Black Heart

The House of Black is in unanimous agreement: Walburga will marry Orion. Walburga, naturally, finds this intolerable. The presumption. The suffocating, gilt-framed inevitability of it all. Orion, for his part, keeps saying duty when he means something far less civilised, and no one seems inclined to notice the difference - least of all the woman he's been watching with the patience of a saint and the restraint of a man who knows exactly what happens when you rush a creature that bites.

Or how does one say yes without losing face, when everyone around has been urging that yes for years?

A slow burn, light romance, perilously close to graphomania.