Free Miss Merton's Last Hope by Heather Boyd

expect you to marry very well.”
    She didn’t need the reminder. “They have already been very clear about my duty to the family; they have pressured me to marry for many years with no success. But I am a long way from them so I try not to think about future disagreements.”
    Walter turned his face aside. If one of Walter’s greatest wishes was to have a family, and he’d come to think of her fondly, she must have sorely disappointed him. After a moment, he met her gaze again. “For what reason?”
    “I beg your pardon.”
    “For what reason do you not wish for children.” He stared at her hard, clearly baffled by her decision. “Are you afraid to lose your figure?”
    Julia gasped and crossed the room to sit at her side. “Mr. George, that is a very rude question you ask.”
    For a moment, it surprised Melanie to have Julia jump to her defense. Many women in society were vain about their appearance and it pained her that Walter thought so little of her. She didn’t care about her figure. Her decision was reasoned, and entirely sensible.
    That wasn’t much comfort now though. Melanie rubbed her arms. “So, like Mr. Radley, you think maintaining my appearance is all that is important to me.”
    “Is it the reason?”
    She met his gaze steadily. “Of course it is not.”
    “What will you do? Spend the rest of your life waiting on Julia and her children? Return to Oxford to tend to your parents’ ailments in their final years?” Walter asked, his voice rising. “I imagine that will be hard to do convincingly.”
    “Walter George, that is enough,” Julia protested.
    “Oh, I don’t think so,” he snapped.
    He leaned forward. “What will happen to you when Julia does not need or want you underfoot anymore? Will your father’s estate provide a home for you?”
      “Steady on, George,” Valentine warned.
    Walter rose, towering above her, but she remained seated and held his gaze. She really had upset him over Imogen and she was sorry for that.
    “Without her sight, Imogen was prepared to live alone, away from the ones she loved. She couldn’t bear the idea of being a burden, of having to be watched and waited on at all times because she could not see the dangers ahead of her.”
    Melanie shivered. Imogen’s illness had once brought on such extreme panic in herself that she had spoken once without thought, venting her fears in a way that made her cringe now. To lose one’s sight was a tragedy, but more so in Imogen’s case because she wrote such wonderful tales. Melanie had prayed for her recovery every day, but Walter could not know that because she’d done so privately and never breathed a word of it to anyone. All anyone had heard of Melanie was the bad, because her cousin had made everything she said and did seem even worse. “She was very ill.”
    “She was not ill. She was afraid, and hurt by the things you said about her particularly. As was I.” His jaw clenched tight a moment. “I thought you’d changed, but you are still entirely selfish. You chose the easy way, to love only yourself. I doubt you could ever put another’s needs first.”
    His accusations stung. She loved many in Brighton, but she had accepted she was not equipped to show it long ago.
    She dropped her gaze, thoroughly ashamed of her behavior with Walter. She was exactly the tease to him that Linus Radley had accused her of being.
    “I’m sure you are in the right of it. Excuse me.” Melanie hurried from the room, running upstairs, away from everyone. She was always a lady, and should never allow anyone to ruffle her feathers, but she couldn’t bear Walter’s disappointment. He had stripped her of her composure entirely and made her see how he viewed her too.
    Her eyes filled with tears as she heard him take his leave abruptly. She had for a brief moment lost what little good sense she possessed but there was no escaping her mistakes. She was not good. Not even Walter believed that of her anymore.
    When Julia came