" Josephine, please wait,” he said. Even he could hear his voice catch in his throat.
She turned to face him and wiped away a tear with the sleeve of her cloak.
When he had been searching frantically for her, he had thought of what he’d say, of how he would apologize and beg for her forgiveness. But now his mind was blank and he was beginning to feel quite foolish, the one feeling above all others he detested . He blurted out the first thing that came to his mind. “Ye’re beautiful.”
Josephine looked as though she either did not believe him or those were not the words she wanted to hear.
He cleared his throat once, then again. “I did no’ want to think that about ye. I did no’ want to find ye beautiful.”
“You mean you did not want to find me at all,” she told him. “I know you are against this marriage, Graeme. For what reasons, I do not know. I can only assume that you find me beneath you.”
This was the most they had spoken to one another in years. She certainly did not mince words. Her words stung, but they were nothing but truth. No vehemence, no anger, just simply put.
“That be true,” he said before quickly adding, “I mean, that was true.” He took a step toward her. “By now, I am certain me family has told ye that I can be a stubborn, hard-headed fool.”
“I was able to glean that on my own,” she told him. "

― Suzan Tisdale , Isle of the Blessed