Page 102 of The Scandal You Started
What bloody jaded hero out of an adventure novel was trapped in her body? And how on Neves was he meant to defeat said hero and show her what he saw?
Marriage, laughter, children. Years of happiness that would paint lines on their faces.
He wanted it all with her.
But she wanted none of it.
The most frustrating part was that Dominic could understand why.
She’d been right to some degree. Marriage wasn’t for women what it was for men. He’d seen it with his own eyes amongst theton.
He’d seen men treat it as more of an exchange that society expected them to do at some point in their lives, or multiple times even. They took on the responsibility of a wife in exchange for legitimate heirs, someone to warm their bed, the money, and the influence and power her family name brought with her.
But to what degree they took on that responsibility was entirely up to them.
He’d seen some men soil their vows of marriage by keeping many a mistress and talking badly of their wives while drugged on opium amongst their friends. He’d even heard of some beating their wives and wearing it as a badge of honour when it was anything but.
And the women?
As their husbands’ property with no rights of their own, there was very little they could do to stop a man from mistreating them. A woman’s husband could lock her up in a country estate, or dump her in a madhouse, or force her to be someone she wasn’t, and she could do nothing of it without the support of a father, brother, or male cousin.
Because society functioned on a man’s will, not a woman’s.
Yet women still married. In fact, they were eager to marry.
Dominic was ashamed to admit so, but he had silently judged the ladies of thetonwho had shamelessly thrown themselves at possible suitors, treating other women like enemies and behaving rather cruelly just to marry a wealthy duke whose name was littered with scandal. Only for the woman to titter about it so proudly as if she had achieved something grand.
After what Rayna had said, he was beginning to question his own judgement.
After all, how else was a woman meant to survive when men had restricted her ability to exist alone, other than by aligning herself with the most powerful man in the room, no matter howvile of a human he was? At least then, she’d have some sense of power and security, preventing society from preying on her.
But give a woman freedom, money, a home of her own, the ability to have children, and safety without the need of a man, and there was no reason for her to marry, was there? Especially not a man who would disregard his responsibility or try to take away what she’d already gained for herself.
Dominic might not have understood as much if, in the past month or so, he hadn’t been forced to learn what it meant to rely on someone else for everything.
Food. Knowledge. Travel. Shelter. Money.Freedom.
Rayna, River, the people at the POTeM lab—they had dictated all aspects of his life since he’d arrived in the future. They’d been generous to him, but oh, how it tasted bitter and burned at the edges of his pride when he thought about how helpless he was without them. It was dispiriting and stifling not being able to do very much by himself.
Was that how it felt for women from his time?
While it had given him a new perspective to consider, Dominic still didn’t fully agree with Rayna that that was what every marriage was.
Marriage for him was about providing everything a wife needed and gaining her love. Loving her back and gaining her respect. Respecting her back and gaining her comfort. Comforting her too and gaining her trust. Trusting her with his life and gaining her for an eternity.
One was not meant to win more than the other, but their roles within it were different. And yet it was still a partnership built on cherishing each other.
That is what Dominic had witnessed around him. From what his father had told him of his birth mother, even though their marriage had been arranged. And from all the love his father had given Mother Penny before his passing. Dominic hadn’t let hissister, Mary, marry until he’d been sure his friend, Flyn, would care for her with all his heart.
Dominic wanted the same for himself. He wanted that with Rayna.
He wanted her to rely on him the way a woman was meant to rely on her husband. Without ever worrying he’d fail her. But she had purposely closed her eyes to what love and marriage were really meant to be, and he didn’t know how he could coax her into opening them just for him.
Dominic folded over in defeat, dropping his forehead against the back of his hands piled atop the worn stick of the broom. “I am at a loss for what to do, Beast.”
Silence filled with the munching of the other horses in their stalls, and lazy clops of hooves echoed around him as he stared at the mess of hay on the floor.
Wet lips travelled over the back of his hair, wide nostrils sniffing and puffing across his neck.
