QUOTE : She wouldn't look up at him, wouldn't take her hands from her eyes; she didn't want him to see her. So he wrapped his arms around her like armor, making a shelter for her to fall apart ... He surreptitiously rested his cheek against the top of her head. That rich hair was too silky and fine and warm, and her narrow pale part seemed ridiculously pale and vulnerable as a fontanelle. Here, it seemed to say, was proof that Thomasina de Ballesteros could be broken. Cracked like an egg. That she was human.<br />The rage he felt then toward the duke was almost euphoric. Almost holy.<br />This is how crusades are born, he thought. With this kind of certainty about right and wrong, good and evil, and the need to avenge.