Page 47 of Venus in Disguise

Mau, sensing the dangerous undercurrent, leapt down from Leo’s shoulders and began weaving in and out of their legs, purring sonorously.

“Now look, you’ve upset Mau,” Leo muttered, folding his arms.

“I’ve upset him! I-I—” she stammered, so overwrought she could not speak. “Oh! Why did you come here? Why do it, Leo? Why must you stir everything up and cause a row and—Good Lord, you make me furious.”

“Well, the feeling is mutual,” he shot back at her. “Why are you here, all alone, feeling blue devilled and writing to me to tell me so? What do you want me to do about it, Vi?”

“I wasn’t writing to you!” she snapped, even though she knew it was ridiculous. “I was writing to Mau.”

Leo threw up his hands and stalked to the window.

There was a taut silence.

“You ought not be here, all by yourself,” Leo said, his voice quieter now, though some potent emotion she could not decipher still vibrated through the words. “Why are you so determined to end up an old maid?”

“I’m not determined to, that’s just the way life is turning out,” Vi said coolly. “If I were to meet a good man, one I could esteem, then… then I should marry him. I would be glad to,” she added, somewhat defiantly.

“You’ve met plenty of good men.”

“Not one that suited me, clearly.”

“I don’t think you want a good man at all,” Leo muttered, still glaring out of the window.

“I beg your pardon?” Leo turned to look at her and though Vi thought it most peculiar, the air seemed to crackle between them, as if the wrong word, the wrong move, might send them both up in flames. Nervously, Vi took several surreptitious steps away from Leo. It didn’t help.

“I said, I don’t think you want a good man at all,” he repeated, a dark note in his voice that made her heart skip.

Vi fought to hold his gaze, which was far harder than she could have imagined as something blazed there, something hot and unwieldy that scared her half to death.

“I can’t think what you mean by that,” she said, disconcerted to hear her voice sounding so faint and tremulous.

“I think you can,” he said, taking a step towards her.

Vi took another step back and shook her head.

“I think you want something you dare not say out loud,” he continued inexorably. “I think you are only pretending to want a good man. A well-behaved, nice fellow, one who was scrupulously polite at all times and never upset your world, would drive you mad in less than a sennight. You’d murder him, Vi. Christ, you’d likely break the coffee pot over his head one morning when he failed to rise to whatever bait you’d set to make him furious. Oh, no, love. I think at heart we both know what you want, who you want.”

“You’re m-mad,” Vi said, her breath coming too fast, her cheeks blazing, blood seething through her veins like it boiled beneath her skin.

“No. On the contrary, I’ve finally come to my senses,” he said, backing her up until she was flat against the bookshelf on the far wall. He loomed over her, bracing an arm on each side of her head as he stared at her, his expression inscrutable. “I’m not going to let you chase me away this time. I’m not going to let you pretend anymore. Do you hear me?”

“I don’t have the—”

“Quiet,” he said sharply, making her suck in a breath of shock at the anger she heard there. “I’ve warned you, Vi. I’ll have the truth from you if it kills me.”

Vi reached behind her, clinging to the bookshelf as she trembled, terrified by what he might discover if he kept on, by what might happen if she did as he asked.

His gaze softened as he looked down at her and he reached out, touching her cheek lightly with the back of one finger. “I know you don’t trust me,” he said softly. “I don’t blame you for that. I know I’ve been a frivolous jackass and I’ve taken nothing seriously my whole life. I know it and I understand I have a deal of work to do to change that, and I will do it, but you must meet me halfway, Vi. I can’t do it all by myself.”

“D-Do what?” she asked in alarm, too bewildered by this sudden turn of events to fully comprehend what was happening, too terrified to want to try.

“Give me a chance,” he said, gazing down at her. “I won’t let you down.”

Vi stared up at him, refusing to let all the things she had never allowed herself to hope for to escape from the tightly locked place where she kept them. “I don’t believe you,” she whispered, and ducked under his arm, running from the room before he could stop her.

“Hell and damnation.”

Leo watched Vi run away from him and took an unsteady breath. His heart was hammering so hard he felt slightly sick, his palms clammy from such undue agitation.