Page 58 of Pride: The Rogue
“Hardly respectable means.”
“You didn’t have to resort to selling your body,” she said quietly.
He frowned.
“Women,” she clarified. “Our options at making money and having careers are limited, Lachlan. My sister did good, honest, respectable work. Even with that, we never had enough money for proper shoes with sturdy soles. We still couldn’t stay warm or have enough food that our bellies didn’t rumble.”
Restless energy thrumming through her, Livian sat up, and under the covers, she drew her knees into tailor-style. “Whereas you built a future for yourself, I’m not afforded the same ability.”
“Your brother-in-law is a nobleman, Livian,” he said, more like one trying to understand that patronize. “If you don’t want to marry—”
“If I don’t want to marry, I can be a poor relation, dependent upon the charity and generosity of my family.”
Lachlan sat up and drawing his knees to his chest, rested his back against the wall. “You’d give up your freedom, then?”
“You strike me as a proud man, Lachlan. Even if you had the most loving, devoted, wealthy sibling—let’s say, a brother—wouldyouwant to be reliant upon them?”
Lachlan went silent. He didn’t however, say ‘it was different’, and she lost her heart to him for that.
Having finally reached him. Livian didn’t let up. “And if that sibling had a family of his own, a wife, a husband, and two babes how would you feel sharing their household and lives? Would you not feel like a hanger-on?”
“I…understand that,” he said, somberly.
He understood.
Livian stared off into the flames swaying gently in the hearth.
When it came to having someone to confide in, she’d been alone for so long, and aside from Bertha—her entire life, really. Her sister Verity, her brother-in-law Malcom, even her younger sister, Billy, in their own way, babied her.
Lachlan? Lachlan saw her and spoke to her as an equal. Even in the way he challenged her or questioned her, he did so without velvet gloves.
“Livian?”
She pulled her gaze from the fire and put it on Lachlan. “Yes?”
“Is that enough of a reason to be miserable for the rest of your entire life?” Lachlan put that quietly spoken question to her, with genuine curiosity, and more, concern.
“I…don’t know?” she confessed.
Her gut clenched as she, for the first time acknowledged, even to herself, her reservations.
She chewed at her lower lip. “I…”
“Yes?” he urged.
“I want to have funds I am free to use to help charities I’m passionate about,” she said, and all of her heart’s desires came spilling out. “I want to be able to go into streets my sister and brother-in-law forbid me from visiting, to discover what the people there need, and provide them with actual help. And a family!” she exclaimed. “Children,” she clarified.
As soon as the admission slipped free,shefelt, somehow lighter—freed.
Oh, it wouldn’t be like her sister’s family, but it would be a family of sorts. Nor was Livian delusional enough to believe she’d find love at the duchess’ house party. “At best, I can hope for a kind, gentle husband who will give me those children, and I want that.”
When Lachlan didn’t add anything, she peered at him.
“What about at worst, Livian?”
Stricken by that question, she stared at him.
His arms folded around his knees, he waved his right hand at the air. “You’re imagining your husband will support your endeavors and fund them, but according to everything you’ve shared, you don’t really know the gent. Hell, your sister doesn’t even know him.”
