Lovin' Fridays: The Bride Finder

There's a certain high that comes from waking up in the morning and realising it's a Friday. It's like the sun came up brighter. Sure it's not the same high you get when you realise it's Saturday but it sure comes close! To celebrate and stimulate those good feelings, we'll be running Lovin' Fridays.

On Lovin' Fridays, we'll post an excerpt from a novel with a declaration of love or a marriage proposal that gave us the warm and fuzzies, made us laugh, made us cry or made us think.

I've chosen Madeline & Anatole from The Bride Finder for today's Lovin' Friday ~ A tender historical romance, with a touch of paranormal, that I fell in love with in 2008.

She loved him far too much ... loved him.

The thought caused Madeline's heart to still. She had never whispered those words before, not to herself, not even to him when they had so passionately made love upon the hillside.

And yet it was like something that had always been a part of her, something she always should have known. In spite of all that he was, nay, because of the man that he was, she loved him.

And if she had ever been able to turn away from her precious reason and listen to her heart instead, she would have recognised that fact much sooner.
(excerpt page 343)

"Madeline," he said, his voice low but strong. I gave this sword to you once before in a ceremony that had no meaning. Because I did not understand then what it meant to surrender my heart to a woman, as I now do."

He knelt before her, her fire gold hair shining about her shoulders, her slender form draped in the soft white nightgown, almost luminescent in the candle's glow.

He raised up the sword. "Will it please you, lady, to accept it now? My heart, my soul, yours forever?"
(excerpt page 399)

Doesn't this capture the essence of romance??
Revisiting The Bride Finder makes me want to enjoy it all over again. You can see my review (short & sweet) here.