Page 43 of A Lady's Wager
“And perhaps love, if they are lucky.”
Etta shrugged. “Love is not security.”
“So then by your own definition, love is not happiness?”
She narrowed her eyes at him, unsure if they were being playful with one another or not. The tenets she was sharing were the foundation upon which she lived her life. “How on earth could something as fleeting and unreliable as love ever bring happiness?”
“It sounds as though you don’t credit love as any asset in a good match.”
“I don’t.”
He lifted his eyebrows. “You don’t credit love at all?”
She shook her head. “Why would I?”
“Because love is…everything.”
She snorted and looked out the window, feeling her past begin to burn in her stomach. “Love is nothing,” she said under her breath.
She was unsure he’d heard her as the silence stretched and pulled between them. Brief flashes of memories associated with love moved through her mind…each memory ending inheartache that would not have been so sharp if she hadn’t loved in the first place. Her first husband had courted her with fervor, only to distance himself once they were wed and turn cold when it became apparent that she would not be able to give him an heir. For the last two years of their marriage, he would not even dine with her. His death was painful because of the love she still held in her heart for him—enough to have kept her hopeful that one day he would realize what she had to offer, aside from children, and love her again. That day never came.
She entered her second marriage believing herself wiser in the ways of the heart. Timothy had not wanted additional children and so that did not work against her, and she believed love would grow between them in time. His children, however, were chaotic, and he was indulgent to the point where she had no respect for him, let alone love, which he knew and resented. She had learned to function as a supportive partner, and in public he had treated her with kindness, but behind closed doors he was increasingly cruel and impossible to please as each year passed. She never loved him, which made his death much easier to accept, and it solidified her belief in seeking security and nothing else. Had Timothy lived another twenty years, however, she’d have been content because he had the means to provide a life that gave her happiness and position. That was what she wanted for her charges—confidence in their place in the world.
“What if Rachel loves him?”
It took a moment for Etta to bring her thoughts back to the man sitting across from her in the bouncing carriage.
“She does not love him.”
“She ran away with him,” Mr. Firth reminded her. “She risks her entire reputation, family, and future to be with him.”
“That is infatuation, desire, and ignorance—not love, though I can see how those things are easily confused with one another as they are all equally tenuous.”
He smirked. She smirked back.
“But seriously, what if her feelings for him are strong? What if family, reputation, and future do not matter as much as how she feels?”
“Then she needs to be protected from herself,” Etta said. “Those feelings will not last, to say nothing of the fact that she is a young woman with a fortune, which puts her at even more risk. She cannot know your son’s intentions; therefore, she cannot trust her feelings either.”
He held her eyes a moment across the carriage. “We are not talking about my son.”
Etta paused a moment to review their exchange thus far. “Yes, we are, you began this line of conversation by asking if she loved him.”
“Him, but not Reed. She is not with Reed.”
Etta sighed dramatically and cast her eyes toward the carriage ceiling. “You make my point exactly.”
“How so?”
She leaned forward slightly. “Amid your questions to me, you did not ask if I have children of my own because you know that I do not and do not wish to rub salt in the wound. A credit to your manners, to be sure, but I suspect that in your mind, you have determined that since I do not know what it is to have and love a husband or a child of my own, I cannot know what love is. I shall turn that on its head and state that because you are blinded by the love you feel for your son, you cannot imagine him behaving outside of the values you have tried to teach him. Love is both blind and blinding.”
“And you are, therefore, the only one who can see any of this clearly.” Mr. Firth waved his hand through the air. “Because you love no one.”
She held his eyes, then turned back to her window. She did not expect him to understand, so why was she arguing?
“I have known great love in my life,” Mr. Firth said.
She turned to look at him, a quick retort on her tongue about men and women loving differently due to the power of their positions, but he was looking out the window, his eyes far away from the landscape streaking outside of the glass. “I met my late wife when I was seventeen years old, and I knew that she would change my life forever. We could not marry, of course, but for the next six years, I did all I could to get ready for the day. When that day arrived…” He paused for a breath and Etta felt the change in the air. The sounds outside the carriage muted. “I don’t even have the words to explain what it felt like to take her hand and step into a life together. I suppose I did offer security: a successful estate and responsibilities in the village that kept me grounded. But I do not believe that is what made us so happy together.” He turned to look at her. “Each other’s welfare was our top priority, and therefore we were both well cared for. That is what made us happy. Not the land and the comforts of our lifestyle; it was all about the love. Love was everything.”
