scrubbing disappeared. And so did-for a brief while-all of Grey’s misgivings. But he knew they’d be back.

You are very quiet,” Archer remarked as they walked together to the refreshment table. They’d just finished a game of whist and when Rose begged off from a second round, Grey’s brother did the same. “My apologies,” she replied. “I do not mean to be rude.” “My brother doesn’t deserve to take up so much room in that lovely head of yours.” She might have been insulted by his disparaging Grey, or his familiarity with her, had she not been so surprised by the remark itself. “You are impertinent, sir.” He grinned-a grin so much more roguish than Grey’s. “One of my more charming traits. I did not mean offense, dear lady. Only that thinking about him will do you no good. The man is bent on punishing himself for the rest of his life.” Rose accepted the plate he offered her. “Thank you. Why would he wish to punish himself?” “Because he’s an ar…idiot. Sandwich?” He held up a cucumber sandwich caught in silver tongs. “Please. I’m not certain I wish to discuss your brother with you, Lord Archer.” “Not even if I can help you win him?” Rose’s heart froze-no, it simply stopped. Her entire body went numb. She would have dropped her plate had Archer not swept it from her hand into his own. “What makes you think I wish to win him?” He flashed her a coy glance. “Please, lady Rose. I’ve not made a career out of studying your sex to fall for your false innocence now.” Oh dear God. Had Grey told him? “I’ve seen the way you look at him, and I’ve had to put with hearing about you for the last four years-no offense.” Rose arched a brow as he piled food upon her plate. “None taken. I wasn’t aware that I looked at your brother in a manner different from how I might look upon anyone else.” “Mm.” He popped a small cake into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “That’s just it. You try too hard to treat him like everyone else. It’s obvious you care for him, and not just as the man who saved your life.” “Saved my life? How very dramatic.” He gave her a very serious look as he handed her the laden plate. “Where do you suppose you’d be right now if Grey hadn’t taken you in? Certainly not here, with such good food and charming company.” Point taken. And now she felt simply awful for the way she had spoken to Grey earlier. She was such a cow. “You shame me, sir.” And worse, he’d made tears come to her eyes. Staring at her food-such a wonderful array he’d picked for her-she blinked them away. He steered her toward a window seat where they sat in plain view of the room, but at least with a modicum of privacy. “My apologies, my lady. I did not mean to offend you with my plain and thoughtless words.” “Plain, perhaps. Thoughtless, I highly doubt it.” She managed a small smile. “I don’t think you do anything without thinking first.” Archer laughed, looking so much like Grey it hurt to look at him. “Were that but true.

Lady Rose, you grow lovelier every time I see you.” Had it been a stranger who spoke she might have been flustered, but since it was Archer, Grey’s younger brother, she merely grinned in response and offered her hand. “And your eyesight grows poorer every time you see me, sir.” He bowed over her fingers. “If I am blind it is only by your beauty.” She laughed at that, enjoying the good-natured sparkle in his bright blue eyes. He was so much more easy-natured than Grey, so much more full of life and flirtation. And yet, the family resemblance could not be denied even if Archer’s features were a little thinner, a little sharper. How would Grey feel if she found a replacement for him in his own brother? It was too low, even in jest. “Careful with your flattery, sir,” she warned teasingly. “I am trolling for a husband you know.” Archer’s dark brows shot up in mock horror. “Never say!” Then he leaned closer to whisper. “Is my brother actually fool enough to let you get away?” Rose’s heart lurched at the note of seriousness in his voice. When she raised her gaze to his she saw only concern and genuine affection there. “He’s packing my bags as we speak.” He laughed then, a deep, rich sound that drew the attention of everyone on the terrace, including his older brother. “Will you by chance be at the Devane musicale next week, Lord Archer?” “I will,” he remarked, suddenly sober. “As much as it pains me to enter that viper’s pit. I’m accompanying Mama and Bronte. Since there’s never been any proof of what she did to Grey, Mama refuses to cut the woman. She’s better than that.” Archer’s use of the word “cut” might have been ironic, but what a relief knowing he would be there. “Would you care to accompany Mama and myself as well?” He regarded her with a sly smile. “My dear, Lady Rose. Do you plan to use me to make my brother jealous?” “Of course not!” And she was honest to a point. “I wish to use your knowledge of eligible beaux and have you buoy my spirits. If that happens to annoy your brother, then so much the better.” He laughed again. This time Grey scowled at the pair of them. Rose smiled and waved. Archer tucked her hand around his arm and guided her toward the chairs where the others sat enjoying the day, the table before them laden with sandwiches, cakes, scones, and all kinds of preserves, cream, and biscuits. A large pot of tea sat in the center. “What are you grinning at?” Grey demanded as they approached. Archer gave his brother an easy smile, not the least bit intimidated. “Lady Rose has just accepted my invitation for both she and her dear mama to accompany us to the Devane musicale next week.” Grey stiffened. It was the slightest movement, like a blade of grass fighting the breeze, but Rose noticed. She’d wager Archer did too. “How nice,” he replied civilly, but Rose mentally winced at the coolness of his tone. He turned to his mother. “I’m parched. Mama, will you pour?” And he didn’t look at her again.