Brigid was the riggings to her sail. She didn’t let her get carried away. Well, too carried away.

She deserved someone who could see what she had to give and would lover her for it. Who wouldn’t turn away from her every time she made a mistake. She wanted to be important to someone. Perhaps, it was unrealistic, but the alternative was far worse. She could live with a broken heart, but not at the expense of her soul.

Only one man walked with that kind of impatience – as if he was waiting for the world to catch up to him.

As soon as the man had gone, Caitrina moved to stand before him, her soft feminine scent clouding his senses. Would it always be like this – this clawing need for her? The inability to think when she was near? The feeling that if he didn’t take her in his arms and kiss her, he would surely die?

Good gracious, these women were as judgmental as St. Peter at the pearl gates!

I love you, Bella. I will love you not until my dying day, but from the heights of heaven or the depths of hell until my soul ceases to be.

Although, we might want to come up with a different story to tell our children. I don’t think ‘Father ravished Mummy against a wall so he had to marry her’ is exactly the kind of lesson in courtship we want to impart.

She’d loved him too much and given too much of herself away in the process.

I would have you be the honorable man I thought you were for my whole life. I’d have you understand that what you have offered me, what you planned for us, is more impossible than marriage. I would have you love me enough not to even ask the question.

She entered the hall at the same time he did from the opposite side. With a cry that told her exactly how worried she'd been about him, she raced into his arms.She could hear the reverberation of his laugh in his chest as he lifted her up and spun her in his arms. Still in his embrace, he set her feet back on the ground and pressed a quick kiss on her lips, the brevity of which she suspected was due to their audience. His voice was low and husky. "Miss me?"-Kenneth Sutherland & Mary of Mar