The cat yawned as if it couldn’t have had any less interest in his opinion if it had tried.
“Yes, exactly,” he said. “You don’t care what’s going on around you. Nothing has ever perturbed you in your life. You have no trouble finding comfort. Just look at you, walking in here as if you own the place and settling down on my lap without so much as a by-your-leave.”
Then he snorted at himself. “You’re a cat of course,” he murmured. “I don’t know what I expect you to do—ask me for permission before you sit down? You hardly could.” He sighed, running his hand over the cat’s back. The cat closed its eyes and let out a purr of satisfaction.
“And that’s another thing,” Leonard said. “You act as if you’re perfectly happy with our circumstances, but we both know that’s just a show you’re putting on, don’t we?” He closed his eyes. “What am I doing? This isn’t about the cat. This is about Prudence.” He looked down at the animal in his lap. “But I could never say these things to her, so I suppose I’m settling for saying them to you. At least I can trust you not to repeat anything I say here to Prudence, can’t I? You wouldn’t give me away.”
The cat opened one eye and looked balefully up at him, and Leonard was forced to confront the fact that he was behaving like more of a fool than he ever had before in his life. What was Prudence doing to him?
This is why I can’t bear to be around her. I lose all sense of who I am when the two of us are in the same place, and it’s maddening. I turn into the kind of man who speaks to cats for heaven’s sake… what sort of thing is that to do?
He hadn’t had a conversation with Prudence since the night of the Staffordshire ball three days ago now. He had been very pleased with her performance, but he was shocked by the moment on the dance floor when he had felt compelled to kiss her. He still didn’t know where that urge had come from. Things were not romantic between the two of them, even now that they had begun to learn how to get along with each other and even to be friends with one another. He had betrayed the agreement that he himself had insisted upon when he’d married her by letting that feeling get its hooks into him.
It doesn’t matter. The point is that I didn’t actually do it. What difference does the fact that I momentarily wanted to do it make? I restrained myself, and that’s what ought to be important.
But he hadn’t fully restrained himself, had he? He’d held eye contact with her. He’d touched her cheek. He could claim all he wanted that he had done those things for the sake of appearances, but the truth was that he hadn’t, and he knew it. He’d touched her cheek because he had wanted to. He had looked her in the eyes because he simply hadn’t been able to look away.
Oh, what’s the matter with me!
“Aphrodite? Aphrodite!”
The anxious voice was coming from the hall right outside the study, and Leonard recognized it as belonging to Prudence. “Is everything all right?” he called out, stirred from his own musing by the sound of her worry. “Are you all right, Prudence?”
The door opened, and she came in. She was clearly in a worried state, wringing her hands and bouncing on the balls of her feet, but her whole body relaxed when she saw him. “Oh,” she said. “You’ve got her.”
He put two and two together. “Aphrodite is the name of the cat.”
“That’s right,” she said. “I thought it was sweet.” She wrapped her arms around her body as if she had taken a chill. “I’ve been looking for her all morning. I thought maybe she had gotten outside last night, and a fox had found her or something.”
“I’m so sorry.” He rose to his feet, lifting the cat up along with him. “I didn’t know you were looking for her, or I wouldn’t have let her sequester herself in here like this. I didn’t mean to cause you worry.” He walked across the room and held the cat out, and Prudence accepted her gratefully into her arms. She kissed the top of Aphrodite’s head.
“How long has she been in here with you?” Prudence asked quietly.
“Not long. About fifteen minutes, I would say.”
“Oh, Aphrodite. Where have you been all morning? I was looking for you.” She sighed. “I’m going to have to put a bell on this cat.”
“That’s actually not a bad idea.” Leonard smiled. He reached out and touched her arm. “Are you all right? I know you were awfully worried about her, but she’s all right.”
“I’m fine,” Prudence said, but she took a step closer to him, leaning into his touch.
A fire coursed through Leonard. She was so warm. She came to him so easily. It was as if she was properly his wife, as if shebelonged to him in every way and would acquiesce to whatever he wanted. As if there were no boundaries between the two of them.
And now, again, he was thinking about kissing her.
It would be different if he did it now than it would have been at the ball. There was no one to watch. They wouldn’t be making any sort of impression on anybody. It really would be just for the two of them, and hadn’t he told himself that that was the condition under which it might be all right?I could take her in my arms and kiss her right now. I could…
No, he couldn’t. She was as pliant as she was because she had been afraid for her cat. She didn’t want passion right now, she wanted comfort. It would be wrong to deny her that, to turn this moment into something else just because he could.
But he didn’t trust himself to offer her an embrace. Already his thoughts were out of his control. Instead, he just let his hand linger on her arm for a moment. “Aphrodite is fine,” he said. “We can get her a bell if that would please you. And I’ll also ask the staff to keep an extra close watch on her. We’ll ensure that someone always knows when she steps outside and when she returns, so you won’t have to wonder about that.”
“Can we really do that?” she asked.
“Of course, we can. We have a sizable staff here after all, and they’ll be only too happy to help out,” he said. “Nobody wants you to have to fear for the safety of your pet.”
“I thought you didn’t like Aphrodite,” she observed. “I thought you thought I was being silly for wanting to keep her.”
“I do think that.” A chuckle escaped him. “Yet another of your maddeningly foolish notions. But this one, at least, is fairly harmless, so I don’t mind indulging you in it, and I don’t relish the idea of seeing you worried about anything at all. I can help you with this. Don’t let it trouble you.”
