The Devil Comes Courting (The Worth Saga #3)

by Courtney Milan

Is it uncivil to demand that your dearest loved ones be treated with basic respect?”

All I want is for you to have a chance at a normal life, Amelia. Is that so much to ask?” A normal life. A normal life. “What do you mean by normal?” Amelia finally asked. “Don’t be obtuse. You should get married and have children.” “I should have to hear people say for the next sixty years that they didn’t realize they would have to consider my feelings and to swallow how much it hurts? To have my own mother not defend me when someone says my feelings about the rest of my life should be immaterial? Is that what you’re calling a normal life?”

“You thought I should marry Mr. Smith.” There was a moment of silence. Her mother stared at her in confusion. “I beg your pardon?” “You thought I should marry Mr. Smith,” Amelia repeated. “You’ve never protected me from people who didn’t care about me.

“I’ve never much wanted children, even though other people told me I would one day. I found marriage stultifying. I can’t tell you what it has done for me, being away from all that. Knowing that I can be this person, and not the woman everyone expected.”

“You taught me to be careful about my own desires. But you never questioned yourself the way you questioned me. When the devil came courting you, he told you that you could take a child. Why did you never ask yourself if that was right?”

“You didn’t answer my question,” Amelia said. “Why did you think you could take me?”

The word for what she did is abduction. The word for what she did when she kept you from your language is theft. The word for what she is doing by pretending that nothing is wrong—by making you feel that you are at fault for not forgiving her without explanation—is shite.”