Emily

“She had discovered that the best remedy for heartache was trying to make herself useful to others.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Love in the Afternoon

“I want you cool and regal, earthy and impertinent, spoiling for a fight and abashed at your own temper. I want you flushed with exertion and rosy with sleep. I want you teasing and provocative, somber and thoughtful. I want every emotion, every mood, every year in a lifetime to come. I want you beside me, to encourage and argue with me, to help me and let me help you. I want to be your champion and lover, your mentor and student.”
― Connie Brockway, The Bridal Season

“Where will you go? What will you do?" he demanded.

"That need be no concern of yours--"

"The hell it isn't!" he shouted. "Everything about you is my concern."

She opened her mouth to deny this but the look of him stopped her. For a long tense moment he studied her and when he spoke his voice was low and furious and yearning.

"I don't give a bloody damn if I never share your bed, your name, or your house -- you are still my concern. You can leave, take yourself from my ken, disappear for the rest of my life but you cannot untangle yourself from my -- my concern. That I have of you, Miss Bede, for that, at least, I do not need your permission."

His words shocked her. She looked decades hence and she saw a specter of what might have been haunting her every moment, her every act, for the rest of her life.

"Your concern is misplaced."

"It's mine to misplace," he said steadily.”
― Connie Brockway, My Dearest Enemy

“You can figure out what the villain fears by his choice of weapons.”
― Connie Brockway, The Bridal Season