![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
intheheartTitle: Limits
Rating: PG.
Summary: Hugh Marhenke and marriage: past, present, and future.
Miss Wright was truly lovely.
Hugh didn't mean her face, though that was beautiful too. It was more her eyes, a warm blue-grey, and the kindness in them. He met her occasionally visiting the poor, giving them food and comfort as he gave them care and medicine. She smiled at him as they worked elbow to elbow, and allowed him to escort her home.
But she was the daughter of a viscount, no matter how far her family had fallen since his death. Hugh was merely a physician, barely respectable.
He had no right to hope. But she was lovely.
--
Hugh can admit now that he was wrong.
He should have married Theresa. She would have accepted him; she said so, but he was too far under Yvonne's spell to listen. He would blame Yvonne, but he knows he was all too ready to believe her, flattered by a pair of blue eyes and a rounded body into seeing only a sweet young innocent desperately in love.
That girl is dead; indeed, she never existed. Yvonne was never innocent, and she never loved him, and he was a fool to think they could be happy.
At least he has Olivia.
--
He will know Joanna far better than either of the Wright sisters. She will talk with him as he has never talked with any woman, will know parts of him he's never shown to anyone. She will be wonderful, and he will be married.
True, his wife will be gone; there will be no one to object but himself. But he will object. Joanna will deserve better than to be a married man's mistress. She will have her whole life, and he will have nothing to give her.
He will be sure he acts from love.
It will be fear.
Rating: PG.
Summary: Hugh Marhenke and marriage: past, present, and future.
Miss Wright was truly lovely.
Hugh didn't mean her face, though that was beautiful too. It was more her eyes, a warm blue-grey, and the kindness in them. He met her occasionally visiting the poor, giving them food and comfort as he gave them care and medicine. She smiled at him as they worked elbow to elbow, and allowed him to escort her home.
But she was the daughter of a viscount, no matter how far her family had fallen since his death. Hugh was merely a physician, barely respectable.
He had no right to hope. But she was lovely.
--
Hugh can admit now that he was wrong.
He should have married Theresa. She would have accepted him; she said so, but he was too far under Yvonne's spell to listen. He would blame Yvonne, but he knows he was all too ready to believe her, flattered by a pair of blue eyes and a rounded body into seeing only a sweet young innocent desperately in love.
That girl is dead; indeed, she never existed. Yvonne was never innocent, and she never loved him, and he was a fool to think they could be happy.
At least he has Olivia.
--
He will know Joanna far better than either of the Wright sisters. She will talk with him as he has never talked with any woman, will know parts of him he's never shown to anyone. She will be wonderful, and he will be married.
True, his wife will be gone; there will be no one to object but himself. But he will object. Joanna will deserve better than to be a married man's mistress. She will have her whole life, and he will have nothing to give her.
He will be sure he acts from love.
It will be fear.
