different qualities. What people call romantic love is not much more than a glorified term for mundane physical passion and tends not to outlive it.’
She flushed, but met his gaze squarely. ‘I concede that passion is important, but love is an entity in itself. You are completely wrong to dismiss it so cavalierly.’
He raised a brow at her dismissive tones.
‘Of course I am, being so very green,’ he said quietly. There was a limit to the abuse he would take from this young woman.
‘No, you’re not green, just wrong. I may have had very little experience of the world, but I have also been very lucky. When I lost my mother I thought I would never find anyone else who would care for me as much, but now I have other people I love, really deeply love, like Mrs Petheridge and my best friend Anna, and it would be devastating to lose them. I may not expect to find that depth of feeling with a husband, but there must be elements of that for it to be worthwhile marrying. That is what I mean by love. Working in a girls’ school where children can’t help but mirror the joy or pain of their families is a fairly good arena to explore that particular topic. I have had excellent opportunities to observe the products of the kind of union this betrothal might lead to and I have excellent reasons for refusing. I grew up knowing what it is like to be insignificant and powerless and I will never put myself in that position again.’ She leaned back, her Nordic sea eyes narrowed and challenging. ‘But this discussion is pointless. Why don’t we discuss what you are really interested in—the Bascombe water rights. Well, I promise I won’t be in the least unreasonable. I don’t want to be at war with my neighbours. There is no reason why we cannot come to an agreement that is fair for all parties.’
Hunter shifted in his chair, battling the urge to give her as thorough a lecture in return. It would be cruel to take from her anything that had been so painfully won by pointing out that relations between men and women were substantially different than the kind of familial friendships she had thankfully developed away from Tilney. He knew the value of friendships all too well and he knew the pain of loss that came with loving someone who was brutally snatched out of reach, and those, thankfully, had nothing to do with the institution of marriage. To point this out would not only be churlish but counterproductive. He focused instead on her statement about the water rights.
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