A Dangerous Love. Brenda Joyce

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СКАЧАТЬ to see. She doubted she could accomplish all she wished to in a lifetime.

      She slowly faced her sister.

      Dianna smiled, but with anxiety. “I am so glad you are home! I have missed you, Ariella.” Her tone was now coaxing.

      “I have missed you, too,” Ariella said, not quite truthfully. A foreign land, where she was surrounded by exotic smells, sights and sounds, facing people she couldn’t wait to understand, was far too exciting for nostalgia or any homesick emotion. Even in London, she could spend days and days in a museum and not notice the passage of time.

      “I am so glad you have met us at Rose Hill,” Dianna said. “Tonight will be so amusing. I met the younger Montgomery, and if his older brother is as charming, you might very well forget about Genghis Khan.” She added, “I don’t think you should mention the Mongols at supper, Ariella. No one will understand.”

      Ariella hesitated. “In truth, I wish it were just a family affair. I cannot bear an evening spent discussing the weather, Amanda’s roses, the last hunt or the upcoming horse races.”

      “Why not?” Dianna asked. “Those are suitable topics for discussion. Will you promise not to speak of the Mongols and the steppes, or supper parties with academics and reformers?” She smiled, but uncertainly. “Everyone will think you’re a radical—and far too independent.”

      Ariella balked. “Then I must be allowed absolute, ungracious silence.”

      “That is childish.”

      “A woman should be able to speak her mind. I speak my mind in town. And I am somewhat radical. There are terrible social conditions in the land. The penal code has hardly been changed, never mind the hoopla, and as for parliamentary reform—”

      Dianna cut her off. “Of course you speak your mind in town—you aren’t in polite company. You said so yourself!” Dianna stood, agitated. “I love you dearly. I am asking you as a beloved sister to attempt a proper discourse.”

      Ariella groused, “You have become so conservative. Fine. I won’t discuss any subject without your approval. I will look at you and wait for a wink. No, wait. Tug your left earlobe and I will know I am allowed to speak.”

      “Are you making a mockery of my sincere attempts to see you successfully wed?”

      Ariella sat down, hard. Her little sister wished to see her wed so badly? It was simply stunning.

      Dianna smiled coaxingly. “I also think you should not mention that Papa allows you to live alone in London.”

      “I’m rarely alone. There is a house full of servants, the earl and Aunt Lizzie are often in town, and Uncle Rex and Blanche are just a half hour away at Harrington Hall.”

      “No matter who comes and goes at Harmon House, you live like an independent woman. Our guests would be shocked—Lord Montgomery would be shocked!” She was firm. “Father really needs to come to his senses where you are concerned.”

      “I am not entirely independent. I receive moneys from my estates, but Father is the trustee.” Ariella bit her lip. When had Dianna become so proper? When had she become exactly like everyone else her age and gender? Why couldn’t she see that free thinking and independence were states to be coveted, not condemned?

      Dianna smoothed the gown on the bed. “Father is so smitten with you, he can’t see straight. There is some gossip, you know, about your residing in London without family.” She looked up. “I love you. You are twenty-four. Father isn’t inclined to rush a match, but you are of age. It is time, Ariella. I am looking out for your best interests.”

      Ariella was dismayed. It was time to set her sister straight about Lord Montgomery. “Dianna, please don’t think to match me with Montgomery. I don’t mind being unwed.”

      “If you don’t marry, what will you do? What about children? If Father gives you your inheritance, will you travel the world? For how long? Will you travel at forty? At eighty?”

      “I hope so,” Ariella cried, excited by the notion.

      Dianna shook her head. “That’s madness!”

      They were as different as night and day. “I don’t want to get married,” Ariella said firmly. “I will only marry if it is a true meeting of the minds. But I will be polite to Lord Montgomery. I promised you I won’t speak of the matters I care about, and I won’t—but dear God, cease and desist. I can think of nothing worse than a life of submission to some closed-minded, proper gentleman. I like my life just as it is.”

      Dianna was incredulous. “You’re a woman, Ariella, and God intended for you to take a husband and bear his children—and yes, be submissive to him. What do you mean by a meeting of the minds? Who marries for such a union?”

      Ariella was shocked that her sister would espouse such traditional views—even if almost all of society held them. “I do not know what God decreed for women—or for me,” she managed. “Men have decreed that women must marry and bear children! Dianna, please try to understand. Most men would not let me roam Oxford, in the guise of a man, eavesdropping on the lectures of my favorite professors.” Dianna gasped. “Most men would not allow me to spend entire days in the archives of the British Museum,” Ariella continued firmly. “I refuse to succumb to a traditional marriage—if I ever succumb at all.”

      Dianna moaned. “I can see the future now—you will marry some radical socialist lawyer!”

      “Perhaps I will. Can you truly see me as some proper gent’s wife, staying at home, changing gowns throughout the day, a pretty, useless ornament? Except, of course, for the five, six or seven children I will have to bear, like a broodmare!”

      “That is a terrible way to look at marriage and family,” Dianna said, appearing stunned. “Is that what you think of me? Am I a pretty, useless ornament? Is my mother, is Aunt Lizzie, is our cousin Margery? And bearing children is a wonderful thing. You like children!”

      How had this happened? Ariella wondered. “No, Dianna, I beg your pardon. I do not think of you in such terms. I adore you—you are my sister, and I am so proud of you. None of the women in our family are pretty, useless ornaments.”

      “I am not stupid,” Dianna finally said. “I know you are brilliant. Everyone in this family says so. I know you are better read than just about every gentleman of our acquaintance. I know you think me foolish. But it isn’t foolish to want a good marriage and children. To the contrary, it is admirable to want a home, a husband and children.”

      Ariella backed off. “Of course it is—because you genuinely want those things.”

      “And you don’t. You want to be left alone to read book after book about strange people like the Mongols. It is very foolish to think of spending an entire lifetime consumed with the lives of foreigners and the dead! Unless, of course, you marry a gentleman for his mind! Has it ever occurred to you that one day you might regret such a choice?”

      Ariella was surprised. “No, it hasn’t.” She realized her little sister had grown up. She sighed. “I am not ruling out marriage, Dianna. But I am not in a rush, and I cannot ever marry if it will compromise my happiness.” She added, mostly to please her sister, “Perhaps one day I will find that once-in-a-lifetime love our family is so notorious for.”

      Dianna СКАЧАТЬ