Chapter 13

On Monday morning, Kit rolled up a coat, a pair of trousers, two shirts and undershirts, four handkerchiefs, as many stockings, a cravat, and a nightshirt, and packed them into his knapsack, along with leather shoes and spats, a needle and thread, a jar of salve, a bottle of alcohol and tannins, toilet items, and assorted tools and parts.

He took the straps in one hand and curled his arm.

Twelve pounds, give or take.

His eyes strayed to the table, where he'd stacked Friday's purchases, art supplies from Lanham's on the High Street. He packed the sketch pad and pencils. The sketch pad was missing a few pages, all crumpled in the fireplace. Each page represented a failed attempt to capture the form of the seaweeds he'd floated in the wash basin. Those seaweeds were drying now, on a rack he'd assembled from a handful of loose spokes.

He didn't spare them a look. He left the knapsack on his workbench and rode to town, down Talland Road to Titcombe Hall, an imposing, many-gabled house, ivy-covered, with large bay windows.

He'd planned to talk with Deighton, to hold a parley of sorts, and discuss the route, but after a ten-minute wait in a dark, fussy drawing room stuffed with tapestry chairs and pompadour china, the door burst open, and an older man thundered toward him.

"You're Kit Griffith." It was an accusation. The man slammed a paper down on the table, the St. Ives Weekly Summary and Visitors List.

Kit knew perfectly well what it contained. Hawkings had stretched last Monday's events across two articles. One, a jaunty account of the joust. The other, a waggish announcement of the Mutton Wheelers' ten-day club run, including destinations, distances, and affiliated inns, and the terms of the wager.

"I've a mind to eject you from that chair." The man rounded the table, head lowered, a charging bull in Harris Tweed.

Even if they'd met on the street, Kit would recognize him as Deighton's father. He had the same wide neck and square jaw, and his deep voice boomed from his chest with the same aggressive volume, absorbed somewhat by the room's preponderance of draperies.

"Let me save you the trouble." Kit unfolded himself as Deighton Senior approached, which brought their faces into such close proximity that he felt a gust of hot breath.

"It was bad enough—my only son flitting about in knickers. Now he's a laughingstock, lampooned in a bloody gossip rag. Do you know what I was doing when I was his age?"

Kit closed his lips in a smile so he didn't voice his first thought.

Picking your teeth with human femurs.

"I was expanding my father's tobacco company," snarled Deighton Senior. "I was overseeing the construction of a new factory, launching three new brands of cigarettes." He looked like he could light cigarettes off the hot coals burning in his eyes. "I was siring children. All disappointments. Girls. And Colin, who costs me considerably more than they do, with less chance of return." He looked Kit up and down. "You knocked him into a dunghill. You! You can't weigh ten stone."

"Closer to twelve," murmured Kit, which was true enough, with the knapsack.

"He'll even the score." Deighton Senior's upper right eyelid twitched. "I'm not giving him a choice in the matter. He will knock you into a dunghill, or he's forever disgraced. I'd rather die without an heir than suffer a weakling to carry on my name."

Kit tried to imagine his own father speaking so about either of his brothers, Clive or Holt, and could not. William Holroyd was a big man himself, and reputedly bloodthirsty in his business dealings. Within the household, he'd always been the permissive parent, overriding his wife's objections to Kit's artistic pursuits and masculine outfits. When Kit had turned up at the dinner table with an Eton crop, unevenly barbered by a fellow student, he'd laughed and said it had decided him positively on the question of whether or not to invest in a Pyrenees wig company.

Would his father have cared more if his sons refused to perform as expected? Clive and Holt had both followed in his footsteps.

Kit stuck his hands in his trouser pockets and gave Deighton Senior a bland look.

"It was only a bit of fun," he said.

"Fun at my son's expense. He's the butt of a joke. But not for long."

"Sir," said Kit politely. "We're cycling the countryside together. The physical contest is now between each rider and the road."

Deighton Senior's lips drew back in a singularly nasty smile. "I wouldn't be so sure. You're leaving on two wheels, but you'll return on four, in a donkey cart."

Muscles tensed along Kit's spine, but he managed to shrug, creditably blasé.

"I called to discuss the tour with your son. If he's not at home…"

"He is not."

"I'll see myself out." Kit moved around Deighton Senior, slowly, and paused in front of a Sèvres vase set on an ormolu-molded stand. He plucked the freshest gardenia from the browning bouquet and threaded the stem through the buttonhole of his blue morning coat.

"Thank you for the flower," he said, glancing back at his host. "A thing of beauty is a joy forever."

Deighton Senior released a growling breath of unadulterated disdain.

With a nod, Kit took his leave.

He arrived at the Towans Hotel earlier than planned. Muriel wasn't meeting him until noon. He wheeled his bicycle through the English garden and leaned it against the gazebo, inside which she was safeguarding her own bicycle, at his suggestion. He climbed the gazebo's three steps and sprawled on a bench to wait.

He'd mounted panniers over her rear wheel, so she wouldn't have to carry her belongings on her shoulders. He could tell they were still empty. She'd yet to pack.

Sensible. Why strain herself on their last training ride? He'd advise her, though, to test the weight before tomorrow morning.

He was facing the hotel and could see guests coming and going along the walk. The tall figure in white, with the tennis racket—that was Raleigh. Ponsonby was strolling with him. No easel. He held a racket too, and was either waving it for emphasis or demonstrating his forehand.

Kit considered jogging over, but in the end, he refrained, watching the pair's lively progress until the hedges screened them from view. He and Ponsonby hadn't directly addressed their quarrel—if that's what it had been—but they'd smoothed it over, and Ponsonby seemed to be making a point of avoiding the chappies he'd befriended at Svensson's party.

Or perhaps he was just more interested in befriending the doctor.

Kit's thoughts wandered until a new figure drew his attention. Muriel was approaching with long strides. She worked in the field, as a botanist. That explained her supple movement. As did the fact that she was a country woman, raised on a farm, or at least partially. She'd gone on to drudge for her cousin in a shop. He would never have guessed if she hadn't told him. Her accent was cultured, and she behaved so comfortably with Raleigh, whose every plummy inflection and gesture screamed blue blood.

He watched as she drew closer, pleasantly mesmerized by the sight of her, and by his speculations, all the things he wondered and was poised to discover.

"It's just us today," she called, in lieu of a greeting.

"Yes." He rose and steered her bicycle down the steps. "I saw our chaperones heading in the other direction."

She gave him a small, irritated smile. "Oh, please. Those two couldn't chaperone a turnip."

He smiled back. "Then they've been outdoing themselves."

Her cheeks went pink. Was she nervous? They hadn't been alone since their tête-à-tête on the rocks. He realized—all at once, with something like shock—that he was nervous. At a level below conscious thought, he'd spent the last days wondering how much—if anything—to divulge to her about his past, about his particular type of manhood.

His nervousness told him he'd decided and decided on all.

Unprecedented.

Back in London, when he'd used that other name, he'd felt discomfort when his lovers interpreted his body as feminine, when he sensed them desiring someone he wasn't. In Cornwall, his lovers met him as a man, and he kept his body to himself, engaging in erotic activities that allowed him to preserve his privacy.

The simplicity felt like luxury.

Suddenly, he didn't give a fig for simplicity.

She'd gone even pinker under his prolonged gaze.

"We've no need of chaperones." She said it forcefully, but he heard the slight hitch in her breath.

"I'm in complete agreement." He let his voice vibrate with innuendo. Flirtation was his favorite pastime, and it steadied him.

No need for nervousness either. There was some new ground to cover, but it wasn't without its well-worn grooves.

"I think we mean different things." She tried to frown but laughed instead. She'd been laughing more frequently around him. Every time, the sound sent a warm swell through his chest.

"And James and Mr. Ponsonby haven't been chaperoning," she continued. "They've been entertaining themselves. James won't admit it, but he likes cycling."

"Does he?" Ponsonby had convinced Raleigh to give it a try, and the four of them had spent Saturday and Sunday riding together on the field paths. Raleigh had taken every opportunity to compare the experience unfavorably to a gallop on a good hunter.

"Absolutely." Her nod was emphatic. "The more negative he seems, the more he's enjoying himself."

"Do you like it?" He found himself unduly interested in the answer. She'd gone about determinedly mastering the mechanics. But did the momentum fill her with giddy joy, as it did him?

"I do like it, very much. Now that I don't topple over." She put her hands on the handlebars, and he let his remain where they were, their fingers nearly brushing, for a beat too long.

He released the bicycle, and she rocked it toward her, lowering her gaze to the polished frame.

"I think I'll get one, in New York," she said. "Although James said if I ride in the city, I have to promise I'll wear a pith helmet."

"Very protective," he murmured.

"Pith helmets?" She looked up.

"No." He smirked. "Raleigh."

She laughed again. "We look out for each other." Slowly, the laughter faded from her eyes, leaving an inexplicable shadow. "When we can."

His instinct was to cradle her face. To coax her confidence, and to pledge his assistance vanquishing any hardship.

Instead, he spoke lightly. "You're like a sister to him."

"He said that to you?" Her smile returned.

"He did. Although he didn't have to. It's obvious."

"He only has brothers, by birth. Older, thank God. I don't have any siblings myself." She paused. "Do you?"

He supposed he was looking at her too fixedly. But he didn't look away.

Older, thank God.An offhand comment, and an odd one, on the surface. But of course, Muriel had to know that her friend fancied men. The eldest son always bore the brunt of dynastic responsibility. Marriage. Children. It was fortunate for Raleigh, being youngest. Muriel was sensitive to that fact, and to Raleigh himself, to his right to live a life that didn't feel like a lie. Whatever her personal experiences, at the least she was aware that people loved differently. She was aware that alternate ways of being existed, outside the narrow limits prescribed by British law, church doctrine, and social convention.

That boded well.

Her eyes were searching his.

He hadn't answered her question.

"Brothers," he said. "Also older." So many years older they'd never paid him any mind. "We're not close, in any sense." He blinked, gathering himself. "Shall we? I thought we could take the inland route to Zennor. Ride on a proper road. Eat lunch at the Tinners Arms. Return on the cliff path."

"What would that be? Twelve miles?" She tipped her head thoughtfully. "Tomorrow we ride around thirty." She'd also read the paper. The Mutton Wheelers' first stop was Porthcurno, a village on Cornwall's southern coast.

"Not too bad," she added.

"Not a great distance, no." He felt compelled to correct a potential misimpression. "But it's the coastal route. We'll climb hills and round a promontory. There's rubble, and washouts, and wind. The going is steep."

She shrugged. "I'll dismount if necessary. I don't mind steep. Of all animals, I'm most like a mountain goat."

His brows shot up in amused surprise. A mountain goat, eh?

"Good, then," he said. "Agility is important. For the rubble." He paused. "And the rampaging bull."

She frowned. "What rampaging bull?"

"Deighton." He scratched under his cap. "Like father, like son. There might be a charge."

"You mean he'll charge at you?" Her voice rose. "This isn't a joust. We're all riding in the same direction!"

Perhaps he shouldn't have raised the issue, beyond asking her to pack some of Raleigh's sticking plaster.

He waved a hand. "Forget it."

She looked incredulous. "Forget that you said Deighton might attack like a bull? And what's this about his father? You know him?"

"Let's talk as we ride." He sighed. "It will help if I know I'm closing in on a pub. But first." He reached into his coat pocket. "I brought something for you."

"Oh." She bit her lip, and suddenly, she seemed to twinkle with shy expectation. Something went soft and vague inside him, and a funny, fleeting wish unspooled—that he had some kingly gift, precious gems, or the key to a castle.

He fetched up the length of lilac ribbon. "To trim your hat."

"But my hat has a ribbon." Confused, she touched her straw boater. The crown was edged with ribbon, wide and white.

"This one matches the lilac necktie I'll wear with my cycling coat. We don't have badges. Consider this our club color."

"Our club." She smiled wryly and put out her hand for the ribbon. "The Flower Pedals?" She shook her head. "I suppose it's fitting. For a botanist, and a dandy." She was eyeing his gardenia.

"First, I was a rake. Now I'm a dandy?"

"They're not mutually exclusive. And you can't deny it."

"I wouldn't waste my breath." He shrugged. "Denials are never convincing."

"True. Also, you're a dandy."

Now he laughed. "Fine. I'm a dandy. I adorn the world as best I can."

She rolled her eyes, but he saw how she rubbed her thumb over the ribbon, caressingly, before slipping it into her skirt pocket. His stomach tightened.

"You can adorn the world with your art," she told him. "Instead of your person."

"I can adorn the world with both." He winked, and then, to forestall her saying—or worse, asking—anything else about art, he turned, grabbed his bicycle, and pointed its front wheel toward the road.

The village of Zennor was a stark smattering of low, gray cottages and a tumbledown church set under gorsy hills, the ground falling away in boulders on one side, to the sea. Even after she dismounted her bicycle, Muriel's arms vibrated from the ride over the bumpy, hard-packed road. The pewlike chairs in the pub added unnecessary punishment to her aching backside. But the pint and the pasties revived her spirits, and Griffith seemed to slip under her skin with every sidelong look, his attention caressing her very bones.

He chatted easily with the ancient publican behind the counter, and the pretty girls in mobcaps, his granddaughters. He drank two pints to her one, recounting the local legends, mostly involving bloodthirsty giants, whose comeuppances were meted out by smaller, wittier, more courageous opponents.

"So, you see," he said, grinning, "the folklore is on our side."

"Folklore will prevent Deighton from breaking you in half?" She sipped her beer in delicate disbelief.

"Among other things." He responded airily, then called for more pasties.

It didn't irk her, his inconsequential prattle. It was colorful and amusing, and it made her feel colorful and amusing, and pleasurably conscious of her body, despite the myriad discomforts produced by four days of cycling lessons. The more they ate and drank and prattled, the more she felt herself melting into her unforgiving seat.

How unexpected this all was. The sensations that engulfed her when he was near. The urges that disordered rational thought. At seventeen, she'd tingled under Esmé's regard, flattered and overwhelmed by his proposal, by all he offered. It was only later that she'd understood what he didn't offer. She'd come to recognize the contours of an inaccessible intimacy from the outside, via uncountable little snubs.

Over the years, she'd sorted out her confused emotions, and she'd locked some of them away—the ones that had no place in her marriage.

No longing, no lack. A simple formula.

Kit Griffith's least glance deranged her tidy equations. He seemed to see the tiny key hidden inside her. What if they turned it, together? Released some mad, molten force?

It would shake her to the core. But she'd lock herself tight again. She'd carry on, the same happy fortress as before. She'd forget—as she most often did—that her deepest being swirled with a wild, unmet demand.

But if Griffith met it? Met her, with equal force?

When their dalliance ended, she might yearn more than ever. She might have to live with the kind of loneliness from which she'd taken such pains to shield herself.

At that moment, Griffith said something utterly inane, and she laughed, laughed the ugly, booming laugh she usually tried to temper, and he leaned forward, elbows on the table, as though it were music, and he didn't want to miss a single note.

Loneliness became a distant abstraction.

She chased her laughter with a healthy gulp of beer.

Disaster didn't strike until after they'd left the Tinners Arms and started spinning through the moorlands.

It took familiar form. Muriel saw the motion from the corner of her eye, a blur coalescing into shining wet teeth and a lolling tongue, a long body spiked with fur like a wire-bristle broom. Her blood ran cold. She flinched from the sound, but the low-pitched growl lodged in her ears. The world winked out. Or no, she'd hidden her face with her hands. She could still see the beast in the blackness, stretching as it lunged.

A bruising impact slammed away her breath.

Her ragged inhale had the pitch of a scream. She fought. She fought as hard, and as uselessly, as she'd fought that long-ago summer day, striking with her fists. But her blows didn't land on jumping muscle and knobby bone, and the smell in her nose wasn't excrement and blood, but heather and earth. She was thrashing the ground, face soaked with sweat, or tears, or both, and the growls had faded to nothing. With a gasp, she sat up, winching her eyes open. The light felt jagged. Shining teeth. She curled into herself, shoulders braced, gaze darting frantically.

She fixed on Griffith. He'd dropped his bicycle and turned back down the path, approaching at a run.

"Are you all right?" He fell to his knees at her side. "Did that dog cut in front of you?"

"It must have." She steadied her breathing. Just an ordinary dog. Friendly. A big, shaggy herding breed, with a place by the fire in a nearby farmhouse.

"You were writhing. You received some blow. To your head?"

"No." In truth, she'd no idea. She couldn't tell which part of her had hit the ground first. She was still numb.

"It happens." He sounded gruff. "Dogs make sudden movements, or horses, on the road. It's easy to lose control. Your hat." He leaned forward, face passing near hers, and tugged her hat from a heather plant. She took it from him, too clumsily. Her fingers pressed his, and the shock of that contact restored warmth to her veins. He moved his hand, dropping the brim of the hat, twining their fingers together. With his other thumb, he skimmed her damp cheek.

"You're sure you're all right?"

She felt her throat move convulsively. He meant had she injured herself. He didn't inquire after her oldest, most shattering hurt.

"Quite sure."

Esmé had struggled to conceal his restlessness when fear like this seized her, stalling their work. Her foible, he'd called it.

Griffith stroked a stray curl behind her ear. He was setting her to rights gently, with unhurried tenderness.

She exhaled. "I'm sorry I ever said your heart was rotten kelp."

The corners of his eyes crinkled. "Because it's an insult to kelp? Or because you finally recognize my fine qualities?"

A smile curved her lips. Her limbs felt looser, the fight flowing out of her. The dog was gone. It hadn't been that dog. She wasn't a child staring death in its jaws. She was a woman grown, on a warm heath, on a warm day, with a man whose eyes glinted with devilish suggestion.

Impulsively, she leaned in.

She laid her hand on his heart.