But we have put together a list of prospective brides, all of them lovely girls. Won’t you take a glance and see if any of them appeals to you?”
Deciding to humor her, Leo looked down at the list. “Marietta Newbury?”
“Yes,” Amelia said. “What’s wrong with her?”
“I don’t like her teeth.”
“What about Isabella Charrington?”
“I don’t like her mother.”
“Lady Blossom Tremaine?”
“I don’t like her name.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Leo, that’s not her fault.”
“I don’t care. I can’t have a wife named Blossom. Every night I would feel as if I were calling in one of the cows.

“But the good news, Leo,” Beatrix said brightly, “is that it’s been four years since you became Lord Ramsay. If you can stay alive for just one more year, the family curse will be broken.”
“And furthermore,” Amelia added, “you have to marry and sire a son as soon as possible.”

What I've discovered from staying married this time around is pretty much what I learned from writing novels: You have to work at it page by page, day by day. And if you stay with your story and characters, if you give your passion and talent and faith to the writing, and if after the bad days, you still come back to the writing, well, you're going to end up not just writing a novel, but learning and growing by doing it. So, with marriage. And like the novels that get finished and end up being wonderful books because you tapped a subject and characters that deeply hold you and intrigue you, the marriages that last and are fairly successful are probably the ones in which you've found someone with whom the roots can go deep and the space can open wide and surprises can happen.

Real love comes with strings you tie yourself.

I stopped as I thought of poor Jack on my bathroom floor, just another victim of Dr. Phil.