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“The pungent fragrance of gingerbread rose in a warm draught to her nostrils, and Aline laughed in delight. "You remembered!" As a girl, the first thing she had always done at the fair was to gorge on iced gingerbread- and although McKenna had never shared her fondness for the treat, he had always gone with her.
"Of course," McKenna said, extracting a coin from his pocket and purchasing a thick slice for her. "To this day, I've never seen anyone devour an entire loaf the way you used to."
"I did not," Aline protested with a frown, sinking her teeth into the heavy, sticky bread.
"I was in awe," McKenna continued. He drew her away from the stall. "To watch you eat something the size of your head in less than a quarter hour-"
"I would never be that gluttonous," she informed him, deliberately taking another huge bite.
He grinned. "I must be thinking of someone else, then.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Again the Magic

“The air was steeped with the heady fragrance of roses, as if the entire hall had been rinsed with expensive perfume.
"Good Lord!" she exclaimed, stopping short at the sight of massive bunches of flowers being brought in from a cart outside. Mountains of white roses, some of them tightly furled buds, some in glorious full bloom. Two footmen had been recruited to assist the driver of the cart, and the three of them kept going outside to fetch bouquet after bouquet wrapped in stiff white lace paper.
"Fifteen dozen of them," Marcus said brusquely. "I doubt there's a single white rose left in London."
Aline could not believe how fast her heart was beating. Slowly she moved forward and drew a single rose from one of the bouquets. Cupping the delicate bowl of the blossom with her fingers, she bent her head to inhale its lavish perfume. Its petals were a cool brush of silk against her cheek.
"There's something else," Marcus said.
Following his gaze, Aline saw the butler directing yet another footman to pry open a huge crate filled with brick-sized parcels wrapped in brown paper. "What are they, Salter?"
"With your permission, my lady, I will find out." The elderly butler unwrapped one of the parcels with great care. He spread the waxed brown paper open to reveal a damply fragrant loaf of gingerbread, its spice adding a pungent note to the smell of the roses.
Aline put her hand over her mouth to contain a bubbling laugh, while some undefinable emotion caused her entire body to tremble. The offering worried her terribly, and at the same time, she was insanely pleased by the extravagance of it.
"Gingerbread?" Marcus asked incredulously. "Why the hell would McKenna send you an entire crate of gingerbread?"
"Because I like it," came Aline's breathless reply. "How do you know this is from McKenna?"
Marcus gave her a speaking look, as if only an imbecile would suppose otherwise.
Fumbling a little with the envelope, Aline extracted a folded sheet of paper. It was covered in a bold scrawl, the penmanship serviceable and without flourishes.


No miles of level desert, no jagged mountain heights,
no sea of endless blue
Neither words nor tears, nor silent fears
will keep me from coming back to you.


There was no signature... none was necessary. Aline closed her eyes, while her nose stung and hot tears squeezed from beneath her lashes. She pressed her lips briefly to the letter, not caring what Marcus thought.
"It's a poem," she said unsteadily. "A terrible one." It was the loveliest thing she had ever read. She held it to her cheek, then used her sleeve to blot her eyes.
"Let me see it."
Immediately Aline tucked the poem into her bodice. "No, it's private." She swallowed against the tightness of her throat, willing the surge of unruly emotion to recede. "McKenna," she whispered, "how you devastate me.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Again the Magic

“What about Sandridge?" McKenna asked. "Do you love him?"
"Yes," Aline whispered. She loved Adam dearly- just not in the way he meant.
"And yet you're here with me," he murmured.
"Adam-" She stopped and cleared her throat. "Whatever I choose to do... he doesn't mind. This has nothing to do with him... you and I..."
"No, it doesn't," he said with sudden anger. "My God, he should be trying to tear my throat out, instead of letting you go somewhere alone with me. He should be willing to do anything short of murder- hell, I wouldn't even stop at that- to keep other men away from you." Disgust thickened his voice. "You're lying to yourself, if you think that you'll ever be satisfied with the kind of bloodless arrangement your parents had. You need a man who will match your will, own you, occupy every part of your body, and every corner of your soul. In the eyes of the world, Sandridge is your equal- but you and I know better. He's as different from you as ice from fire." He leaned over her, his body forming a hard, living cage around her. "I'm your equal," he said harshly, "though my blood is red instead of blue, though I was condemned by my very birth never to have you... inside, we're the same. And I would break every law of God and man if-"
McKenna stopped suddenly, biting back the words as he realized that he was revealing too much, allowing his rampaging emotions to get the better of him.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Again the Magic

“It was the curse of my life to be sent to this estate. From the moment I first saw you, I felt the connection between us- a connection that should never have existed, and never should have lasted. I tried to admire you from a distance... just as I saw the stars in the sky and knew I could never touch them. But we were too young, and I was with you too often, to preserve that distance. You were my friend, my companion... and later I came to love you as deeply as any man has ever loved a woman. That never changed for me, although I've lied to myself for years." He paused and took a long breath. "No matter how I want to deny it, I will always love you.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Again the Magic

“After a while McKenna rested on his side to watch her. He seemed to have regained control over himself, though his eyes were still bright with unspoken passion.
Aline shook her head with a wistful smile. "No one will ever look at me the way you do. As if you love me with every part of yourself."
Slowly he reached out and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "That's how you look at me too.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Again the Magic

“How much you've accomplished, McKenna. You seem to have gotten everything you've ever wanted. More, even." Turning, she left him with measured strides, calling upon all her self-restraint to keep from running.
"Not everything," McKenna said beneath his breath, his gaze tracking her carefully until she disappeared.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Again the Magic

“Will you be there waiting for me every night, in our cottage?" he murmured.
She nodded, leaning against him.
McKenna's bristly black lashes lowered until they cast shadows on his cheeks. "And you'll scrub my back when I'm tired and dusty from the field?"
Aline pictured his large, powerful body lowering into a wooden tub... his pleasured sigh at the heat of the water... his bronzed back shining in the firelight. "Yes," she breathed. "And then you can soak while I hang the stew pot over the fire, and I'll tell you about the argument I had with the miller, who didn't give me enough flour because his scale was weighted."
McKenna laughed softly while his fingertip skimmed lightly along her throat. "The cheat," he murmured, his eyes sparkling. "I'll speak with him tomorrow- no one tries to fleece my wife and gets away with it. In the meantime, let's go to bed. I want to hold you all night long."
The thought of being tucked in a cozy bed with him, their naked bodies entwined, made Aline tremble with longing. "You'll probably fall asleep as soon as your head touches the pillow," she said. "Farming is hard work- you're exhausted."
"Never too tired to love you." His arms slid around her, and he hunched over to nuzzle the curve of her cheek. His lips were like hot velvet as he whispered against her skin. "I'm going to kiss you from your head to your toes. And I won't stop until you're crying for me, and then I'll pleasure you until you're weak from my loving.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Again the Magic

“I see I'll have to use all my arts to bring out your talkative side."
"I don't have a talkative side."
"It is a guest's responsibility to be entertaining," she informed him.
"Oh, I'll entertain you," he murmured. "I just won't talk while I'm doing it.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Again the Magic

“Awareness rippled through her as she was trapped between the cold, hard wall and the warm, hard man who held her. His body was different from how she remembered it, no longer loose-limbed and narrow, but bigger, heavier, imbued with the strength of a male in his full-blooded prime. McKenna was no longer the winsome boy she remembered... he had become someone else entirely. A powerful, ruthless man, with a body to match. Fascinated by the difference in him, Aline could not stop herself from sliding her hands beneath his coat. Her fingers passed over the burgeoning muscles of his chest, the sturdy vault of his ribs. McKenna went still, disciplining himself so sternly that a tremor of effort went through his limbs.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Again the Magic

“They lounged together at their favorite spot by the river, where a meadow sloped down to the banks. Tall grasses camouflaged them from view as they sat on flat rocks that had been worn smooth by the quietly persistent flow of water. The air was thick with the scents of bog myrtle and sun-warmed heather, a mixture that soothed Aline's senses.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Again the Magic

“I wasn't trying to seduce her."
She responded with a speaking glance, and his dark brows lifted in mocking crescents. "You don't believe me?" he asked.
"No, actually. I think that she is your insurance, in case you don't succeed in bedding me.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Again the Magic

“Obviously you will believe whatever you wish to," she said. "I can do more than offer you the truth."
One of his eyebrows lifted at her tone of offended dignity. "As I learned, my lady, you play fast with the truth when it suits you.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Again the Magic