I feel so bad for Courtney :((
I really wish Richard could just hug her and tell her everything is okay, but I guess that's not gonna happen :/
I think they might? Richard does in fact do that alot ! Reassure her and hug her but I don't think Richard fundamentally understands orfeels the emotion properly so I thi k he lowkey stuggles relating to Courtney ! THOUGH i do wnat courtney to be able to teach Richard through sex moments (i think it'll work well cause abandonment is something he is ale to feel and recognize?)
I mean yeah he does that a lot, but in the case of what happened I wish he could really just hug and reassure her without doing anything else that make things worse after.
SMALL SPOILER!!!
cus the things is, he actually did something worse than this later on
OH DAMN IT RICHARD I HAD HOPES !!
spoil me what does he do
Richard concocted a little scheme to make it seem like he was cheating on Courtney, because she got overwhelmed in one of their sessions and distanced herself from him.
Directly from the novel:
“I did it all on purpose. Pretending not to be in the bedroom, having the maid—Morrison—say those things, I ordered all of it. And the letter, I wrote that myself and told Anton to deliver it to you. I just… thought that if I made you angry enough, you’d come and see me… that maybe then we could talk…”
Richard’s face flushed with embarrassment and shame. Even as he confessed, he realized how foolish it all sounded. He had assumed that once she came to see him, he could explain everything and smooth things over, that his carefully planned ‘misunderstandings’ would make her come running to him.
Courtney finally looked at him, her expression one of cold disdain, as if she were staring at a pathetic, foolish man. It was clear that she wasn’t surprised—she must have already figured out everything.
Please dm me what happens next. Does she threaten divorce? Does Richard ever do anything that f ed up again? Or does she punish him like he likes and forgive him? Also what happened to overwhelm her? Sorry for the insane amount of questions, you just got me super curious and idk where to find the novel to find out for myself.
PT.2 COURTNEY AND HER SELF-ESTEEM
THIS would be very short i think BUT HOLY HELL.
The story has been co sirent so far about Courtney having low self esteem and constantly adding on to her burdens by feeling like everything is for her to hold and do better at— her family is usless and selfish constanly ignoring her or noticing her only to point out her mistakes.
SO FOR RICHARD TO ACTUALLY MAKE HER FEEL LITTLE after comforting her and picking her up was so pivotal to me lmao.
They don't talk about the 'sideffects' of what they gone through personally and they both tend to analyze and intellectualize each other's actions (i think it's just cause they're both used to analyzing people's true intentions in their society) So richard testing her temper and capacity for that betrayal was insane.
ALSO the ballroom scene where she just mentally shutsdown and breaksdown from being confronted AGAIN in the ballroom and standing alone after not seeing Richard anywhere was intense :(( I hope only for good things for her