Free Candice Hern by Once a Dreamer

happiness.”
    “I wonder how many of those girls who followed your advice found happiness?” she said. “Or how many ended up alone and brokenhearted, or bound forever to a sham hero who makes herlife a misery, or ruined forever by some cad. Like Belinda.”
    The carriage hit a deep rut, and the two of them were bounced clear off the bench. Eleanor was almost certain Mr. Westover had knocked his head against the ceiling, but he ignored the discomfort and continued as though they sat relaxed and at ease in his Mayfair drawing room.
    “I choose to trust in a more felicitous future for the majority of my correspondents,” he said. “I have more faith in love. And dreams. Do you never dream, Mrs. Tennant?”
    “Yes, of course I do, but I dream with my eyes open. I know exactly what it is like to live in the real world. For women especially, it is often a bitter reality.” The carriage took another bounce and she was thrown hard against his side. She pulled herself away but not before intercepting an intense look in those bright blue eyes. She ignored the odd stirring in her breast set off by that look, and continued the conversation as though no awkward interruption had occurred.
    “Your encouragement of romantic ideals in a young woman,” Eleanor continued, “does nothing to prepare her for life in the world. It is irresponsible at best, dangerous at worst, to dole out sentiments that offer false hopes of everlasting love and devotion.”
    “I am afraid I cannot be so cynical on the subject of love. I rejoice in those tender emotions that refine and exalt the human character.”
    He smiled as she raised her eyes to the ceiling in silent exasperation.
    “Nothing is more important in life than love,” he said. “And nothing more joyful than two hearts bound in mutual affection.”
    “But one must be mindful of the future. Those tender emotions of the moment do not last, and that temporary burst of mutual affection most often dissolves into indifference or contempt.”
    His brows lifted in surprise. “You do not believe love can last?”
    “Not your ideal of love, which is based on an illusion of passion and desire. But passion fades.”
    “And so you would forbid your niece even a short-lived joy? You feel compelled to nip the blossom of love in its full blooming, like a killing frost, simply because you do not believe it will endure?”
    Good heavens, when he got wound up he sounded just like the Busybody—overwrought, florid, and oh-so-grandiloquent. “I’ll wager you write poetry, too,” she muttered under her breath.
    “I…um…I do dabble a bit in verse now and then.”
    “Yes, of course you do.” And she would also wager it was perfectly dreadful stuff.
    “I am afraid I do not understand what my attempts at poetry have to do with your opposition to your niece falling in love.”
    “I am not opposed to Belinda falling in love. With a girl like her it is bound to happen. If it had been almost anyone else, I would not have objected. There was a very nice young man, Mr. Pendleton, who was mad for Belinda. He would have been a perfect match for her. But he did not answer her dreams of a romantic hero. She found him tedious and uninteresting. Now that I think on it, he had reddish hair, too.”
    Mr. Westover winced. It had been a low blow, but no less than he deserved.
    “No, as I have told you and told you over again, what I most object to is the offhand manner in which you sent Belinda running straight into Barkwith’s arms without the least concern that he might be objectionable. I do not trust him. If his intentions were honorable, I could accept his lack of fortune. But I know his type. He is not honorable. He will not marry Belinda. Not unless someone holds a gun to his head.”
    “And when we find them, will you be holding that gun?”
    She gazed out at the rain, sheeting down the window like a waterfall, and considered the question. “I don’t know. I daresay it will have to wait until we