Page 3 of Eight for Losing, One for Loving

He was an enormous creature, far bigger than most cats, and solidly built. A handsome fellow, his torn ear did little to detract from his rather aristocratic profile and sleek coat of brown and black. Leo had become something of an eccentric figure among the ton, but everyone had grown used to him taking Mau almost everywhere with him.

“Mau, up you get lazy bones. Let the lady sit down,” Leo said, shaking his head as the cat got up and stretched, stalking across the seat and pushing his head against Leo’s. “Thank you,” Leo told him. Once Vi had sat down, he got up beside her and Mau lay across both their laps, making himself comfortable. Vi laughed despite herself, stroking the cat’s silky head.

“You are as dreadful as he is,” she told Mau frankly, but he simply began purring, a deep, sonorous sound that vibrated through her.

“Let him go,” Leo instructed his tiger, who had been holding the sleek gelding’s head. The man ran around and leapt onto the back of the tilbury as they moved off. Happily, the hood of the tilbury and the sound of the wheels on the road gave them privacy, and he did not overlook them. Vi watched with pleasure as his beautiful grey trotted in tandem, taking them down the road and into the busy city traffic.

They didn’t speak until they had reached Hyde Park, for the roads were overburdened with carts and carriages and people and Vi did not wish to distract Leo from his horse. He drove to an inch and Vi relaxed, knowing she was in the safest of hands. She turned her face to the sun, enjoying the warm breeze as he found a faster moving flow of traffic and gave the horse leave to move faster. They fast trotted along, moving beautifully, and she wished there were no traffic so he could let them go, for though she did not enjoy riding, she was not afraid of speed in Leo’s capable hands, and secretly rather delighted in the opportunity to go fast. Back at Trevick Castle, she had her own little gig and pony and often galloped along the paths when no one was about to see her. To experience any of Leo’s fine horses do such a thing, however, that would be quite something.

Once inside the park, Leo let the horse walk and turned his attention to Vi.

“That’s a charming bonnet,” he said appreciatively.

Vi let out a sigh of frustration. “Why are we doing this? Why aren’t you here with Miss Fellowes or Miss Saunders? They’re much more in your line.”

“Are they?” Leo replied with apparent interest. “How so?”

“They’re very beautiful, for one thing. They come from good families, but not so good they would frown on a connection with Hunters—”

“Ah, yes, mustn’t forget Papa’s dreadful gambling den, or The Sons of Hades,” he said, naming the club he part owned with his friends. “Quite shocking.”

Vi rolled her eyes and carried on. “They are nice, intelligent girls, and they are young,” she added, savagely repressing the stab of regret that hit her square in the chest.

“You mean, they’re not an old maid like you are?” he said with interest.

Vi stiffened. She knew very well that was what she was, but she had not expected him to tell her so. “Indeed,” she said coolly. “I’ve been on the shelf so long I’m gathering dust. It only astonishes me you’ve failed to notice until this moment.”

Leo snorted and shook his head. “Vi, you accuse me of being dreadful, but you’re a wicked creature.”

“Me?” she exclaimed, turning to stare at him in outrage.

“Yes, you,” he said, though there was amusement in his voice. “You know very well I do not think you are an old maid. Only you think that, so don’t keep on. You’re just fishing for compliments and then you’ll scold me and accuse me of turning you up sweet if I voice them.”

“I am an old maid,” Vi said stubbornly. “And I do not want your compliments or flattery when there’s no substance to them.”

“No substance!” Leo said, and Vi’s heart skipped at the obvious anger in his voice. “Why must you insist on believing me to be a frivolous boy? I’m no boy, Violetta. I’m a man who knows his own mind. I’m courting you with the intention of making you my wife.”

“You’re mad,” she said flatly, crossing her arms as if that might stop her heart from escaping her ribcage, for it was beating far too hard and too fast. “We’d kill each other before the honeymoon was over.”

“But what a way to go,” Leo remarked.

Vi slanted a glance at him, seeing a mixture of irritation and devilry in his blue eyes that made her feel rather nervous.

“Out of the two, I think Miss Saunders would suit you best,” she continued, as if the conversation had not been diverted at all. “She’s a delightful girl, friendly but not bold, and she has a lively sense of humour. She loves animals too,” she added, stroking Mau’s head and feeling rather wistful that such a girl might have both these ridiculous creatures in her life.

“I see,” Leo said, as he took them past the Serpentine, which sparkled invitingly in the sunshine. There were boats out on the water and many people taking advantage of the lovely summer day. “Will she be at the ball tonight?”

“I expect so,” Vi said cautiously.

“Very well. I shall dance with her and see what I think.”

“Good,” Vi replied, though there was a leaden feeling in her chest that made her feel every bit the old maid she told herself she was.

“Good,” Leo agreed, and they trotted on in silence.

Leo gritted his teeth and counted. It was something he’d had to do remarkably often over the past few months and, not for the first time, he wondered why he was bothering. Once the surge of annoyance had diminished a little, he glanced sideways at the impossible girl by his side. She was a girl too, he thought as his irritation vanished at the sight of her. No matter her insistence that she was too old and on the shelf, she looked no more than two and twenty. Her skin was the finest porcelain, her eyes a pale crystalline blue that never failed to capture his attention. Lord, but she was beautiful. He’d always known it, but in an abstract fashion, like the fine painting that you saw every day and knew was lovely but did not stop to appreciate. But one day he had stopped, and he had appreciated, and he had cursed himself for a fool at having wasted so much time.

Mau shifted on his lap, digging his claws in, and Leo winced. He glanced at the cat whose head was pillowed in Vi’s lap—lucky devil—and large yellow eyes regarded him with something that looked like pity. Leo sighed inwardly. He felt like he was running out of time with Vi. Not because she was too old—curse her for getting that idiotic thought in her head—but because she would bolt, eventually, and keep him away from her with whatever means she could manage. He knew he was on thin ice. If he put a foot wrong, she’d use it as an excuse never to see him again. Not that he intended to put a foot wrong, but his life had always been adventurous, one where he took chances and went where the wind took him rather than following any plan. Having made a plan to court Vi and win her heart, he was finding it harder than he imagined to stick to it.

At this moment, for example, instead of taking her for a sedate little jaunt about Hyde Park, he wanted to whisk her away to a hidden corner of London she would never have seen in her life before. He wanted to show her shops that sold wonderful silks from India in the most marvellous patterns and colours; he wanted to take her to the river and get her to try jellied eels and show her a dozen other things that would shock and delight her, but you couldn’t do that with a proper young lady.

If only he had nine lives like a cat, perhaps then he’d be able to figure out how to get it right before his luck ran out.

He’d used one up this morning, he knew. What a fool, for he should never have said he’d dance with Miss Saunders. He’d wanted to bite his tongue off the moment the words had left his mouth, but Vi made him do and say things he’d had no intention of doing or saying just seconds earlier. It was true they drove each other distracted, just as she said they did, but in a good way—or at least Leo thought so. He loved her sharp wit and the way she challenged him, and never tired of crossing swords with her, but he wished she would soften towards him, just a little. He felt certain she cared for him. He had seen fleeting evidence of it: a glance in his direction when she’d thought he wasn’t looking, a smile of such warmth when he'd finally done something she approved of, and… and a million tiny things between two people who had known each other their entire lives that could mean everything or nothing.

“Would you like to go to Gunter’s? I’ll buy you an ice,” he offered, knowing that Vi adored sweet things, especially strawberry ice cream.

He watched her face, amused despite himself as he saw her wage an internal battle between getting out of his company as quickly as possible and her favourite treat.

“Very well,” she said grudgingly.

Leo let out a sigh of relief. He’s not been sure even ice cream was enough to keep her beside him for a minute longer.

“I won’t dance with Miss Saunders,” he told her, wondering if he was being a fool for trying so hard and finding he didn’t care if he was.

If he hadn’t been looking at her as he said the words, he knew he would have missed the look of sheer relief that flickered in her eyes, there and gone in an instant, but not before he’d noticed. Relief flooded him too. She hadn’t wanted him to dance with Miss Saunders; she didn’t want him to give up on her. Vi had her own battle to fight, one that must allow her to believe that Leo could love her and her alone for her own sake, and not for any foolish reason she’d convinced herself of. For that, though, she needed time. She needed to see that he could be sensible and well-behaved, and Leo was going to give her that if it killed him.