Page 74 of Of Socialites and Prizefights

“They could make a cute couple,” Roz said, draping an arm around Deepa’s shoulders as they exited the dressing room, gently encouraging the gaggle of onlookers to disperse. Appleton lingered, eyeing Deepa with a speculative frown.

“Cherie certainly thinks so, anyway.”

Deepa kept her eye out for Phillip, considering giving him a sharp kick in the ribs as she passed, but he’d already picked himself up off the floor. Dragging himself onto the stage, Phillip wrestled the microphone into submission with a screech of feedback. Everyone in the club who hadn’t witnessed his tantrum and subsequent blow turned to stare at him.

“That woman!” he announced thickly through the gush of blood from his nose, stabbing one finger in Deepa’s direction. “That woman is the same wildcat that’s been terrorising the streets of London.”

Appleton turned to Deepa, wide-eyed with realisation. “That was you?” And then, with a deepening frown: “You’re cursed.”

“You can just look at me and tell?” she demanded.

“I’ve only ever seen you with all those glamours woven into your dresses. They disguised the rest of the magic.” Withoutlooking back at Phillip, Appleton tipped his head in the man's direction. “This is his doing, I take it?”

Deepa sniffed. “Rather.”

“Would you like me to break it for you?”

Deepa’s whole world rocked on its axis. “You can do that?”

“I think so. A curse that changes one’s form should be tangentially related to the sorts of illusions I know well. At least in theory.”

“Then yes, please, let’s do that.”

“Wait,” Roz cut in, taking Deepa’s hand to keep her from rushing off with Appleton immediately. “Can it wait just a minute? There something I need to say, first.”

“Are none of you listening to me?” Phillip demanded from the stage. “She’s a beast! A monster! She hunted me down in my own home and tried to kill me!”

“Do be quiet,” Appleton told him, as cross as he was bored. “You’ll be dealt with later.”

“What was it you had to tell me?” Deepa asked Roz.

Still holding her hand, Roz pulled her back into the dressing room and shut the door firmly behind them, blocking out the rest of The Songbird and all its crowds.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

TWO PROPOSALS AND A BROKEN CURSE

As soon as they were alone, Roz said, “Watching you flirt and scheme and play the field hits different if I know you're coming home to me every night.” She sidled closer, her orbit around Deepa’s celestial body growing smaller step by step, until they were one. “You need to know that I’d never ask you to give up your work to play housewife for me.”

“I won’t be your housewife,” Deepa agreed, “Just like you won’t be my man. If I'm going to be with someone, I want us to be partners. I won’t have you breaking your back trying to prove you can provide for me. I want to be able to take care of you, too.”

“I'd like that. Does that mean…?” Roz broke off, rubbing one hand over the back of her neck, her smile going crooked. “I mean, I’ve proposed once already, half-joke that it was.”

Deepa remembered it perfectly: the two of them crowded in her little flat, with her mother just around the corner. She’d been both thrilled and terrified by the question, even knowing Roz was less than serious, but there was none of that now. Though the butterflies were working up a storm in her stomach, even stronger than their frantic beating of wings was the sense that this was absolutely correct.

“Let me, this time,” she said. “I’ve been on the receiving end often enough; I’d rather like to try asking the question, for once.”

“Please do,” Roz said hoarsely.

Taking Roz’s hands, careful of the knuckles on her right where the skin was split from punching Phillip in the face, Deepa didn’t kneel but gathered her close to hold their conjoined hands between both their hearts.

“My knight in silver armour, my rock, the moon to my sun. A friend told me very recently that love isn't like fate, or magic. It's a choice you make, and have to keep making every day. Someone else told me it was ridiculous to choose some gossamer-spun, imaginary future over the one and I can actually hold and touch. So, this is me choosing you in every circumstance.”

Pulling free, Deepa plucked her ruby ring from her finger, the same ring Roz had kissed on their very first meeting. “If you’ll have me?”

Roz answered her with a kiss.

“Yes,” Roz said into her mouth, crushing her close until Deepa could feel Roz’s heart thundering against her own. “Yes, I’ll have you, in every way you’ll let me. I want a life with you. I want the whole future.”

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