Chapter 22

Muriel expected Griffith to saunter forward and greet his old friends. Instead, he stood rooted in place, meeting the fixed stares with a fixed stare of his own. She realized in a flash that no one was prepared to break the silence. With every passing moment, the hesitancy on both sides deepened into an impasse.

Her mouth opened.

"I know our mythic history, King Arthur's and Sir Caradoc's!" The next lines of the song burst from her before she could think. "I answer hard acrostics, I've a pretty taste for paradox."

She swung her gaze to Griffith, who looked frankly shocked.

She barreled on. "I quote in elegiacs all the crimes of Heliogabalus."

Dear Lord, it was a mouthful. What followed? Songs from Pirates of Penzance were ubiquitous, but she'd never consciously committed them to memory.

The woman in the guardsman's jacket raised her voice. "In conics I can floor peculiarities parabolous." Her brown eyes twinkled.

Muriel took a step toward her. She could feel her heart beating in her throat, but it didn't stop the words from emerging.

"I can tell undoubted Raphaels from Gerard Dows and Zoffanies." A beat, and she had the rhyme. "I know the croaking chorus from The Frogs of Aristophanes!"

The woman in the guardsman's jacket was grinning now. She picked up the song where Muriel left off, gesturing to the assembled ladies. They began to chorus. The frozen room exploded into warmth and motion. A whippet-thin girl with sleek brown hair darted forward and grabbed Muriel's hands. Another girl, blond and cherubic, seized Griffith. Everyone was linking hands, forming a ragged circle, rushing as one toward the center, then hopping back, bumping the furniture. The song grew louder and faster as it raced to its conclusion. By the time the circle broke apart, Muriel's sides were splitting. She accepted the whippet-thin brunette's applause with an off-kilter curtsey and blushed as the woman in the guardsman's jacket gave her a salute. She looked for Griffith. He'd ended up near the piano. His hair was wilder, and he was slouching slightly, the picture of insouciant grace. He glanced at her with a crooked smile, and then the ladies surrounded him, all speaking at once. Affectionate exclamations pattered between eager questions. The cherubic blonde dropped onto the piano stool and banged a jaunty tune. Some remark made Griffith laugh.

All was well.

Satisfied, and far too sweaty, Muriel headed for the terrace. Three of the women intercepted her, their perfume preceding them as they swarmed, abuzz with friendly introductions.

"Champagne?" The fair one in pearls pressed a glass into her hand.

Muriel murmured her thanks, trying to match the woman with one of the names. Amelia Clarkson, she thought. A darker woman with straight black brows skewered her with a gaze.

"Are you a Gemini?" she asked.

"I'm not sure." Muriel blinked. This had to be Miranda Ellis. "I was born on the eighth of October."

"Libra." Miss Ellis and Miss Clarkson exchanged a speaking glance.

"Is that bad?" asked Muriel.

"Oh, no," said Miss Ellis. "None of the signs are bad."

A second speaking glance.

"None are wholly bad," she amended. She looked toward Griffith, so Muriel did too. He was in conversation with Miss Swanwick—resplendent in low-cut, crimson silk—and a smaller, older woman, the silver streaks in her dark hair glittering under the lights like her diamond earbobs.

"Kate is a Leo," said Miss Ellis.

"It could be worse," added Miss Clarkson.

"Kit." Muriel looked at Miss Ellis. "He goes by Kit."

"Kit," Miss Ellis agreed, easily. "Of course. Grace told us. Tonight, I used his natal chart to make a few calculations. You might find this interesting." She allowed a pregnant pause. "Jupiter is transiting his seventh house."

Muriel couldn't help herself. She pounced on the bait. "What does that mean?"

"Marriage," piped up Miss Clarkson.

"Or something like." Miss Ellis lifted her magnificent brows.

The two exchanged yet another speaking glance.

Muriel gave a tiny shake of her head and tried to speak lightly. "It would take more than Jupiter, don't you think? To make a person want to settle down?"

"Oh, but he does want to settle down," said Miss Ellis, with a mysterious smile.

"He told you that?" Muriel lowered her voice. She needn't have. Griffith was now on the other side of the room, as though by flitting about he meant to disprove Miss Ellis's claim.

"His chart told me." Miss Ellis fingered the shell cameo at her throat, of a Greek goddess, by the look of it. Or Sappho, perhaps.

"His chart." Muriel sipped her champagne, wondering if Miss Ellis was having her on.

"Kit's moon is in Cancer," offered Miss Clarkson.

Miss Ellis nodded. "He's strong but sensitive. Emotional stability is essential."

"I am a Cancer," interjected the third woman, Charlotte Something-Something. "I'm desperately sensitive. For example, Mrs. Pendrake, I cannot think you intended to slight me just now, but I cannot help but feel slighted."

"Charlotte," scolded Miss Clarkson.

"Amelia," retorted Charlotte Something-Something. "We both brought her refreshment, but she took yours and ignored me completely. Now I'm stuck holding two champagnes, like a jilted squire at a country ball."

"I'm sorry?" Muriel's forehead flexed. Charlotte Something-Something had a pretty face and a sulky mouth, and she was indeed holding two glasses. "The champagne was in my hand before I knew it."

"Because Amelia is an Aries. She must be first in everything." Charlotte Something-Something sighed. Miss Clarkson pursed her lips.

"I'm not upset, truly, with anyone," Charlotte Something-Something continued. "The sting has worn off. Here you are, my dear."

She passed a champagne to Muriel. Now Muriel was the one holding two glasses. She smiled at the women, wondering if they were all of them having her on.

"Hot as hades in here." The Major-General herself strode up to them, divested now of her jacket but no less martial in appearance. Her upright carriage was augmented by a long, tightly fitted cuirass bodice, gray as armor. "Does anyone care to join me as I seek fresher air?"

No one did, except Muriel, and so she and the Major-General stepped together onto the shadowy terrace.

"Call me Octavia." When she wasn't spouting rapid-fire nonsense in character, Octavia spoke with a slow, silky drawl. "I hear you're a bicycling botanist."

Muriel acknowledged this with a nod. "And you are a singer?"

"Seriocomic vocalist." Octavia struck a pose. "Music hall sensation. Star of the stage." She winked. "Did you recognize me?"

"Only your talent," said Muriel, politely. "Champagne?"

"No, thank you." Octavia lifted her own glass. "I usually drink one at a time."

"So do I," Muriel assured her. She contemplated the glasses in her hands with bemusement. "This has something to do with the zodiac."

The first notes of a quadrille tinkled merrily from the parlor.

Muriel raised her eyes and looked through the open doors. Couples had formed in the center of the room. Griffith was paired with an elfin young woman, slim and ethereal, with a pointy chin and a cloud of nut-brown curls. They passed close to the doors as they promenaded.

"Our newest member." Octavia followed Muriel's gaze. "Mrs. Dorothea Yarrow. Care to supplant her?"

"What?" Muriel curled her fingers more tightly around the stems of the glasses.

"As our freshman." Octavia's voice grew even silkier. "I'm delighted to propose you. Grace will second."

Muriel's gaze swerved from the dancers. "Me? A member of the Hesperus Ladies Club?"

She met Octavia's dancing dark eyes.

"I couldn't," she said, stiff with awkwardness. "I…I don't live in London."

"How disappointing." Octavia raised a brow. "I'd hoped you spent the colder months in town, when the plants are too withered by frost to be of interest."

This was wrongheaded on so many counts, Muriel laughed. "That's not how it works."

Octavia leaned closer. She really was quite tall, neither young nor old, and undeniably handsome. She smelled of sandalwood. "You're telling me tonight's all we have."

Muriel blinked. Was that what her comment had communicated? Carpe diem? Her head felt fuzzy, although she'd only drunk half a glass of champagne.

"I should tell you I'm not a sapphist." She blurted it out, then bit her lip.

Octavia pulled back slightly, a lazy smile playing over her generous mouth. "All right. Tell me." Her gaze turned wicked. "Like you mean it."

"I'm not…" Muriel gulped champagne, emptying the glass in her right hand. Heaven help her. "That is, I don't fancy…" She hesitated. She'd meant to say women. But did that imply she didfancy men, categorically? Throughout her life, she'd felt frissons with all sorts of people—because she admired their intelligence, or sensibility. If there was sometimes a physical component, well, she hadn't ever pursued it, until now. Or rather, she had with Esmé, but she'd found those brief, labored relations in the marriage bed oddly distancing.

She wasn't a sapphist, but maybe she wasn't anything else either.

"I don't fancy," she said, with a hard stop. That came closest to the truth. She looked again into the parlor. Griffith and Miss Yarrow were twirling. "Not enough to join a club based on the type of fancying I do."

Not unless there was a Kit Griffith Ladies Club.

Which, Lord above, there probably was.

The second glass of champagne now seemed indispensable and brilliant. She tipped it back.

"Enough to try out something new?" Octavia's flirtatious drawl sounded close to her ear.

Muriel's whole body tensed. The scent of sandalwood enveloped her.

"Octavia!" The cry came from the direction of the lawn. "What are you doing? You're too bad!"

Muriel swiveled. Two women—blond or graying, Muriel couldn't tell which—were marching toward them over the grass. The one who'd spoken pulled out in front, shaking a bouquet of heliotropes.

"I don't believe in too bad," called Octavia, but she slinked away from Muriel, palpably reluctant. "What were you doing out there in the hedges?"

"Stargazing," replied the woman with the bouquet, as her companion caught up with her and gasped out her own answer: "Flower picking!"

They were both blondes, Muriel could see that now. And both disheveled.

She blushed.

Octavia laughed.

"Virginia Potter." The woman with the bouquet drew up to Muriel. "You must be Lucy. I'm so glad to finally meet you."

"Muriel," corrected Octavia swiftly. "This is Muriel Pendrake."

"Oh dear." Miss Potter looked aghast. "That's what Grace said, isn't it? Muriel." She smoothed her messy hair with her free hand. "I've had Lucy lodged in my head. Kate used to go on and on about a Lucy."

"Kit." Muriel murmured it automatically.

"I've got all the names wrong tonight." Miss Potter gave Muriel an apologetic smile.

"This is Tilly Beresford," said Octavia, motioning at the other blonde, while cutting her eyes at Miss Potter. "Lest Virginia misspeak."

"Lovely evening." Miss Beresford beamed at them each in turn. She was lovely, with a rounded figure decorated with bows, some of which appeared to have been undone and hastily retied. Her big eyes rested on Muriel. "You're Lucy? An absolute delight to make your acquaintance. Virginia, give Lucy a heliotrope."

Octavia cleared her throat.

Oblivious, Miss Beresford plucked at Miss Potter's bouquet, then lifted a stem of purple blossoms to her dainty nose.

"We've imbibed rather a lot of champagne," confessed Miss Potter. "Smuggled a bottle down to the beach."

"We wanted to put a note in it," giggled Miss Beresford. "And throw it into the sea. But we hadn't paper and pen." She came forward to give Muriel the flower. "Oh." She stopped, looking between the glasses in Muriel's hands. "You like champagne too. Well, how's this?" She put the flower in the empty glass.

"Thank you." Muriel smiled weakly.

Lucy.

The first word Griffith had ever said to her. The name on his lips when she knelt beside him in the field. The woman he went on and on about.

Jealousy niggled, uncomfortable and unfamiliar. And foolish.

She and Griffith had no future. Why let his past torment her?

"There you are!" Miss Swanwick sailed onto the terrace, carrying with her the parlor's heat and heavy perfume. "And in good company, thank God." She took Muriel by the elbow and lowered her voice to a stage whisper. "I was afraid you were alone out here with Octavia. She's the worst flirt in the kingdom. An absolute menace. I must bring you back inside at once. Henrietta wants to meet you."

Muriel let Miss Swanwick tug her through the parlor, depositing her glasses and the drooping heliotrope on the mantelpiece. Another dance was starting, and before they could skirt the room to wherever Henrietta sat in wait, Griffith tapped Miss Swanwick's shoulder.

"May I?" He cut in deftly and whirled Muriel across the floor. The room blurred. He spun her too fast, and held her too tight, and she gave in to the giddiness, clutching his shoulders, a bubble of laughter in her throat.

The galloping rotations threw all thoughts of Lucy from her mind. She and Griffith danced every dance, until her feet were as sore as her knees.

They had to climb onto bicycles in the morning.

As the pianist bounced up to take refreshment and the dancers caught their breath, Griffith saw her eyes stray to the clock and nodded. "Time for the circuit of farewell."

It took another half hour, but, at last, they'd reached the door, and Griffith was bowing to Henrietta, Lady Chettam, a stately woman in late middle years. Despite her short stature, she managed to speak while peering down the length of her powdered and imperious nose.

"You must call on me in London," she commanded them both. "The salons start again in October." She focused on Muriel. "You will perform a duet."

Griffith made mild protest. "I don't sing."

"For which we're all grateful," responded Lady Chettam tartly. "I referred to Mrs. Pendrake and Octavia."

Muriel noted the humorous spark in her eyes. Griffith did not.

"Like hell," he grumbled. "I'll learn to sing."

Dancing had jettisoned certain things from his mind as well.

Come October, Muriel would live on a different continent. They weren't attending any sapphic salons, not together.

She didn't remind him on the walk back to the inn. Instead, they sang, loudly and off-key, whatever snippets of lyrics they could remember from popular ballads and drinking songs, until someone opened an upper-story window and shouted curses. After which they sang even louder.