Karen Hawkins

Men think they like to be challenged. The truth is, they only like to be challenged if they win.

Her gaze flickered to the balcony doors and back, her brows knitted in confusion. __y balcony doesn__ connect to yours.___ jumped._ He grinned at the flash of concern he saw in __er eyes. __t dinner, your grandmother informed me that you__ be moving to the room beside mine. She also mentioned how close my balcony was to yours; so close that even an old lady like herself could leap between the two without the least effort.__enetia__ cheeks heated and she pulled her nightgown closer. __randmama is anything but subtle.___lmost as subtle as your mother.___h, no! Not Mama, too.__regor paused beside a small table to pick up a silver tray holding a cut crystal decanter and matching glasses and set it on the table before Venetia. __our mother was concerned I might be afraid of heights. She told me that if she were thinking of jumping between the balconies and couldn__ bring herself to make the leap, it might be possible to pick the lock on the connecting door with, say, a cravat pin.__enetia blushed. ____ surprised they aren__ in here now, throwing rose petals before you as you walk.___ would never countenance petal tossing. Too showy.

From the Diary of the Duchess of RoxburgheI vow, I cannot seem to walk past a window without seeing my great-nephew carrying Miss Balfour somewhere. All great romantic poems have such scenes where the hero, in a fit of passion, sweeps the heroine off her feet. Sadly, it appears that Sin__ technique is questionable.I__ surprised that, with all of his supposed experience with the gentler sex, he doesn__ realize that women do not like to be carried in a way that musses their hair and leaves them with unattractively red faces. Sadly, yet another conversation I shall have to have with that boy.

I__e often thought it unfair that women are expected to stay at home when there__ a fight to be won. If awoman has the strength to bear a child, she can swing a sword as well as any man.

You don't have to say a thing except yes. You don't have to do anything, either, I'm quite willing to plan it all." "You?""Yes me.""You'd plan all of it? Even the wedding?""Why not?""You don't even like to plan your own breakfast."He grinned. "You mean more to me tban bacon.""More than [i]bacon?[/i] I'm honored.""You should be, my foolish pea brain.

With a hoarse moan, he swept her against him, kissing her wildly, passionately, his mouth promising and teasing, as if her kiss had broken the dam that had held back his passion.

It was a chaste kiss, but as her lips brushed his warm cheek, her eyes met his. They were deep and dark, warm with passion and longing. And somehow she knew, without question, what he thought. What he felt. Time held its breath - and in that moment, looking into Buchan's warm, tormented gaze, Tatiana's heart awoke.

He slipped his tongue between her lips and thrust it wantonly inside her mouth over and over, echoing the enticing move of his hips against hers. She clutched him closer, reveling in the feel of him, and the fact that she'd made him moan for her, whisper her name over and over, beg her without words for more. To kiss him more. To touch him more.

Buchan had discovered a wealth of small tidbits. He now knew her first name - Tatiana. Like Shakespeare's fairy queen. "Be she but little, she is fierce.

Old Woman Nora of Loch LomondTo her three wee Grandaughters one cold night.

No woman worth her salt would listen to a proposal without the word __ove_ in it.

Tis a sad day when ye ha' t' pinch yerself t' see if ye're awake or in th' midst o' a night terror. 'Tis a really sad day when ye have t' pinch yerself twice."Old woman Nora to her three wee granddaughters on a cold winter's night

Once ye made up yer mind to do somethin', 'tis better t'stumble o'er the small hillock of jump-ahead than t'bash yer head on the jagged rocks of did-nothing.Old Woman Nora of Loch Lomand to her three wee granddaughtersone cold evening