Emrys' lips pursed as she spoke. At first, he didn't reply. He had known that she wouldn't offer him a simple yes or no; there would be conditions. She could have demanded that he keep things private enough that there was no cause for rumors, or been careful never to produce a bastard. Those would have been reasonable requests, and ones he could easily have agreed to. She could have tried for something closer to polite sensibility, like no men or no secrets, either of which would have been much more difficult for him to agree to. In the end, she'd only put out two conditions, one unspoken. The verbalized one: he would have to marry her. The silent one: she would be unhappy. She hadn't articulated it and might even have denied it if he'd asked her, but it was clear to him from the way she'd spoken, and her body language while she'd considered her words. I accept your desires was a passive phrase, indicating submitting her own will to his, overlooking her needs in favor of his. Maybe that could work for some women, but he knew Angelica too well to think that she was one of them.
He didn't know exactly what it would take to make her happy, but one thing was clear: his current lifestyle wouldn't do it. He'd thought back in January that he was attached to his lifestyle, but now he was realizing that he might not have minded a few changes. It wasn't the prospect of missing out on things that made him so change-averse, but rather that he didn't know if he could. Was he even capable of making her happy, or would a marriage to him doom her to misery, sooner or later?
He could make Miss Cosgrove happy. The whole point of the courtship had been determining whether or not that was the case, and he was satisfied that it was. She wanted to travel; to be surrounded by nice things; to have an entrenched position in wealthy pureblood society. He could do that for her without changing a thing about himself or his behavior. He wasn't so naive as to believe that she would be blissfully happy for the rest of her days after he slipped a wedding band on her finger, but at least he knew that if she became unhappy in the future it would be because her expectations had changed, not because he had disappointed them. He could live with himself if he married Miss Cosgrove and she eventually made herself unhappy. He wasn't sure the same could be said if he agreed to marry Angelica and immediately began making her unhappy — and between the conversation last night and this one, it didn't seem they had a particularly auspicious start.
Tension collected in his shoulders as though his body intended to form an armor to defend him from an incoming blow. He met her eyes, although doing so made his insides squirm uncomfortably. "If that is how you feel, then you cannot be with me," he said. "I won't marry you."
He didn't know exactly what it would take to make her happy, but one thing was clear: his current lifestyle wouldn't do it. He'd thought back in January that he was attached to his lifestyle, but now he was realizing that he might not have minded a few changes. It wasn't the prospect of missing out on things that made him so change-averse, but rather that he didn't know if he could. Was he even capable of making her happy, or would a marriage to him doom her to misery, sooner or later?
He could make Miss Cosgrove happy. The whole point of the courtship had been determining whether or not that was the case, and he was satisfied that it was. She wanted to travel; to be surrounded by nice things; to have an entrenched position in wealthy pureblood society. He could do that for her without changing a thing about himself or his behavior. He wasn't so naive as to believe that she would be blissfully happy for the rest of her days after he slipped a wedding band on her finger, but at least he knew that if she became unhappy in the future it would be because her expectations had changed, not because he had disappointed them. He could live with himself if he married Miss Cosgrove and she eventually made herself unhappy. He wasn't sure the same could be said if he agreed to marry Angelica and immediately began making her unhappy — and between the conversation last night and this one, it didn't seem they had a particularly auspicious start.
Tension collected in his shoulders as though his body intended to form an armor to defend him from an incoming blow. He met her eyes, although doing so made his insides squirm uncomfortably. "If that is how you feel, then you cannot be with me," he said. "I won't marry you."
Lou made this! <3