Chapter 7

The crowd swarmed the fence, and Kit leapt to earth, letting his New Rapid wobble on, riderless. Within moments, the bicycle was surrounded by laughing young men—tony trippers from London, excited to muck up their brogues. They lifted it above their heads and paraded around the pasture.

"Well met!" yelled Ponsonby. Kit looked in the direction of the voice, saw a flash of red, his friend's bright hair bobbing toward him.

Bloody hell but there were a lot of people.

He'd imagined a handful of spectators, and that's what he'd said to Wilmot Curnow when he'd asked the farmer for use of the pasture.

He hadn't asked for this.

This was chaos.

Deighton's fault, obviously. He must have made a circuit of the best hotels, bragging about his tourney in lobbies all around the bay.

Well, he'd hoisted himself upon his own petard.

Unfortunately, this wasn't the time to gloat.

If Curnow's cows got out, Kit would find himself hoisted as well.

He could hear Deighton distinctly now, bellowing.

"Let's go again! That was the first of three!"

"He never said three." Ponsonby elbowed his way up to Kit, flushed like a man in the throes of fatal apoplexy. Or like a ginger on a hot day in a crowded cow pasture.

Kit's sudden surge of alarm evaporated.

"It's not very sporting of him." Ponsonby frowned, then brightened instantly. "If the cheating duffer wants to get knocked down two more times, why not?"

"The joust is over." Kit pulled Ponsonby out of the path of the parade. The train of hilarious young men was longer now. "God almighty, it's like Hyde Park in here. Curnow will have my head."

"All right, then." Ponsonby nodded. "Joust's over!" He cupped his hands on either side of his mouth and shouted. "Shove off!"

No one acknowledged him. The parade paraded on.

"Good effort, mate." Kit clapped him on the shoulder. "I'll convey the news to Deighton direct, though. Might be more effective."

They struggled through the crowd.

"I shouldn't tell you this." Ponsonby yelled directly in Kit's ear. "She said not to tell you."

Kit stretched his neck, moving his head as far from Ponsonby's mouth as possible.

"But it's a day of glory!" Ponsonby gave a mighty yawp. "Are you ready?" He didn't wait for a response. "Coover wired back. She's coming to St. Ives!"

Kit's head snapped around.

"I don't believe you can ruin a surprise." Ponsonby winked. "A surprise is a surprise. Now is as good as later. Watch your feet." He laughed and tugged Kit's arm, steering him around a cowpat. "And you know Sisters travel in force. You'll reunite! And I'll de-bungle things with Nelly." Ponsonby's yawp was mightier than the yawp before.

The roar in Kit's ears had nothing to do with Ponsonby's yawps, or the murmurs of the crowd.

Did Lucy plan to berate him, her outrage reinforced by Gwen and Nelly?

His innards shivered, a sickly motion.

Did she plan to expose him?

Before Boxing Day, he'd believed her the last person on earth who'd ever do him harm.

When?He tried to ask but couldn't speak. Perhaps he hadn't caught his breath properly. All that frantic pedaling had winded him.

He tried again and managed it. "When?"

"What?" yelled Ponsonby. "When? Oh, I don't know. It was just a telegram. Not for a little while. At least a week, a week and a half, perhaps. Coover has that opening, remember? The New Gallery? Ouch."

Ponsonby stumbled to the left, helped along by a shove from the person with whom he'd collided.

And Kit found himself face-to-face with Deighton, so close that the toes of the bigger man's shoes overlapped his own.

"That wasn't a joust," Deighton growled. "That was a farce. The terrain is all humps and ditches and dung. The mud threw me, not you. Let's meet on the road."

"Are you sure? The road's much harder. When you take a cropper, you're more likely to split your head."

"I won't be the one taking a cropper!" Deighton snatched off his cricketing cap and wadded it in his hand. His sweaty blond hair lay flat on his scalp. He looked like a child about to tantrum, except ten times the size. He loomed even closer, grinding Kit's toes.

"Have I got your name down correctly?" Arthur Hawkings from the newspaper pushed between them, shoving his notepad under Deighton's nose. "Colin Deighton, from Bristol? Your bicycle club is the Mutton Wheelers?"

Deighton stiffened. "Colin Deighton, Captain." He stroked his hand over his badges. "You're not going to write that I lost the joust? In the paper? I'll sue for defamatory libel."

Hawkings withdrew the notepad. "I'm happy to quote you as refusing to concede defeat. Any quote from you, Griffith?"

Kit shrugged, except his shoulders didn't move. He felt as though a bag of sand weighed them down.

Ponsonby's voice was repeating in his head, making it difficult to concentrate on what was being said around him. A week and a half. A week and a half.

He could picture Lucy, Gwen, and Nelly marching toward him, their skirts snapping around their ankles.

"You should write about our club run." Deighton thrust his chin at Hawkings. "I've been planning it for months. We'll be the first to circle Cornwall, coast-to-coast. We're going west to Land's End, south to the Lizard, east to Kingsand, north to Bude, west again to St. Ives. Ten days of riding over sandy road, and mud, and stone. Griffith wouldn't last on his safety."

"Is that a challenge?" Hawkings asked. There was a little hush.

Challenge?

"Not much of one." Kit focused. "I could do that ride on a safety with no hands."

Deighton laughed. "Only if you grasped onto my coat so I could tug you along. But I doubt you could reach."

"The safety is low to the ground." Kit acknowledged the obvious. "But that makes it faster than the ordinary. You're not so much buffeted by the wind, and your position relative to the pedals allows you to exert more force with less fatigue. I could complete your tour." He paused. "And so could any of the riding students I've trained, women as well as men."

"Women?" Deighton laughed. "Women circling Cornwall on two wheels?"

"That's what I said."

Deighton returned his cap to his head, yanking down on the brim. "Here is the challenge, then. We leave Tuesday after next. If Griffith can train up a lady who completes the ride with us…" Deighton's expression darkened as he thought. "The Mutton Wheelers will switch to safeties and admit female members. And if she doesn't complete the ride, or if it takes her longer than ten days…"

"I'll turn over my business." The roaring in Kit's ears quieted. He felt, suddenly, as though he stood in the eye of the storm of his life.

Lucy was coming to St. Ives.

He'd ride an infinite gyre if it meant he could avoid her.

"I'll take the bets!" someone shouted, to a smattering of loud guffaws.

Deighton's hand swooped at Kit like a hungry gull.

"Who's the intrepid lady?" Hawkings flipped to the next page of his notepad, pencil poised.

"Excuse me. Coming through." The crowd rippled. Kit turned. A breathless woman in a straw hat drew up to him. She wore no shooting boots today.

"I am the intrepid lady," she said. "Muriel Pendrake."

Muriel's declaration was still hanging in the air when a furious farmer appeared out of nowhere, flanked by two equally furious dairymaids.

"Man alive!" one of the dairymaids cried. "Where are the cows? They 'aven't broke loose?"

"Lor!" cried the other. "They 'ave!"

In the commotion that followed, Muriel was separated from Griffith, carried along as the crowd streamed for the fence. When she'd attained the road, she turned about, scanning for James. He wasn't doctoring, was he? Deighton didn't require medical attention, but perhaps that poor farmer had fallen into a fit. Dozens of shoulders, heads, and hats blocked her view of the pasture. She realized people were looking at her, their gazes curious, or—in the cases of several ladies—frankly envious.

Well, she'd made a spectacle of herself, volunteering to tour around Cornwall on a bicycle with a pack of rowdy yahoos and one devastatingly attractive rake. Instinct had spurred her forward. Her brain was just now catching up. Nonetheless, as she considered the ramifications of her action more coolly, she wasn't entirely displeased. Problems proliferated, but also possibilities.

"Who wants to walk to Zennor?" A fresh-faced girl in a cotton print dress and a hat trimmed with seashells was trying to rally a contingent of similarly attired young women who, if they weren't older, were at least doing their best to appear considerably more jaded. They smirked and yawned and fanned themselves, waiting for a preferable cue.

A few families had begun the walk back to St. Ives, or rather the mothers and fathers walked while the children skipped or gave each other chase. Others—members of the artistic-looking set—were striking out in twos and threes, following narrow paths through the fields. A tartan tam-o'-shanter bobbed along between deerstalkers.

"Doesn't anyone care to see the Giant's Rock?" pleaded the girl.

Muriel crossed the road, starting up a grassy slope. From the hillside, she'd be able to survey the scene, pick out James, and…She turned.

Griffith.

A gasp exploded in her throat. He stood just below her, head tipped back, sun gilding his hair and the tips of his long lashes.

"Mr. Griffith." She recovered her breath, but her heart kept racing. Thank God, James wasn't here to study her pulse. She felt like a hummingbird in the presence of a buddleia flower, not only because Griffith seemed to favor fabrics in shades of pale purple.

At least her common sense prevented her from sipping at his skin, although it looked petal soft where it stretched across his cheekbones, gleaming with a light sheen of sweat, making her wonder if he tasted like honey or salt…

"Mrs. Pendrake," he said, and she blinked. Had she been listing toward him? Dratted gravity. It was never wise to converse on an incline.

He shook his head, a glint in his eye. "How formal we are, considering."

Considering.Considering their kiss.

The sun seemed to shine brighter.

"I'd rather call you Muriel," he continued, his silky voice conveying immense satisfaction. He was dazzling, and he knew it.

She frowned.

"I'm sure you would," she said tartly. "Women's Christian names conjure such happy memories."

An infuriating grin spread across his face, and she bit the inside of her cheek. Blast. She'd remembered his attractiveness but not his powers of annoyance. Already she'd let him ruffle her feathers.

She put her hands on her hips. "I don't want you saying Muriel while picturing a legion of ticklish knees."

"All right." He angled a look at her from beneath those absurdly long lashes. "Show me where you are ticklish, and I'll picture that."

She let her arms drop and laughed, another of those unguarded, booming laughs that emerged from the depths of her diaphragm. He was too ridiculous.

"The soles of your feet?" he guessed, peering down at her shoes with interest.

"I'm not telling." She curled her toes. "You can call me Mrs. Pendrake."

"Penny," he countered. "It suits you. Your hair is the color of new pennies. And I've never known a Penny. I'm a blank slate, no memories. Yet."

She ignored this last, and the way his lips quirked. God, he was smug. She ignored, too, the odd little flutter in her belly. No one had ever given her a nickname.

"Penny." She repeated it disapprovingly. "I believe it's a diminutive of Penelope, not Pendrake."

"Is it?" he asked wryly. "Too bad. I have known a Penelope."

"Spare me the details of her garret."

"No garret. Her father's a banker. She lets a rather large apartment by King's College and takes courses in the Ladies' Department. Terrific bluestocking."

Bluestocking.

Muriel's brows pulled together. "Is her pug named Pugnacious?"

He gave her an appreciative glance. "No pug either. She has a cat, a fluffy gray puff of a thing named Athena. And among friends she goes by Poppy."

She spoke without thinking. "I shouldn't like to be called Poppy."

"Too whimsical?"

"Too deadly serious. Poppies. Papaver somniferum. The seeds are tiny, but…"

She waved her hand, which seemed the only way to finish the sentence, here, with him, a near stranger. This wasn't the time, or the place.

It had taken her years to understand the scale of the devastation those tiny seeds had unleashed, on India, on China. And it had taken her even longer to understand that her peaceful, disinterested scientific work depended on the British Empire's exploitation and violence. She'd been too focused on minutiae, too concerned with plants as biological entities, too willing to ignore the fact that nothing was purely natural, detached from social and political realities. If it weren't for Chen Wei's cartoons, she might never have recognized that her presence in his garden was less than innocent.

Art was potent and could transform perspectives.

That's why she needed Griffith now.

He was watching her intently. "Go on."

She hesitated. Probably his conversational range extended beyond outrageous flirtation. She'd judged him frivolous, but his painting proved he had hidden depths. Perhaps she could talk with him about topics weightier than French lace curtains. Perhaps she would.

If they traveled Cornwall together on bicycles, they'd have plenty of opportunities for conversation. For all sorts of things.

"It's nothing." She shook herself and smiled. "Penny, then. But only if I can call you Griff."

"Griff?" He started. "Good God. It's catching, isn't it? Griff." He shuddered, his wickedly handsome face alight with humor. "You drive a hard bargain."

He reached out, took her hand, and shook it. His grip was warm and firm, and she could feel his calluses where they pressed the flesh of her palm. She seemed to have more nerve endings in her palms than she could credit. Or was James right about the rain? Perhaps a storm was gathering.

Her whole body crackled with electricity.

"Penny and Griff." He didn't release her hand. "Renegades of the Rover. A shame we don't have badges."

"We'll ride together, then? It's settled?" No hummingbird's heart had ever beat so fast. "You don't mind that I inserted myself into this tour?"

"Mind? You're a godsend." He let go of her hand and brushed at the chalk dust on his heliotrope jacket. His boutonniere had come through the joust unscathed, a white carnation. "What would I have done if you hadn't stepped forward?"

Waited five seconds for another woman to step forward.

Her voice was dry as sand. "What indeed."

He looked at her, eyelids lowering a fraction. "You can ride a bicycle?"

"I'm certain I can." She straightened her spine. "I cannot say as I have."

"And you're just as certain you want to spend hours a day doing so?" He cocked his head, expression suddenly doubtful. "I don't know the exact route Deighton has proposed, but I do know Cornish roads. They'll rattle your teeth."

"I have no worries about my teeth. And also—I have an ulterior motive." She confessed it with a combination of excitement and dread.

"Ah." The huskiness of that one syllable made her neck prickle. He arched his brows. "Must you rack up another impulsive activity to please Dr. Raleigh? He wasn't satisfied by slight seduction?"

Her stomach lurched. Of course, he was too provoking not to refer outright to what had passed between them. Just as well, though. Good to clear the air.

"About that." She gripped her skirt. "I owe you an apology. It was beyond presumptuous, my claiming to have seduced you. But James had been pestering me about spending too much time on my work."

"Which meant any rake who strayed into your path was fair game for demonstrations of your commitment to leisure?"

His smile was ironic.

"I made a claim." She hesitated, cheeks burning. "You performed the demonstration."

His brows rose higher. "With your participation. To support you in your ruse."

She smiled weakly. Her ruse? Lord but this was lowering. She knew she'd been spouting nonsense that afternoon. But apparently, in some small, secret, vulnerable pocket of her being, she'd been harboring the flattering delusion that she had seduced him, slightly, ever so slightly. That she'd intrigued and tempted him. That his kiss had been more than a favor.

Embarrassment rushed through her, a milder version of the shame she'd felt on the occasions she'd approached Esmé in her nightgown, only to have her tentative overtures quelled with a look.

"Most obliging." Her mouth tasted sour. "Chivalry is not dead."

"Two modern-day knights just charged each other on iron horses, wielding billiard cues." He shrugged. "Chivalry is alive and well, and God help us all."

She couldn't interpret his expression. He drew closer, a step up the hill that simultaneously made his height increase by inches.

"Tell me the real reason you want to ride," he murmured. "Ulterior motives are the most interesting."

"It's you," she blurted, and swallowed hard, flustered by the knowing glint in his eyes. "Rather—it's that I know who you are."

He drew back sharply. "What do you mean by that?"

"You're not the proprietor of a bicycle shop, or not primarily."

His expression was hardening, the points of his jaws standing out, the lines around his mouth cutting deeper.

Misgiving stirred within her, speeding her words. "You're an artist. An astonishingly good one. Your watercolor of the columbine—I've worked as a botanist for over a decade, but it changed how I thought about plants, about their cells and the light. I could see the sun inside the leaves."

What did he see? He was staring at her as though she'd sprouted another head.

"I am giving a lecture in September, in New York." She grew more nervous by the instant. "It is on British seaweeds, and my dearest hope is to commission you for botanical paintings."

Griffith stood like a statue. His stillness had an ominous quality, gave her the impression of hostility tightly leashed. It made no sense. He'd practically purred over Poppy the bluestocking. Clearly, he didn't object to women studying. Did he object to women pursuing careers?

"Our aims find perfect complementarity in this bicycle tour." She used her lecture hall voice, carrying and confident, but she was breathing too fast, and the pitch of her delivery wavered. "You want to scupper Deighton, which I can guarantee. I am indefatigable. Ask James. And given that we'll travel miles and miles of coast, I am sure to encounter more seaweed species than I would if I simply walked around St. Ives."

Griffith's mouth was turning down at the corners.

She rushed on. "I'll only collect the very rare ones. You'd make the paintings in St. Ives, obviously. But if you did a few sketches along the way, we could—"

"Impossible," he interrupted her. "No one has yet discovered a method for collecting seaweed while bicycling. Or sketching while bicycling, for that matter."

As objections went, it seemed deliberately obtuse.

She spoke calmly. "We will dismount the bicycles, of course."

"Thereby falling behind the Mutton Wheelers."

"But who cares, as long as we reach our destination each night? As long as we get back to St. Ives on the tenth day?"

"I am not a flower painter." Griffith sounded cold. Without the teasing animation in his face, he looked supercilious, as though his beautiful features had been fashioned for haughty disdain.

"The watercolor you mentioned," he said. "I did it for a fundraiser. A fishing ship had been lost, name of The Columbine. That's the only reason I painted a flower, as a tribute. Something pretty, in commemoration."

"Are you saying you won't take the commission?" Her body felt leaden. "I wasn't suggesting a trade, my riding on the tour in exchange for your paintings. I would pay you, of course. Name your price."

"I'd do it for pennies." He gave her a strange smile. "If I were going to do it, I'd do it for Penny."

"But you're not going to do it."

"I'm not."

"Why?" It burst from her. "Because you think too highly of yourself? Because most flower painters are women?" The unpleasant sensation in her chest coalesced into anger, more anger than she had any right to feel. "Because you prefer more exalted genres? I suppose you specialize in scenes from history. Hulking oils that take up whole walls."

He shrugged. "I paint scenes from history on occasion. Not lately."

"Nudes?" She crossed her arms. A rake would paint nudes.

"Often." He shrugged again. "Also, not of late."

"Do you lack for subjects?" This wasn't London, after all. Cornish women were Methodist, too pious to pose in dishabille. And modeling might strike his lovers as dangerously indiscreet.

Discretion meant nothing to her. She was poised to depart the continent.

The idea sprang from her mind to her lips with scarcely a moment's friction.

"If you take the commission," she said, "and paint the seaweeds, I'll let you paint me too. Nude. However you like."

She raised her chin, blushing fiercely.

Only his eyes moved, flicking over her.

"I cannot accept the commission," he said slowly. "Or your generous offer."

His refusal hit her like a slap.

"Well, then." She jerked a nod. "I will have to find another artist."

"There are plenty in St. Ives." His voice was polite.

Hers was trembling. "And you, sir, will have to find another intrepid lady."

Surprise flashed across his face. It made her angrier still. Had he thought she still intended to ride with him? That she'd do it for the pleasure of his company? The privilege of gazing upon his handsome form?

The tour was a waste of time without his collaboration.

She didn't care if he lost his bicycle shop.

In fact, she rather hoped he would.

She narrowed her eyes. "Good luck choosing amongst the Muriels and Margarets."

A crease notched his brow.

"Penny," he began, but she spun on her heel. This meant plodding up the hill, but it was better than returning to the road at his side, awkward and humiliated and crushingly disappointed.

How had it gone so wrong?

She wasn't being strictly reasonable, or fair. She'd pegged all her hopes on Kit Griffith, but he hadn't been party to her plan. He'd made her no promises. He owed her nothing.

Still, his bewildering reaction stung, more than stung. He'd spited both of them, for what? For his arrogant masculine pride.

She didn't want to dwell on the wound to her own pride, why it burned like fire, why the rejection touched such a tender place inside her.

She watched the grass bend beneath her feet and concentrated on putting more and more distance between herself and Griff.

"Griff!"

Kit watched Muriel's tiny, tense figure as she climbed the hill, shoulders rigid, a lock of penny-bright hair curling in the center of her back, like an upside-down question mark.

She had a temper. And she was stubborn, marching off in the most strenuous direction, which would also extend her walk back to St. Ives. Did she even know which way she was headed? His muscles twitched. He could overtake her before she reached the summit.

"Griff!"

He turned. Ponsonby was legging it toward him, stride matched with that of his companion, a lanky, dark-haired man in a sharply tailored white flannel suit. The doctor, Raleigh. Ponsonby stopped, but Raleigh passed Kit by, sparing him a quick, keen glance. Inquiring, not adversarial.

"Bloody fast, isn't she?" Raleigh tossed the comment over his shoulder, his grin wider than his face.

Kit wasn't in the mood to smile back.

What exactly was the nature of Raleigh's friendship with Muriel?

It didn't matter.

Kit watched the man's long legs devour the ground. He'd catch up with Muriel in no time. And she'd tell the good doctor that Kit thought too much of himself to paint flowers, that he was too manly for watercolors and scoffed at commissions.

She'd jumped to conclusions, but he hadn't disabused her. His desire to evade questions had made him surly and defensive, rude.

It didn't matter.

None of it mattered.

"I like that fellow." Ponsonby was catching his breath. "We fixed the fence together. My one act of service for the day. He's a surgeon, though. He'll probably deliver a baby before morning. What do you think it feels like to be so useful?"

"No idea." Kit stalked down the hill. He wasn't in the mood for anything. The sun beat down, but ice had spread through his chest, the feeling familiar. Whiskey didn't warm it, but at least it blunted his thoughts.

He'd go home, drink half a bottle, tinker with his Rovers, and forget the drama that he'd watched play out across Muriel's face—a blaze of eager hope reduced to stricken cinders. Hurt and contempt in her eyes.

Their expression had reminded him of Lucy's.

In the distance, he could see Martha Curnow leading a cow toward the milking barn. Thank the Lord. Things could be worse.

The Curnows' herd could be halfway to Penzance.

"Barmy bet you made." Ponsonby fell into step with him. "I was thinking—maybe you could joust again instead, like Deighton suggested."

His jaw tightened. "There's no changing the terms of a wager."

"To hell with all that. You can't just ride off. It's beastly timing. What about Coover?"

"Give her my regrets."

"Your bicycle's over there." Ponsonby gestured, the motion of his arm conveying frustration.

Kit quickened his pace as he changed course.

"I'm sure they'll stay until you're back." Ponsonby quickened his pace too. "Or we could cable and tell them to postpone."

"I don't want them to stay." Kit's feet carried him forward, but he felt detached from his body, as though his limbs moved of their own accord. "I don't want to see them. To that end, I hope I can rely on your help."

"Griff." Ponsonby grabbed his shoulder. Kit tensed, then swung to face him.

"What are you saying?" Ponsonby wore a look of confused apprehension. "I don't understand. We haven't all of us been together for ages."

"You're bloody right. And that's by design." Kit raked both hands through his hair, only barely resisting the urge to rip handfuls up by the roots. "Christ. This little reunion is a frolic for you, but it's hell for me. Why do you think I'm living at the edge of the fucking world?"

"Because…" Ponsonby had paled, his freckles standing out in dark clusters. "Because of Turner's Cornish sketchbooks." He tilted back his head. "The light really is extraordinary."

Kit made an impatient noise.

"And because London can be a wretchedly small place." Ponsonby said it softly, returning his eyes to Kit. "I expect you have a hundred reasons. But we're talking about Coover."

"I could explain." He looked past Ponsonby at his high wheeler, propped against an oak.

Ponsonby followed his gaze. "You'd rather not, though."

"Not at the moment, no." It hurt too much. The ice in her voice. The horror in her eyes. The idea that he'd begun to fear her—Lucy. His best mate.

"You'd rather we make haste to the nearest pub, where I will perform my second act of service for the day."

Ponsonby's pause was expectant. Kit glanced at him.

"Which is?" he sighed.

"Reviving your spirits, mate." Ponsonby folded his arms. "By letting you best me at billiards."

"Ha." Kit's jaw muscles eased.

"And then I'll beat whoever steps up next."

"Have a care." Kit started walking again, his steps more fluid. "Your spirits might never recover. Let alone your purse."

Later, at the Smack, after he'd been stood a drink by every joust-goer in the house and made thirteen points on a single shot at the billiards table, he wedged himself in a corner, wondering if his spirits had, in fact, revived. His eyes felt hot, and his lips felt numb, and tiredness stole through him with blissful languor.

A petite woman with upswept blond hair was gazing at him across the crowded room. She wore a narrow silk dress in the latest London fashion. Her smile was bold, perhaps even intrepid.

He considered making his way to her, discovering her thoughts on bicycle touring, and her availability for the week after next. Instead, he let Ponsonby put a fresh tumbler in his hand and pull him into conversation.

He wasn't ready to look for a new riding companion.

But surely he'd feel differently tomorrow.