Revising the Script

            Morgan turned and went back into the front drawing room, where Vivvie was walking in restless circles around the grand piano.

            “I don’t want to have tea,” she said, instantly, as he came back in. “I don’t know why my brother would say…I don’t want to have tea.”

            “I’m not going to force you to have tea,” Morgan assured her.

            “But I thought I should stay behind and at least apologize for…well, for the way I behaved….at Ashfield House. It was really…There is no…” She paused and then admitted, “Oh, I don’t know what to say to you. I’m so humiliated.”

            “Don’t be,” drawled Morgan. “You kiss very well.”

            “I’m not humiliated about my kissing ability,” she told him.

            “I know,” he said, with a small smile. “I was trying to make it easier on you. You haven’t any need to apologize. It’s fine.”

            “Do you know what amazes me about you?”

            “Well, many things, I assume.”

            She actually laughed. “Yes,” she agreed, and she thought that she meant it. “Many things. But mostly that I keep behaving like a complete maniac around you, and you persist in being nothing but absolutely lovely to me.”

            He shrugged, looking a little thrown off by the comment.

            She sat on the piano bench and played a scale idly. Then she said, exhaling in frustration, turning to pin him under her gaze, “You said I was perfect in my complexity.”

            The sentence came out accusingly, and he reacted that way, looking cautious in his reply. “Uh, yes. Yes, I did.”

            “‘Complexity,’” she scoffed. “You make it sound so nice. Like a good thing to be. When in actuality what it boils down to is that I make things way more complicated than they ought to be. I mean, that’s why we’re in this whole mess to begin with. I’m engaged to be married. I’m a blushing bride. I should be buying bridal magazines and sighing over satin and lace. And instead I’m…This just isn’t how I thought I would react. I didn’t think things would turn out like this.”

            “Well, there’s your mistake right there.” Morgan propped his hip against the grand piano, looked down at her.

            “Where’s my mistake?” she asked.

            “Thinking you knew what would happen. Human beings are inherently unpredictable. That’s why I stick to economies.”

            “Do exactly as you tell them, right?”

            “Damn straight.”

            “That’s because you studied them, Morgan. To me, economies are completely inscrutable. I studied human behavior. I should have known that the receipt of a marriage proposal would reveal a fear of commitment. I should have seen this coming.”

            “I don’t know what makes you think that. It seems to me that you might be extremely good at understanding human behavior and not have any idea about yourself, chiefly because we don’t see ourselves clearly. I’ve never met anyone impartial enough to unflinchingly see their own drawbacks. At least, not without a great deal of soul-searching about it. You’re being too hard on yourself, Vivvie.”

            “Am I? Morgan, I should be-”

            “You need to stop thinking so hard about what you ‘should’ be doing.”

            She snorted and tapped a key several times. “Look who’s telling me that. Like you would ever have opened that door for me if you hadn’t been afraid of coming across as rude.”

            “But that’s who I am. I’ve always done what I should do. No one would be surprised to hear me talking that way. I daresay many people would be surprised to hear you talking that way. My impression of Vivvie Westcott is that she refuses to do what she should do, and just does what she wants to do.”

            “Is that your impression of Vivvie Westcott?”

            “Yes.”

            “Where did you get that impression?”

            “From you.”