Chapter 12

Muriel had a good memory and a better sense of direction. As a child, she'd spent her free half days as far from her cousin's shop as her feet would take her, exploring the forested hills and the heath, storing away the little details of the landscape so she could re-create her path home. Years later, she'd relied on her ability to make mental maps when she'd worked with local nurserymen in the northern provinces of China. Groups fanned out in the mountains, scouring for new cultivars of primulas and peonies, and she'd look up to realize she'd lost track of her companions. On each of those occasions, she'd found her way back to camp—not always quickly. But at least she'd never spent a whole night in a ravine, like Esmé.

The time had come, however, to admit defeat. It was noon, and birds were twittering, and she hadn't the foggiest notion whether to turn left or turn right. She and James had walked inland, across fields and up this long hill with its tumbled stone walls and old, unkempt orchard, and now the path diverged before them.

"Do you remember what they said?" she asked James, who was sitting on a stump, sipping from a flask.

"They wanted to sell me their goat." He held out his flask. "Sherry?"

"Not what they said about the goat." Muriel waved away the flask. "About which way we're supposed to turn."

"Sorry," said James. "I was too taken with the goat."

Muriel turned to survey the path's two forks. She had less of an excuse. As soon as the farm girls had heard Griffith's name, they'd begun to giggle and exchange covert glances, and she'd grown flustered herself, entirely unable to concentrate on the directions to the bicycle shop. Had she turned into such a harridan that she begrudged young maidens a bit of sighing over a handsome swain? Was it censure she felt? No, more likely it was protectiveness, the same as she'd felt toward Clarinda Chiswick. The girls seemed so innocent, and Kit Griffith, anything but.

"This way," she guessed. She picked up her hamper of dried seaweeds and started down the left fork.

"We were supposed to pass standing stones," she said with satisfaction, as a cairn came into view on the next hill, although she rather suspected navigating by cairns in Cornwall was like navigating by beech trees in Hampshire.

"And a stream," she said sometime later, and skipped across the little rill of water on flat stones, as James swung his arms wildly and teetered, having made a less felicitous choice: a slick and spongy log that crumbled underfoot.

It wasn't long after that they passed a farmhouse. The little boy chasing chickens in the yard brought them around the barn and pointed out the footpath.

Another quarter mile and Muriel saw the odd gray tower in the distance. She quickened her pace.

"I am quite sure I can ride a bicycle." She said it aloud, more to herself than to James. "This tour isn't a disaster in the making. I've gone on much longer excursions with men I barely know, by boat and by donkey and cart, and on foot, and it always turned out well enough."

She smoothed her hand over her skirt, one of her shortened, serge seaweed-hunting skirts, surely as practical for cycling.

"I dislike Griffith just the right amount," she continued. "He's not so odious in the moment that I recoil from the close association our bargain requires. And yet I remain conscious of his crimes and hypocrisies, and, therefore, on guard against his superficial charms. I have high expectations for his art, and low expectations for his behavior."

"Ah," said James.

A woodpecker began tapping, its steady tattoo ticking off the moments.

"That's all you have to say?" asked Muriel.

He gave her a placating smile. "Your speech seems very well calibrated."

"My dislike is well calibrated." Her brows pulled together.

"Isn't that what I said?"

Her scowl was accusatory. "You're not even on my side anymore. You're on the side of your drinking companion."

"I thought you and Griffith were now on the same side."

"When it comes to cycling and painting. Nothing else."

The engine house looked taller by the second, thrusting up from the ground like a phallic monument. Trust Griffith to have set up shop in a building that seemed to advertise virility.

Did he maintain an art studio as well? In this very engine house?

"You must examine him." She snapped her gaze back to James. "The symptoms he described are worrying."

James returned her look, brows high. "You worry for him?"

"For my paintings." She hefted the hamper so it rested again on her hip. "He told me he couldn't paint, and then that he would. I don't know what I'm to believe. If he does suffer from some malady, can he really overcome it overnight, by force of will?"

"I don't know," said James dryly. "On account of all the unknowns."

They walked along the perimeter of a pasture in silence, and perhaps they were both brooding about the unknown.

James spoke first. "Forbidding, isn't it?"

He was looking at the engine house. They'd arrived. The grass was haphazardly patterned with tire tracks. Several wheels leaned against the side of the building. The sign above the large window in front was perfunctory, bold black letters, no embellishments.

Sales. Rentals. Service.

Behind the glass, three Rovers stood on display, handlebars gleaming dully.

Muriel put down her hamper. "Mr. Griffith?"

She tried the door. It swung open, and she poked her head inside. The smell of metal, machine oil, and rubber assailed her. Nothing moved but the motes of dust suspended in the sunbeams.

"He's not here." She slammed the door and stormed back to James.

"We'll wait, then."

"No." She drew a breath. Her expectations for Griffith's behavior hadn't been low enough. "It was all a joke."

"Joke? What joke?"

"It didn't make any sense. I should have known better." She shook her head. "All his hand-wringing and chest-thumping about the plight of the female sex. It didn't make sense because he was pranking me."

Her insides shivered.

She whispered with her hand on her stomach. "He's laughing himself sick at Titcombe Hall as we speak."

"Titcombe Hall?" James blinked. "Why there?"

"It's where he lives."

"It can't be where he lives."

Her turn to blink. "What?"

"Titcombe Hall. That's Deighton's place. Don't you remember? He barked it at us."

She was staring blankly. Her memories from that encounter on the path centered on Griffith. The way he stood. The angle of his jaw. The curve of his mouth. The rough grain of his voice.

She gave herself a shake. "It's not possible. Lady Chiswick—she was talking about Griffith. She said…"

What had Lady Chiswick said, exactly?

Muriel moistened her lips. "She called him handsome."

"Oh, in that case, she must have meant Griffith. No other handsome men in St. Ives." James had begun to smirk. "Now who's lacerating? You once told me I'd aged well. Which I'm just realizing isn't very flattering, even on its merits."

"She was referring particularly to a cyclist."

"If she said Titcombe Hall, she was referring particularly to Deighton. He's not my cup of tea, but I can see how he'd have his adherents. Those calves. They're like young coconuts. And I believe his family runs Empire Tobacco, which is bound to put a shine on things."

The tickle in the back of Muriel's throat made her cough.

"She said—" Muriel coughed again. "She said she could tell I fancied him."

"Then Lady Chiswick seems to have made an incorrect assumption." James raised his brows.

He didn't need to say the rest.

So had she.

Another conversation might have undeceived them both. But since that morning over breakfast, she'd only glimpsed the unpleasant woman in passing. The hotel wasn't large, but she and the Chiswicks kept different hours. She hadn't seen hide nor hair of Sir Reggie, or Clarinda, to the best of her knowledge.

Clarinda.

Lady Chiswick wanted her daughter matched with Colin Deighton.

"Bother," said Muriel. "Griffith didn't do any bodily injury to cats?"

"I didn't what?"

She jumped.

Griffith had wheeled his Rover silently over the grass. He stood gripping the handlebars, glancing between her and James. He was windblown, just back from a ride, and he looked utterly appalled.

"You thought I'd harmed a cat? Deliberately?" His eyes were slits.

Her ticklish throat tightened uncomfortably. She emitted one more strangled cough. But her face was all the confirmation he needed.

"Good God," he muttered. "And you were willing to engage in civil conversation and share a small boulder?"

"I wasn't that civil." Muriel frowned. "And I didn't invite you onto the boulder." She studied him with increasing incredulity. He seemed to be taking her part. She narrowed her own eyes. "Are you mocking me? Or pandering?"

"Neither. I'm a lifelong friend of cats."

"The captain of the Mutton Wheelers isn't," interjected James. "Possibly. It's not confirmed. What I should say is a certain Sir Reggie has alleged malfeasance involving Colin Deighton and a cat. Muriel mistakenly assumed he meant you."

"Why?" Griffith hadn't taken his eyes from her.

"I misheard. It was hearsay. Hearsay I misheard." Muriel wanted to duck behind James, to hide her face, before she could expose herself further.

Gone in an instant. Her trumped-up impetus to eternal dislike. The flimsy bulwark it had erected between her mind and body.

She felt off-balance, hopelessly uncalibrated, and the longer she held his gaze, the worse it got. Her heart began to leap, tender and undefended.

A likable Griffith was far more dangerous.

"I brought specimens." She addressed him briskly. "They're dry, but they'll take on their natural shape and color if you put them in a basin of water. You can hang them to dry again, on a line, and return them to the basin whenever you wish to resume painting. The olive seaweeds are durable, a good place to start."

Griffith glanced at the hamper without seeming to see it, then back at her.

"I've never so much as flicked a cat's whiskers," he said. "Is there anything else I can clear up for you?"

She swallowed, a hundred inchoate questions muddying her thoughts. Why did he infatuate her? Was it a rakish trick, something he was doing to her, with full awareness? Something he did to all women? Was that what he'd meant by freedom? An open offer, the promise of pleasure with no strings attached? Was it worth it, the pleasure?

How did it feel?

"Nothing of which I'm aware," she said, and stretched her lips into a smile.

The woodpecker was tapping again.

"Well." She clapped her hands. "On to the cycling lesson."

An hour later, they were all three behind the engine house, Griffith on his feet, James in a wrought iron chair, and Muriel splayed like a starfish beneath a two-wheeled death machine.

Cycling was not intuitive.

She let her head roll to the side and considered the cheerful patch of oxeye daisies she'd just missed crushing.

"Much better this time," called Griffith. "Could you tell?"

James piped up. "I couldn't. More sherry?"

Muriel began to drag herself out from underneath the Rover, a complicated negotiation. Her skirt was tangled in the front wheel's spiderweb of spokes. As her legs slid free, she realized that her stocking had been torn by a pedal and that her flesh was gouged.

She sat up and waved Griffith away. She didn't want him hoisting her again, like she was a sack of potatoes.

"This makes me think we should stick to horses." James gestured to Griffith with his flask.

Griffith went to him and dropped into the adjacent chair, taking the flask and swigging deep.

"For one thing, horses can stand on their own," continued James. "They're also noble, intelligent creatures, beautiful to behold and capable of developing a rapport with their riders. Their legs do the work, instead of your own, which is another advantage."

Muriel stood painfully, straightening her rumpled skirt. She heaved up the Rover. It certainly couldn't stand on its own. And she couldn't keep the blasted thing upright, not once her feet were in the air.

"Horses have to be fed and stabled." Griffith passed back the flask and crossed his arms. He'd shucked his jacket and wore only his vest and shirtsleeves. Muriel's eyes went straight for the swell of his biceps. A moment too late, she realized James had noticed the direction of her gaze. She snapped her eyes back to the Rover and concentrated on pushing it across the lawn.

"Bicycles were a novelty," said Griffith. "A toy for sportsmen. But the technology is advancing rapidly, and the price is falling, and low-mounts like the Rover mean women can cycle too, and they will, more and more of them. They'll cycle as fast as they please, wherever they please."

Muriel tried not to scowl. So far, she could only wobble slowly forward and accelerate sidelong, when she pitched to the right or the left.

"I mentioned that some of my medical colleagues fear that cycling strains the heart." James sounded sardonic. "It occurs to me the risk isn't to the cyclists but rather the pedestrians unprepared for the sight of so many female ankles."

Griffith snorted. "They'll get used to it."

Muriel glanced down. Even when she wasn't pedaling, her shortened skirt hit just below midcalf, revealing her lace-up walking boots and a bit of stocking besides. Shortened skirts made people stare, even nearer the shore. That couple she'd surprised—George and Margaret. They'd called her a shocking-looking woman.

"Or they won't get used to it," she declared, tipping up her chin. "But that won't stop us."

It had popped out before she could think. There was something rousing about Griffith's vision of shrinking distances and increased mobility, women going about their business on their own terms, facilitated by bicycles, which seemed suddenly marvelous.

The bicycle. A marvelous contraption—if it didn't kill you.

Griffith's appreciative look would have warmed her cheeks, but they were maximally flushed from her exertions.

She clenched her teeth, wheeled the Rover about, and swung her leg over the top bar. It curved down on this model—a drop frame, Griffith had called it. Designed for ladies.

"Ready to go again?" Griffith strode over. He stood very close, bracing the bicycle as she arranged her skirts and adjusted her grip on the handlebars.

As she revolved the pedals, he kept hold, moving with her.

"That's it," he said. "Eyes straight ahead."

The husky command made her want to look in his direction, and when he let her go, she was listing toward him, just slightly. In an attempt to restore equilibrium, she turned the wheel away from the approaching ground, which decision narrowed the distance all at once.

"Ahh!" she yelped as her elbow exploded with pain. She lay on her side, head ringing. Grass prickled her skin, and the warm scent of torn summer earth filled her nostrils. At least she wasn't learning on macadamized highway, or a graveled lane, or a cobbled street.

God, this tour would hurt.

James shouted, "Is it time for the sticking plaster?"

She rolled onto her back and blinked at the sky. Griffith's face appeared above her.

"You're doing quite well," he said.

She wiggled, resisting the urge to kick the Rover as she extracted herself.

"Mounting, balancing, pedaling, steering, dismounting." She pushed herself to sitting. "That's it? Five elements to master?"

Breaking it down thus made the task seem more manageable.

Griffith squatted, forearms on his knees. "Those are the basics."

"There are more," she said grimly.

"A few nuances. It takes a bit of skill, and strength, to manage momentum up and down hills. And the machine itself responds differently on different road surfaces. There's a trick to—" He must have realized his words were producing a decidedly negative effect. He smiled. "Not to worry. It will all be second nature before you know it."

She smiled too, a crazed smile.

Today was Friday. The Mutton Wheelers departed on Tuesday. At this rate, Griffith would have to run beside her, propping her Rover the whole way.

He rose and extended a hand. She clasped it. His strong grip made her knees feel weaker. She was upright in an instant but wobbling like a bloody bicycle.

"I have an idea," said James, musingly, leaning forward in his chair. "Muriel, what if you thought of the handlebars as bit and bridle?"

"You're not helping," she told him.

"Or named your bicycle, to establish a relationship?"

"Not. Helping." She grated it.

"You're the one who insisted that I come along," he huffed.

"Not for the cycling pointers."

He shrugged and plucked a book from his surgical bag. "I was going to suggest Cynisca, after the Spartan princess who won the Olympic chariot race."

"Cynisca." Muriel gave him a dubious look.

"I was feeling rather proud of it." He balanced the book on his thigh and drummed his fingers on the cover. "Boudica."

"I'm not calling my bicycle Boudica."

"Britomart? Belphoebe. No, I've got it—La Belle Dame sans Merci!"

"Daisy," blurted Muriel. She scowled with enough ferocity to preempt James's smirk.

He smirked regardless, a well-satisfied smirk.

Thanks to his horseplay, her bicycle had a name. A non-poetical, non-warriorlike name that probably struck fear in Griffith's heart. Fear that she'd plant herself in a field about five paces from the starting line, and that would be that.

She didn't look at Griffith.

"Daisies are hardy," she muttered. "They're extremely reliable. Also, they're quick. Quick to grow, I mean. Relatively speaking."

James was nodding along. "Brilliant." His lips twitched. "Now can I say upsy-daisy when you topple over?"

"I can't see how you'll refrain." She marched up to him and stuck out her hand. "Sherry."

He obliged her, and she wet her lips delicately, knowing the sherry was too rich to gulp. She'd underestimated her thirst. Her throat moved convulsively, and she tipped the flask again.

James eyed her with amusement.

"You should name your bicycle too," he said, as Griffith came to stand at her throbbing elbow.

"Agreed," Griffith drawled. "I'm thinking Vercingetorix. Or Buttercup."

Muriel sputtered and had to wipe her mouth on her sleeve.

"Buttercup," approved James. "And your bicycle club is…" He drew out the pause, grinning with anticipation. "The Flower Pedals!"

Muriel groaned, which made her battered ribs ache the more.

"Not another peep," she commanded. "Unless I need a spoke surgically removed from my backside." She slapped the flask into James's hand.

"On second thought," she added, "not even then."

Another hour later, she was lying in a bruised, sweaty heap, a rock drilling into her hip. Her only consolation—other than the fact that she did not, yet, have a spoke embedded in her backside—was that she'd traveled an appreciable distance from the engine house before an instinctive zigzag around a stick had precipitated her doom.

She levered up, palms on the grass. Griffith was loping toward her.

The sound of a bell brought her head around.

A cyclist was spinning down the narrow road that wound past the farms. She pedaled smoothly, homespun skirt hiked to her knees, checked apron fluttering. A basket sat above her front wheel.

"Geddon, Kit!" she hollered as she flashed by, bright braids swinging across her back.

Muriel was still staring when Griffith dropped down beside her.

"Good form," he said. "I'd say you went fifty yards."

"She has good form." Muriel turned to him, unable to grudge the girl her admiration, even as disappointment with her own progress weighed in her gut. "She's a marvel."

"Martha Curnow?" Griffith stretched out his long legs. "She is. She rides like a fish in water."

"Whereas I ride like a fish on a bicycle." Muriel made a face.

Griffith's lips twitched. "You'll get the hang of it."

"You should have asked her."

He shrugged a shoulder. "She's farming stock."

The dismissive statement snapped her spine to attention.

"You want more polish?" She glared, curling her fingers in the grass. "I'm farming stock myself. The vulgarity comes out sometimes. Consider yourself warned."

His searching gaze roamed over her. "I wasn't voicing a personal objection. As I'm sure you know, farm chores begin before dawn and end after dusk. Her family couldn't spare her."

Oh. Well, that explained it. Lord, she was testy.

She gave a chagrined nod. "You taught her how to ride?"

"I did. After she convinced her father of the practicality. She sells eggs and cheese in town, and now she doesn't have to wait for the cart or walk the miles there and back."

"But there's the expense."

His gaze shifted.

"You didn't charge her." Muriel's eyes widened. "You gave her the Rover? Is she one of your…?"

His gaze returned to meet hers. "You exaggerate my romantic profligacy."

"So financial profligacy is your line? My cousin was a shopkeeper. He made his customers pay ready money for every matchstick." She pressed with her knuckles until she felt moist grains of dirt on her skin. Something bid her continue. "And by his calculations, I worked myself more into his debt each day."

"I thought you were farming stock."

"This was after the farm."

He was looking at her too keenly. She gave herself a shake and winced as every muscle twinged.

"Miss Curnow," she said, bringing them back to topic. "She isn't anything to you. And you gave her a bicycle."

"It's a bicycle I used to rent out. I'm not losing much." He tossed his peaked cap onto the grass and scrubbed a hand through his hair. His expression was almost dreamy. "And she's gaining time."

"Because she can make her deliveries faster."

"And no one knows how much faster." A smile broke across his face. "She can skim minutes from the time she saves and linger on the High Street."

Muriel stared. "That matters to you?"

Such a small, nearly immaterial thing. A girl winning for herself a few precious minutes. Gaining time to look in a shop window or talk with a friend.

He swatted at a pollen-drugged bee, which continued its discombobulated loops.

"All the time in the world wouldn't mean she'd be allowed to ride with the Mutton Wheelers." He tipped his head. "Tootle off with a half dozen men on iron grasshoppers? Never." He laughed. "Iron grasshoppers. That's what her father calls bicycles."

"I was your last resort." Muriel rose to kneeling, over the protest of her knees. It was so obvious. How could she have imagined Clarinda Chiswick volunteering in her stead? What leisure allowed, propriety forbid.

She'd focused on Griffith's ability to magnetize women and ignored the hurdles in their way.

"Last resort," he agreed. "Also, first resort. There were a few middle resorts, artists of independent means and scandalous reputations. But the athletic one is off to France, and I suspect the others would have turned me down."

Her brow crinkled. "Why did you let Deighton goad you into this?"

Emotion flickered in his eyes, there and then gone. "Arrogance, stupidity, and righteous indignation."

He said it smoothly.

And that very smoothness pricked her intuition. That, and the charming way his features shifted into an even more handsome arrangement. It was too charming.

"You goaded him, really." As soon as she said it, the truth of it struck her. Griffith's wits were keen. Deighton couldn't outmaneuver him so easily. "You knew how he felt about women cycling. And how he thirsted for another contest. The challenge was as good as issued as soon as you said a woman could ride that distance. But you said it without anyone in mind." She shook her head slowly. "It seems an oddly big risk to take."

"Perhaps I thrive on risk."

"Perhaps you had an ulterior motive." She remembered his claim and repeated it archly. "Ulterior motives are the most interesting."

A muscle ticked in his jaw. His gaze bored into hers, and the gray of his eyes seemed to leach away the sunlight.

"I—" She shook her head, disconcerted. But the strangeness of the moment dissipated. A second passed, and he was smiling with characteristic irony.

"I had an ulterior motive," he said. "I just didn't know it at the time." He leaned toward her. "This victory will also be a victory for cats."

She laughed. Her laughter felt restrained. New questions queued on her tongue. But she'd pushed him enough already, in error. She wouldn't pursue an inkling, not now.

She had a bicycle to ride.

She surged to her feet, righted the fallen Rover with an upsy-daisy, and aimed it at the engine house. James wasn't reading any longer, and he wasn't alone. Redheaded Mr. Ponsonby occupied the other chair. Their conversation looked supremely spirited.

She climbed back into the saddle and flung forward before Griffith could reach her to steady the frame.

"I'm going!" she cried in excited disbelief. "I'm going!"

And she was. She was going, going at last, bowling along, the wind in her hair.

She heard Ponsonby's baritone. "Can she brake?"

"Not sure," said James.

Before the crash—the last of the day—she had time to experience the foretaste of victory, and to wonder how many ways she might win and lose in the weeks to come.