A Ruling Passion – Chapter 1631

Henry sighed in resignation. “Whatever floats your boat, I suppose. In all honesty, I watched Madam’s growth from a little girl to who she is today, just as Mr. Tremont had. She has always been under his constant scrutiny all these years. Who are you to judge her character and nature? Overt willfulness can only be your own undoing,” he said. “Compare now to the Tremont Estate before your return. Everything was serene and happy. But now, the house is enveloped by a bedeviling miasma. If you keep this up, this household will implode. Is that what you want to see?”

Shelly cracked a bitter smile. “Please, the only thing this household has lost is Arianne Wynn. So what? She’s just another one of the dime-a-dozen women. Mark will move on someday, his so-called devotion will someday change target too. There is no such thing as a devoted, eternal love.”

She had all the examples she needed: Mark’s father came to love someone else other than his wife, to the point of siring a bastard son. Her own husband even started out maniacally enamored by her, but in the end, no amount of initial passion had stopped him from descending into debaucheries. It did not matter if Shelly’s conditions forced him into it, or if he always had the hidden propensity for such a thing, all Shelly knew was that she had never seen eternal love in real life. How was she supposed to believe it even exists?

The way she saw it, Mark was just a typical, young man. After his separation from Arianne, it was only a matter of time before he started falling in love with another woman and moved on.

---