If I Loved You Less

Em Woodson had spent most of her twenty-six years arranging the world as she liked.

She’d done so with a remarkable degree of success.

Her mother had walked out when Em was a toddler, but her father was rich, indulgent, and completely devoted to her, so she’d never felt the lack of a parent. Growing up, she’d gotten almost anything she wanted as long as her requests didn’t include traveling or leaving her father for more than one night. She was smart and reasonably attractive and good with people, so she could usually convince others to go along with her plans.

She didn’t consider herself spoiled. In fact, she went out of her way to help others whenever she could. She was simply good at managing her world and the people around her, and she didn’t think anything was wrong with that.

Her current project was Riot Berkley. Seven months ago, Em had decided that her two best friends’ little sister needed a mentor, and Em had elected herself to that position. Harriet Berkley (who’d nicknamed herself Riot in middle school and had never given the name up) was now Em’s constant shadow.

And Em was starting to wonder if her world might have been simpler had she not gotten what she wanted in that regard.

Riot could be a whiner. After several months of mentorship, the whining was starting to get old.

“I prefer running,” Riot grumbled one evening, tucking a strand of her long, dark hair behind her ears. She was dressed in shiny purple leggings and a matching workout top. She was slim and pretty with china-doll features like her mother and her oldest sister, Jane. Riot was twenty-three and hadn’t accomplished anything in all that time except failing out of multiple college classes and nearly driving her family into bankruptcy by racking up debt.

“Running is terrible on your knees,” Em said, walking the path that ran the perimeter of the Pemberley House property with long, fast strides. “If you walk fast enough, you can get the same cardio benefits as running but without all the damage to your joints.”

“I don’t care about my joints.”

Em shook her head, breathing evenly and trying to stamp down her impatience. Riot had been spoiled by a mother who couldn’t say no to her. Liz and Jane, her older sisters, had managed to grow into adulthood as mature and good-hearted people, and Em counted them as two of her three best friends. But Riot had succumbed to her mother’s overindulgence and was rather silly and immature. She was a lot better now than she’d been a year ago, however, so Em tried to focus on the progress instead of all the work that still needed to be done. “You’ll care about your joints when you’re fifty. Keep pace with me, and you’ll be surprised how much of a workout you’ll get. Or you can go back home if you’d rather.”

Riot grumbled wordlessly, but she didn’t argue anymore. Being sent home meant going back to her parents’ house on Valley Street, and she wouldn’t want to do that if she could hang out at Pemberley House with her sisters and Em.

Pemberley House had been built in Abingdon, Virginia, at the turn of the twentieth century by a millionaire named Edward Knightley, who’d wanted to cater to his new wife’s every whim. The mansion had been passed down through the Knightley family for more than a hundred years, but just over ten years ago, the Knightley heir had been forced to convert the building into twelve lovely condos since the estate had become a sinkhole that had swallowed up every cent the Knightleys had ever possessed. Em’s father had snapped up the best unit, and he and Em had lived there ever since.

The grounds of the Pemberley House estate covered almost fifty acres and were surrounded by a tall stone wall. Em loved to walk the path along the perimeter, enjoying the well-kept gardens and the groves of mature trees. But Riot’s presence with her this evening—complete with huffing and puffing and stopping now and then to fix her hair or socks—distracted her from the quiet beauty of her surroundings.

Em couldn’t complain. She was the one who’d invited Riot to join her. She hadn’t seen the girl all week, and she wanted to make sure Riot was still on track with everything they’d been working on.

After about twenty minutes, she was afraid Riot was going to flop down on the grass and give up on the exercise, so Em distracted her with a question. “Have you started another painting?”

Riot gasped raggedly and wiped some of the sweat from her face. She was naturally slender but not in very good shape. “Not yet.”

“Why not? I thought you wanted to do a scene of Main Street.”

“I did. I just haven’t gotten it started yet.”

“Oh. I told you I’d talk to my friend at the gallery and find out if he’ll take a look at your paintings. But you need to have a number of them for him to see.”

“I know. I’m gonna do them.”

Em had decided when she’d first started to take an interest in Riot that the girl needed something constructive to pour her energies into. Early this year, Riot had spent other people’s money, pretending to be an expert in antiques, which seemed a clear sign to Em that she was looking for a worthwhile outlet. The girl had a terrible eye for antiques, so that was out of the question. But Em had discovered that Riot was very good with oil paints, so she’d been encouraging her to cultivate that talent in the hope that it might lead to a career.

Everyone needed to contribute to the world.

Since Em had no particular talents and couldn’t leave her needy father, she’d long ago decided her personal contribution would be helping the people around her. She’d created a position for herself as a reporter for the (struggling) local newspaper. She was paid almost nothing, but she didn’t need money to support herself. She mostly wanted something to do with her time. Riot needed to contribute in a different way, so Em had decided that art could be her contribution. It was worth a try anyway.

Em said, “Now that you’ve finished working for the Darcys to pay back what you owe them, you should have extra time to spend on your painting.”