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Olivia stood, stupidly blinking, unable to comprehend what was going on.
“If you are indeed with child, I shall do my duty and take you as my wife. I shall try to do right by you, protect you as best I can, but it is best we live separately. If you are not with child, I think it best if we cease our friendship and go our separate ways.”
Olivia opened her mouth a couple of times to answer, to say something, anything, but no words were forthcoming.
“You’ve seen what happened. You were already attacked once. And what if I had died? Who would protect you then? I have a lot of enemies. My life is full of danger, and I’d rather not subject you to it.”
Olivia kept silent, so after a moment, Jarvis continued, “I visited my cousin last night, and he… Well, he is not an upstanding gentleman, but he made me think. He said he kept mistresses and had liaisons because his wife was too weak to endure his advances, the marriage duty. But he was being selfish. If he loved her truly, he wouldn’t shackle his wife to him while spending nights with other women. He just made it easy for himself. He had her soul, but not her body. So he sought physical comfort from other women. I do not want to be selfish. I love you, but by shackling myself to you, I shall make you miserable. And that is if you survive being married to me in the first place.”
There was a pause, and Jarvis turned to leave. Olivia raised her hand to stall him. “Wait!”
He stilled and looked at her with a questioning look on his face.
Olivia took a deep breath, organizing her thoughts. “You are even worse than your cousin,” she finally said.
“Pardon?” Jarvis looked utterly confused.
“You come here passing judgment on him when you are just as selfish, or perhaps even worse. Do you know how lonely it is living like me? I crave companionship and yet I am not able to look a person in the eye for long enough to make them realize I pay attention. I speak out of turn, so they don’t think I am interested in what they have to say. The only person who truly understands me, the one I can rely on and the one I feel comfortable with, is you. And yet you reject me because you feel I would be better without you? Well, let me tell you something new. In the years that I have known you, I was never better without you.”
Now it was Jarvis’s time to gape.
“But go ahead. Be selfish and leave. Because if you truly loved me, you’d put my needs ahead of yours and not the other way around.” She paused. “Now step aside, please. I have to prepare for an outing. Bradshaw is holding a musical, and he invited me to spend the evening with him. Good day.”
Olivia turned on her heel and walked away, the clucking of her heels and swishing of skirts as deafening as her anger.
