Chapter 31

It was evening before he went to Titcombe Hall, where a merry crowd had been milling on the lawn since midafternoon—the predicted arrival time for the touring cyclists.

"Oh my," murmured Lucy, walking beside him up the drive. "I didn't imagine quite so many people."

"They're staring at me," said Nelly, putting her hand on his forearm.

"They're staring at me." Kit plastered a smile on his face.

"You're both stupendously vain." Lucy glanced over her shoulder at Gwen, trailing after them in a cobalt-blue gown with a Watteau back. "They're staring at Gwen."

"They're staring at me," repeated Kit. "Because I'm arriving on foot, instead of by bicycle."

"With three beautiful women." Nelly gave his arm a tug, steering them onto the grass. "Some of these chaps look impressed."

Some of them did. Kit spotted O'Brien as the man bowed his head in deference, hair flopping on his forehead. He stood with his regular clique: Craik, Landon, and a few other of Svensson's toadies. They were clustered around a statue of Venus on a plinth, guffawing as Craik painted her hair yellow and someone lewder pinked the tips of her breasts.

"I say, Griffith!" Landon jogged forward. "You've tripled the ladies and lost the bikes! Not a bad trade."

"Bikes are on their way." He didn't stop walking. More and more heads were turning toward him.

The populous edges of the lawn had a fairground atmosphere. Children shrieked, and couples wandered the hedges. Young men were setting off rockets. Two boys—fishermen's sons who often ran errands for the artists—had turned up on a pony, now cropping lilies in a flower bed.

Closer to the house, the gaiety was that of a garden party. Well-heeled guests gossiped in groups of basket chairs. Badminton was underway, and servants circulated with silver trays of lemonade and claret cup.

"Libations!" Nelly swerved from his side.

Lucy followed.

Kit took another step, looking after them, and ran smack into a wall of tweed.

Deighton Senior.

"Pathetic!" The man glared at him with vicious glee.

"Forfeit, did you?" Arthur Hawkings appeared, notepad in hand.

"Not at all." Kit watched Hawkings's pencil move. "I expect Mrs. Pendrake will pedal up the drive in less than an hour."

"We expected the Mutton Wheelers hours ago." The pencil kept scratching. "What happened?"

"Waterspout on the moor." Kit found himself talking in note form, for the reporter's benefit. "Fell behind schedule."

"What happened to you?" Hawkings looked up. "Why didn't you ride with them?"

Kit's eyes locked with Deighton Senior's.

Nothing to do with your son,he considered saying. He's a better man than you are.

But it wasn't his battle.

As the pause drew out, Deighton Senior's gaze flared with triumph.

"Because he was planted in a dunghill," he told Hawkings. "Write that down."

"Is it true?" Hawkings asked.

Kit shrugged his most quotable shrug and strolled after his Sisters.

"Griff!" Ponsonby vaulted into his path. "What in the hell? Where's your bicycle? Are you—"

Kit grabbed Ponsonby by the shoulders, spun him around, and pointed between the basket chairs, guiding his gaze to a tree and the three women gathered beneath it.

"I swear to God," said Ponsonby. "I didn't know they were here. They must have arrived today."

"They did." Kit pounded his back, grinning. "We arrived together."

"You patched things up?" Ponsonby grinned too, and hooted. "I knew you would." A split second later, his grin closed up like an umbrella. "Oh, hell."

He ducked behind a hedge.

"Erm." Kit ducked behind the hedge as well.

"I've busted things up, with Nelly." Branches rustled as Ponsonby crouched and wedged himself inside the hedge.

Kit rocked on his heels, nonplussed. He was glad now that Ponsonby had been out earlier, when the four of them called at the Oatridges'. The poor fellow needed time to collect himself.

More rustling, and then: "She can't see me?"

"No one can see you but me," said Kit dryly. "Which means everyone will think I'm communing with a shrub." He went deeper into the greenery, until a tall camellia bush hid him from the festivities completely. "No one can see either of us here. You can come out."

A negatory rustle.

"She won't take it too hard. The bust-up. Unless you busted up another of her sculptures." Kit paused. "What have you busted up, exactly?"

"My word. Our bond. I told her I'd wait forever. I knew my feelings had changed, but I hadn't planned to act until I'd broken the news. But now…"

Kit stepped closer to the hedge, peering through the leaves. "Now what?"

Ponsonby spoke in a hoarse whisper. "I snogged another chap. Not that Nelly's a chap. I mean, I snogged someone else."

"You snogged a chap?" Kit blinked.

"He's much more than a chap. Is it shabby of me, though? A shabby thing to do to Nelly?"

"Far from it," said Kit automatically. "She'll be relieved."

"Relieved?" Ponsonby drooped like a basset hound puppy.

"Resilient, I mean. Heartbroken but resilient. Who are you snogging?"

"Who do you think?" Ponsonby reddened. "James."

"Muriel's James? James Raleigh? The doctor?"

"You're shocked." Ponsonby sounded devastated. "Because we're incompatible? He's so useful, and I'm so useless? I've nothing to offer?"

"You've plenty to offer. I can think of a hundred reasons he'd like you." Kit cleared his throat. "I didn't know you might like him, in that way."

"I'd be a fool not to like him in every way." Ponsonby's eyes began to shine. "I've snogged chaps. Not since school. Not sober, anyway. And not since Nelly. But he's…There's no one quite so…He's truly…"

As he listened to Ponsonby stutter, Kit folded his arms. His smile was so enormous it hurt his lips.

"You've got it bad," he observed.

"I didn't realize until we went to the lighthouse." Ponsonby was smiling now too. "Grenfell took us. He's a huer. That's Cornish for craggy-looking bloke on the clifftop who watches for fish. He was a little too eager to skive off and row us out there. I could sense something about him, an intention. I thought he was after James, and it made me bloody wild. I wanted to hurl him out of the boat. But James would have done something brave and useful to save him, and I couldn't have that. So I heckled Grenfell a bit, to see if he'd hurl me out of the boat."

"Because then you would be the recipient of Raleigh's brave and tender ministrations?" Kit groaned. "Ponsonby."

"You don't have to tell me. I ended up provoking James far more than I provoked Grenfell. He almost hurled himself out of the boat, he was so aggravated."

"I suppose then you could have saved him. Except…" Sudden doubt surfaced. "Can you swim?"

"In a shallow fountain, if I'm drunk enough on champagne. Otherwise, I sink like a stone." Ponsonby winced. "But no one had to swim. And I couldn't have been more wrong. Grenfell was after the lighthouse keeper. As soon as we reached the island, the two of them skipped off, to check the lobster traps. Have you heard that one? Check the lobster traps?" He snickered.

Kit raised his brows.

"Anyway," said Ponsonby. "I was left to explain my appalling behavior to James. And there was really only one way to do it."

"You snogged him?" Kit pounced on the answer, laughing with delight at Ponsonby's expression. "Well done."

Ponsonby cocked his head proudly. "It was an inspired moment."

"I'm inspired. This is a painting." Kit took a step back. "You look like the Green Man, with all that foliage around your face."

"You want to paint me?" Twigs snapped boisterously as Ponsonby bounded from the hedge. "As a pagan god? Would you give it to James?" He shook leaves from his shoulders, then went still, eyes widening. "Wait. Griff. Are you painting again?"

"I seem to be." He affected nonchalance. The alternative was too embarrassing. Frolicsome leaps through the garden, like a baby goat. "I took Lucy, Gwen, and Nelly to the harbor. Lucy brought a paint box and a few boards, and we…"

Shouting punctured the background hum. It started far away, at the circuslike fringes, and swept up to the house.

Kit started running before he could think. He reached the drive and glimpsed the source of the excitement.

A cyclist, pedaling madly, hair blowing about in glorious disarray. Sparks from the rockets floated above, showering the dusk.

"Pendrake!" The man who hollered it must have bet good money. The name was a victorious roar.

Ponsonby took it up, sprinting past Kit. "Pendrake!"

Kit shook himself and sprang again into motion, but now the going was slower. The crowd had flowed onto the drive. He could hear Muriel yelling but couldn't make out the words.

He shouldered his way forward.

"She's calling for a doctor," someone said.

"Blimey!" The exclamation sounded right in Kit's ear. "Deighton took a cropper!"

"Knocked his lights out!"

"Oh, but here he comes! Look!"

Bugle calls added to the cacophony.

Finally, Kit pushed to the front. Bicycles were scattered on the gravel, and all the riders were on their feet, except for Deighton, who sat dazedly with Raleigh crouched beside him.

"Mrs. Pendrake finished the run, and she finished first." Hawkings was speaking loudly, soliciting comment from the spectators. "Who expected it?"

He jotted down responses, a barrage of largely untruthful affirmations intermixed with sniffs of moral opprobrium and sour grapes.

"We rode together." Muriel spoke up. Her stockings were black with mud, and as she swiped at her hair, she left a stripe of mud on her cheek. "I only went ahead after the accident, to fetch James—Dr. Raleigh."

Deighton climbed to his feet. He'd lost his cap and a purple knot had formed above his left brow.

"Luckily, he has the heart and head of an ox," Raleigh pronounced, rising as well. "But his collarbone is broken."

"I don't feel it," muttered Deighton.

"How do you feel about losing the wager? Exchanging mounts and permitting women into your club?" Hawkings waited, pencil hovering.

"Don't answer that." Deighton Senior stormed over. "And you, Hawkings, for shame. Boys clowning isn't a story. My son had you all on. He's done with his club. It doesn't exist anymore. He is going to lead Empire Tobacco's operations in Scotland. Put that in your paper."

"I am not done with my club," said Deighton.

"What was that?" His father rumbled the question like a threat.

"I am not done with my club. I'll go to Scotland, but I'll cycle there." Sweat stood out on Deighton's face. "And eventually, I'll open a Cycle Works. It's my dream."

"Your dream." Deighton Senior looked disgusted. "Go to the house. You're unfit for company." When Deighton didn't move, he seized his arm. Deighton ground his teeth together so hard Kit heard a crack.

He moved to intervene, but Raleigh got there first.

"Unhand my patient, sir," he said crisply. "He has a serious fracture, and you are doing him harm."

"I don't feel it," repeated Deighton, but his voice had gone threadbare.

Deighton Senior's neck bulged, but he let go, glaring.

"What kind of bicycle will you manufacture in your works?" asked Hawkins. "High wheelers or safeties?"

"I will be guided by my knowledge of both the best bicycle models and the bicycle market." Deighton was sweating copiously, but he managed to sound like a creditable version of his blowhard self. Which very nearly filled Kit's heart with affectionate relief.

"Safeties, then?" prodded Hawkings.

"Time will tell." Deighton frowned. "And for the record, our club already permits women. Mrs. Pendrake is a Mutton Wheeler."

"A Muttonette," offered Egg, trying to catch Hawkings's eye.

"We voted her in at Porthtowan," continued Deighton. "I wouldn't call this losing, exactly. Her victory is our victory."

Kit laughed. Deighton's hard gaze swung to him, but when he realized Kit wasn't laughing at him, his expression mellowed.

Deighton Senior had turned an alarming puce.

Raleigh thought it alarming too. "Take a deep breath."

Deighton Senior did not. He pivoted and shoved through the crowd.

"All right, then." Raleigh's expression said good riddance. "Come with me." He beckoned to Deighton. "Let's see about your shoulder."

Hawkings had begun peppering Muriel with his questions.

"Excuse me," called Kit, and Hawkings glanced in his direction. So did everyone else. Kit smiled liberally in all directions. "I hate to interrupt, but I must borrow the champion."

Muriel watched him approach, and when he reached her, he had to tense his muscles to keep from sweeping her into his arms. He took her elbow instead. "She deserves a toast."

"I thought you'd be in London by now." Muriel didn't lean into him as they walked across the grass in pursuit of champagne. She was acutely aware of her filthy dress and filthier gloves, and of their altered relationship. He might not want her to press against him as intimately as before.

"London?" He released her, and they faced each other. "Why would I be in London?"

She was too tired to construct careful sentences.

"Lucy," she said, and watched his face soften. It hurt like the rack, and then, the thought of his hard-won contentment dulled the pain. She smiled. "You accepted her apology."

He lit up. "She came to St. Ives. They all did."

Muriel's mouth turned dry. "And will she leave the duke?"

Kit looked at her without comprehension.

"It will be like that, then," she said, and a knife twisted inside her, for all of them—herself, Kit, Lucy, and the duke—each allowed only a sliver of bliss.

"Like what?" Kit hesitated, then drew a sharp breath. "Good Lord. Me and Lucy? That is your meaning?"

Now she was uncomprehending. "You're in love with her. She's in love with you."

"Penny." His eyes glinted. "You weren't trying to arrange a match between me and my dearest friend, a happily married duchess and mother of two?"

Her pulse was quickening. "I thought it the likely consequence of a reconciliation."

He stepped toward her, his proximity scrambling her thoughts. "I am not in love with Lucy. I have never been in love with Lucy. I couldn't feel more fully that she was my sister if we'd shared the same cradle."

"Oh." She exhaled a shaky breath as some secret tension left her body. Her eyes fixed on his waistcoat, peeping out from his magenta jacket: gold, embroidered with sunflowers.

"Penny," he murmured. A bright current carried warmth from the crown of her head down to her toes.

One last week, then.

She lifted her chin, met his gaze, and tottered. Too much cycling. She'd forgotten how to stand. His hands wrapped her shoulders.

She couldn't breathe.

His dark stare unnerved her. It was raw in a way she'd never seen.

"Penny," he began. "What I feel now is—"

"Mrs. Pendrake." The reporter signaled to get her attention. "You haven't had your champagne. But we want to photograph you before it gets too dark."

Kit backed away from her smoothly, with an easy smile. He wasn't going to finish his sentence—now, or ever.

Heart drumming, she looked with dazed disappointment from the reporter to the stocky man with the camera.

"Photograph me?"

"Capture your victory, for the front page."

The stocky man was already setting up his camera.

She frowned and scratched at the mud on her cheek.

"All you need to do is get back on your bicycle, and your fellow riders will lift you up, like so, above their heads." The reporter raised his arms enthusiastically.

Egg was approaching, rolling her bicycle.

"We'll cheer," he promised, offering her the handlebars. Prescott, Kemble, and Butterfield crowded close.

"This seems unwise," she said. More people were forming a ring around them. She felt a cold stare drilling into her like a diamond point. Of course. Lady Chiswick. The woman's whole face was puckered, like someone had pulled a string on a drawstring bag.

Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

Muriel's frown deepened. And then, a wicked satisfaction curved her lips into a smile.

Maybe a minute or two of levitation was in order.

She straddled the Rover. "High as you can, boys."

Kit trotted over and gripped the frame with the others.

"One, two, three."

Her feet left the ground. The wheels left the ground—not simultaneously. She tipped forward, then back, and then she was hovering, six feet in the air.

She could see the fading glimmer of the ocean.

She filled her lungs. The air smelled faintly of salt, and more strongly of smoke and grass and strawberries left too long in the sun. It smelled of summer, and she drew more and more into her lungs, so she'd never forget.

The camera shutter popped.