Chapter 18

Muriel was wedged in the lowest fork of an ancient oak. It wasn't as big as the Darley Oak, but its gnarled limbs answered to her purpose. She was safe. She repeated it to herself, fingers digging into furrowed bark.

I am safe. I am safe.

She almost believed it. She'd stopped shaking, but her chest was tight, heart giving quick, pinched beats.

I am safe.

A thud below shook loose her gasp. She swung her arm, snapped a dead, spindly branch, and stabbed downward with all her frantic strength. The branch connected.

"Holy God!"

She froze. A second later, the branch tugged from her hand, burning her skin through her glove. Another second, and it began to stab back.

"En garde, you bastard! What have you done with her?"

The husky voice was almost unrecognizable, tight with fury.

Almostunrecognizable.

She leaned forward and took a whack on the shoulder. "Griff?"

Wincing, she pressed back into the tree.

"Muriel?"

She leaned forward again, slowly. Griffith was standing beneath her like a swordsman, chest heaving, stick upraised. Her blow must have knocked off his cap. His hair was wild, and his eyes were wilder. They flashed over her.

"Blast!" He gave a shake and flung the stick away. He scrubbed a hand across his face, and when it came away, his expression teetered between shock and outrage.

"It's me." Muriel licked her dry lips and braced herself against the trunk, unbalanced in more ways than she could count. "I haven't cracked your skull?"

"No." He probed his head. "No, but it was a bloody good clout."

"You clouted back." She brought her bruised shoulder up to her cheek. "Did you think I was the banditti?"

"Yes. In a word." His laughter had a sharp edge. "First, I thought you'd collided with this tree. But then, yes, I thought bandits—or smugglers, really. It's Cornwall."

He stepped back, to look at her without craning his neck. The shadows beneath his cheekbones deepened as he clenched his jaw.

"What happened?" he asked, stance opening, gaze sweeping their surroundings. "Why are you up in a tree?"

"No cause for alarm." She swallowed. From her perch, she could see farther than he could. Linnets and yellowhammers rustled the hedges. There was a thatched cottage in the distance, a woman passing through an ivy-mantled garden gate.

No bandits. No smugglers. No beasts with blood-flecked maws.

She drew a long breath. "I didn't meet with any mischief."

"Something frightened you." His gaze swept back to her. "I'd have guessed you were simply after a bird's nest if you hadn't rained blows at my approach."

He was pressing for more information. But it would be easier to calm herself, and climb down, if she cleared her mind.

She lifted her chin. The glowing leaves above made a golden-green bell of serenity. "A woodpecker must live up here somewhere. Most of his feathered friends prefer the hedges, or the furze."

The pause lengthened.

At last, Griffith spoke. "You know a lot about birds."

She glanced down, relieved he'd taken her cue. "Not really. Prescott has a better eye. He spotted a pied flycatcher by the lake."

This earned her a grunt. "You two seem to get on well."

"We have plenty to talk about. We both appreciate the natural world."

"Delighted to hear it." Griffith's close-lipped smile didn't look delighted.

"Funny," he said, after a tense beat of silence. "You preferred to go down to the shore by yourself."

"Prescott's keen, but he would have gotten in the way," she responded slowly. "Egg too. They'd both have come along, and I'd have been minding them instead of the seaweed." She hesitated. "You understand."

He did understand, surely. There was a particular kind of work a woman had to do to manage the men who helped her unnecessarily.

His face didn't change. The fine hairs on her neck stirred with unease. He was seething, and not only with misplaced fury at her imagined attackers. Instinctively, she raised her defenses.

"It would have been tiresome." She frowned. "I only wanted a look."

"A look." Tiny muscles ticked near his temple. "Hardly worth separating yourself from the group."

The look had been worthless, in fact. She'd walked a small stretch of coarse sand and seen nothing but a few cuttlefish bones and egg cases.

Griffith was squinting at her now, his irritation plain.

"The others didn't wait for you."

She gave a huff. "I didn't assume they would."

"And me? Did you assume I'd continue as well?"

She bit her lip. Drat it. She hadn't intended to disrupt his ride. She'd simply followed the urge to beachcomb. And he'd been well ahead all day, vying with Deighton.

"I suppose I did assume so," she said. "I was quite prepared to ride alone. It's only fifteen more miles, fewer perhaps. I'm sorry you turned back."

"I'm not." His expression darkened.

She blinked at him. "Isn't that why you're angry?"

"Please. You're my wheelman. Wheelwoman." He waved a hand. "There was never any question."

She blinked again. "Yours?"

"Not in a proprietary sense."

"Oh." She furrowed her brow. "What's the other sense of the possessive?"

His expression grew darker. "Penny. You can't just disappear. What I meant is we're a unit."

She tilted her head. "Since when?"

"Since we started riding."

"And you're in charge of this unit? What you say goes?"

"Yes, dammit. Provisionally. I'm the one who knows the laws and the courtesies. I'm the one who can assess the condition of the thoroughfares and our machines. I'm the one who can fix a broken spoke and true a wheel." He sounded frustrated. "You're more vulnerable on the road."

This was undeniable. Also, irrelevant. She nodded. "And yet I'm accustomed to making my own choices."

His gaze bored into her. "Your choices affect me."

She glanced away, confused emotions welling in her chest. The simple statement pushed her strangely close to tears, as though his words had a broader meaning, expressed a sentiment she'd been longing to hear.

You are essential to my life.

She said nothing, heat building behind her eyes.

He folded his arms. "The choice to ride alone was foolhardy."

Her inner tumult made the criticism sting all the more. She wiggled herself into a more secure position and tugged off her gloves.

"You are overbearing," she told him, her voice cold.

"You are in a tree." He matched her tone. "Obviously, I wasn't overbearing enough."

They looked at each other in silence.

His thumb began to tap against his bicep. "Can we make a resolution? Going forward, neither of us strikes out unaccompanied. That's how riders get lost or left behind."

She shoved her gloves in her pocket and studied the pink mark on her palm. The instinct to refuse seized her. It would feel satisfying—and childish. What he proposed was hardly tyranny. Don't wander off. It was a basic principle, critical to social cohesion and individual survival.

She sighed. "So resolved."

"Good," he said, promptly.

"But if I see a promising cove, we're stopping."

"We'll stop." He paused. "If it's reasonable."

Reasonable could be negotiated. Griffith's temper ran nearly as high as hers, but he was fair-minded.

"All right," she said. "Good enough."

He brushed back his hair, grimacing as he touched a tender point. "Can we make another resolution? No whacking each other with sticks."

His grimace seemed a bit put on, and his eyes glinted teasingly.

"So resolved," she said, and felt her lips twitch. A spat was a spat with him. You had it out, and it was over. With Esmé, she'd often felt that she was living the long, punitive aftermath of a fight she couldn't remember.

"That was easy." He lifted his brows.

"You seem surprised."

"You have a truculent streak. I doubted you'd lay down arms."

"We resolved against sticks." She gave a small shrug. "Pelting with acorns is still permitted."

There was a little cache of last year's acorns in a declivity of the trunk. She took one in hand.

The teasing glint in his eyes became an intense glitter.

"Come down," he urged softly. "Then pelt me if you dare."

His low, goading voice sent a shiver along her spine.

She was beginning the awkward rotation that would allow her to drop to the ground, when staccato barking shattered the peace, sinister as gunfire.

She clutched the tree, every muscle gone rigid. Her heart seemed to rise into her throat.

Griffith turned.

"Ahoy!" He was grinning, grinning as slavering death hurled itself forward.

She shut her eyes, heard the thumps of a tussle. Panting filled her ears. She could almost smell the hot stench, wafting up to her in gusts.

"Good day to you too, mate."

There was a high-pitched whine. Griffith laughed.

He was safe.

She was safe.

She couldn't catch her breath. She let her forehead rest on rough bark, felt little particles shower her eyelids.

"Penny," called Griffith. "You're not stuck? Do you need a hand?"

"No," she croaked.

"Stop gathering munitions and come down."

Certainly,she answered. Be right there.

Her lips didn't move. She didn't move. The panting sounded unbearably loud. The next bark made her shoulders jump.

"I'll come up." Griffith spoke in a changed voice. "Do you mind?"

Those new noises—he was hoisting himself. She opened her eyes as he reached for a handhold above her head, sidling around her, larger fragments of bark showering them both. She flicked repeatedly at her eyes, and her hair. A hectic gesture that exacerbated the disorder of her thoughts. Where was her hat? She hadn't noticed that her hatpins had come loose.

"Truce," said Griffith. He'd settled himself on a long limb, legs dangling, one wrist resting casually on an upper branch. "Hold your acorns. I only want to talk."

Her stalled blood began to pump. She didn't look down. Death still bounded around the tree. She looked at Griffith, the play of light and shadow on his face.

"It's more comfortable over here." He shrugged his broad shoulders, the carelessness of the invitation belied by the glow in his eyes.

She edged out of the cramped fork and crawled onto the limb, then clasped the upper branch, turning so she sat as he did. Her right foot tingled. She'd had it jammed sideways so long it had gone to sleep. Griffith slid closer.

"You're afraid of dogs," he said, disarmingly direct.

A ray of sun lit his tousled hair and gilded his cheekbone. Now she suffered from a new form of breathlessness. His beauty almost hurt.

"I'm afraid of snakes," he offered. "I really am. I break out in a sweat." He frowned. "Sorry. That must seem trite in comparison."

His ruefulness moved her even more than the admission itself.

"Adders are common in Cornwall," she whispered.

He laughed. "That's not very comforting."

Indeed, it wasn't. Her ears flamed.

"James could tell you." She cleared her throat. "I'm clumsy with such things. Compliments. Words of comfort." Thankfully, her throat closed completely before she could add an explanation, embarrassing in its implied self-pity.

She'd heard little of that type of speech to date.

He touched her hand. For the tour, he'd donned buff-colored gloves. His leather-encased fingers skimmed her knuckles.

"Dogs are common everywhere." He turned her hand over. "You are uncommonly brave, to face them daily."

Air rushed into her lungs. He was graceful with compliments. He had the ability to make a person feel seen, and special. Knowing this should diminish the effect. He looked at other women with that same glittering gaze.

"Face them daily? Flee them, you mean." She shook her head. "It's not daily, thank God. Too often, though."

He considered her. "Remarkable that the fear doesn't keep you indoors."

"The only pleasure I ever found was out of doors." She realized, too late, how that might sound, and blushed. "Occasional terror doesn't weigh in the balance. Despite the nuisance."

"It's more than a nuisance," he said gently, concern in his eyes. "You were in agony."

Her discomfort increased. He'd observed her in an abject state, blanched and cowering.

"Nuisance to others," she clarified. "That's what's bothersome."

Frown lines carved down from his nose. "How is your fear a nuisance to others?"

"How isn't it?" She laughed humorlessly. "Shall I list the problems I've caused? Once I flung myself on the ground and crushed a rare orchid. My husband was livid. On two occasions, I panicked and threw an expensive lens into the undergrowth. Neither lens was recoverable. Then there was the time I made us miss a boat. The time I was the reason an expedition got cut short. The list goes on." Her temples began to throb. "Trust me, you'll find it a nuisance too if I let a perfectly benign retriever interfere with our timely return to St. Ives."

"Trust me, I won't." His smile was lopsided. "But perhaps I can lure the retrievers from your path."

"Your infamous charisma works on dogs?" She aimed for a bantering tone, but there was a catch in her voice. He couldn't create a charmed circle around her. No one could. Gratification bloomed inside her regardless, at the thought that he wanted to try.

"My charisma." He smirked. "I was thinking table scraps."

"I wouldn't bother. And I wouldn't worry. I will finish the ride." She nodded for emphasis. "Most dogs don't frighten me. It's only the large ones, with a certain kind of fur, a certain way of moving. A certain smell. Teeth that…"

She'd crossed her ankles and was grinding the bones together. Tendrils of emotion pushed at the cracks in the wall she'd built around herself. Usually, she cut them back.

"It's not the dogs themselves," she said at last. "It's a memory. They drag me into it, and then I can't get out."

His lashes had lowered as he listened. His gloved thumb traced the air above the pink mark on her palm.

"May I?" he asked. She acquiesced, half in understanding, half in bewildered faith. He lifted her palm to his lips. She exhaled. His mouth was silky, and she felt the slight suction of his indrawn breath, and then the damp tip of his tongue. Sensation twinned. The center of her palm seemed connected to the center of her being, which she located somewhere behind her navel.

It was a kiss. No one had ever kissed her there. Her hand was slightly cupped, as though the kiss were something she could keep. The intimacy made her head swim. She tightened her grip on the branch.

He lowered her hand, tucked it between them. "What frightened you today—it was an echo of something that happened a long time ago?"

"To my mother, not me." She looked up, through the branches. The leaves weren't so bright anymore. The gaps between had filled with gray. "But I was with her, in the yard. It came out of nowhere, the dog. It smelled like the bowels of hell, and it bit her before we could move. I couldn't make it let go. No one could. Mr. Wilson beat it with a shovel, and it still didn't open its jaws. Another neighbor had a rifle, and…"

She broke off and glanced at him.

He was looking at her steadily.

"Well," she said. "That dispatched it."

"Your mother's wounds." He hesitated. "They were mortal?"

She turned up her gaze again and watched the leaves shift in the wind. "Not at first. The doctor treated her leg. When the symptoms began, he came back, several times. Lord Raleigh paid the fees—James's father. Usually, he didn't extend himself beyond the Christmas dole of blankets, coal, and plum pudding. But news spread like wildfire. My mother was well-liked. A young widow. She always went to church. She sang in the choir. She had the prettiest hair. And she suffered so piteously. Everyone wanted to help, or gawk." She pulled a deep breath into her burning lungs. "The dog was mad, you understand."

Griffith made a soft sound, and his arm wrapped around her, strong and supportive. Feeling him there, without having to meet his eyes—it enabled her to go on.

"Mother had always been gentle," she said. "But she pushed away anything I brought her, violently. She broke our plates, our only pitcher. She had to be tied down. There wasn't enough sedative to keep her asleep. She strained against her bonds so that the bed thumped the floor. She made noises like I'd never heard. As though that dog's snarl was coming from her throat."

Griffith's arm tightened, and she released the branch above, trusting that he wouldn't let her fall.

"It went on for a week. I couldn't recognize anything about her. I drew near and my skin crawled with abhorrence." She softened against him, the words wringing her out. "Right before the end, Lady Raleigh drove over in her pony carriage, with a basket of cheese and grapes and beef tea. I remember she took the lid off the pot on the hob and pursed her lips at the cold oats, like she was in pain. She wanted to read to Mother from the Bible. She'd brought her youngest son, to teach him about charity."

"James." Griffith's chin came to rest on the crown of her head. Her cheek pressed the fabric of his coat, which smelled like soap and heath and some subtle, drugging scent that came from him alone.

"James," she said softly. "That's how we met. We stood in the corner, and he held my hand. He asked me about my mother's favorite things, what we liked to do together. He helped me see her again. And that helped me say goodbye." She twined her fingers together in her lap. "He wasn't yet twelve, because I was scarcely eight. But he knew how to give me something I needed more than charity, or even compassion. Even if we'd never spent another moment in each other's company, I'd have loved him forever." Her eyelids felt heavy and wet, and she realized she'd turned more of her face into Griffith's coat. She was too flustered, and too snugly secured, to move away.

"Do you know he researches rabies? There's a method now, to protect people who've been bitten by rabid animals. Hydrophobia can be prevented." She strove for businesslike briskness. "James says we're close to stamping out the disease altogether." She faltered, unable to present a fa?ade, not now that she'd allowed it to crumble.

"I thought the advances would put my fear in perspective. But it defies perspective. It defies everything. When it comes on, I'm back there, in the yard with my mother, and the dog is lurching toward us. That moment—sometimes it feels like the only real moment of my life."

"It's not." His voice was gruff and low, and his body was solid against hers, and the reality of it flooded her from head to toe.

She lifted her head, angling her face up to him. His pupils had dilated. His eyes consumed her, dark and hungry. As her lips parted, a cool droplet splashed the corner of her mouth. The leaves quivered and began to dance.

"Rain." Slowly, Griffith withdrew his arm, giving her time to anchor herself. Catlike, he stretched his lean torso and levered himself up, climbing to higher boughs. "That sheepdog belonged to that cottage." He pointed with his chin. "I can see him behind the gate."

She heard the question in his voice.

"I can climb down now," she said. "Let's ride. Before the rain gets worse."