Marrying Winterborne

en so fascinated by anyone as she was by this big, dark-haired stranger with an accent like rough music.

“Hush, bychan, little one, my dove. Nothing is worth your tears.”

“I’ve been ruined,” Helen added, perhaps a bit too cheerfully. But after twenty-one years of being shy and predictable and sitting quietly in corners, she had discovered an untoward enjoyment in shocking people.

Rhys lowered his face until their foreheads were touching, and he was lost in the moonstone glow of her eyes. “Heart of my heart, you need no man to give you away. Just come to me of your own free will. Love me for who I am . . . just as I love you for who you are . . . and our bond will last until the stars lose their shining.”

There was only good in Helen. That gentle, valiant spirit, that perfect mixture of strength and kindness, was all her own.

“Mark my words, girls. There is no greater enemy of virtue than a charming Welshman.”

“She’ll think you’re too pretty. And too soft. She doesn’t understand your kind of strength.”

Helen looked pleased. “You think I’m strong?”

“I do,” he said without hesitation. “You have a will like a steel blade.”

“Helen was hacking and spitting so much the other day that we thought she was coming down with a cold, until we realized she was practicing the Welsh alphabet.”

My last thought each night is that you should be in my arms. There is no peace or pleasure in my empty bed, where I sleep with you only in dreams and wake to curse the dawn.

If I had the right, I would forbid you to go anywhere without me. Not out of selfishness, but because being apart from you is like trying to live without breathing.

Think on that. You’ve stolen my very breath, cariad. And now I’m left to count the days until I take it back from you, kiss by kiss.

Kissing is the best thing lips do other than smiling.