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She couldn’t bear the thought. She wanted a lifetime of happiness for herself. She wanted as much for Liam. Didn’t he deserve someone who would leap at the chance of marrying him, instead of dallying and hesitating like she was?
What if by saying yes to his rash question, she committed the pair of them to a lifetime of bickering and despising one another?
Even as her throat tightened at the emotion, she knew it was unreasonable. She knew she wanted too much for someone in her position to ever hope for. She knew she should have taken what Liam was offering her because it was her only lifeline.
When she had accepted Martin’s proposal, it had been because it was what had been placed in front of her, what was expected of her. It hadn’t been a choice, not really.
She didn’t want to make this choice now, when it was the only one before her. She didn’t want to make a rash decision right on the spot, when she was angry that she didn’t truly have a choice.
“But I need time to think,” she said at last, knowing it was a complete non-answer. She crossed around the carriage to where the goat’s lead was tied, unfastening it and scooping the animal out of the cab. Once it stood, yawning on the road, Diane straightened herself up, brushing off her dress any wrinkles leftover from their tryst in the garden. “And I think I shall go for a walk.”
Liam’s gaze remained unamused. “And we have time?”
Diane resisted the urge to roll her eyes and scoff, but she did look away from him. She knew as well as he did that she couldn’t stand here and say no to everything forever.
Diane’s eyes flicked to him, her mouth set in a pinched line. “Is half a day very much time to spend thinking about how the rest of our lives will go?”
With that she turned, leading her little supposed fainting goat and herself away.
Even without looking behind her, Diane could feel Liam frowning. It was in the sound of his footsteps, how the sharp clip of his boots crunched on the gravelly dirt road. Diane’s own footsteps had a slightly less pronounced pitter-patter to them. She was doing her best to walk quickly so she could stay ahead of him.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
She didn’t truly know, except that the only direction she was walking in was away from him.
“Somewhere to think! Alone!” she snapped over her shoulder. “I’m going to go and think somewhere with my only companion who has not tried to impose its will on me.”
“And what shall I do, while all this thinking is accomplished?”
She stopped and turned around.
“You, sir, are at liberty to do whatever you like, so long as it only affects yourself. Sit in the carriage, or walk around the town! I’m sure you are so familiar with exercising your own personal agency, that it is so natural to you, you forget you have it.”
Chapter 8: Field Research
Diane could still seethe town from here. A piece of her mind wanted her to keep going, until it was gone from the horizon.
