Chapter 8

"You are that gel."

Muriel barely registered the starchy voice. She'd chosen a table near the window, so she could eat her breakfast looking out at the bay.

"Reginald," came the voice again. "Is it not that gel?"

Muriel turned her head and met the gimlet eye of the older woman seated at the nearest table. Her high-collared black gown looked costly and too warm for the weather. She was studying Muriel with her thin brows angled down and her lips pursed.

Muriel gave her a slightly puzzled smile.

"I believe you are right," said the woman's breakfast companion, lowering his paper to reveal a youthful face, round and blandly pleasant.

"I believe you are wrong," offered Muriel, as politely as possible. Her head was throbbing. She'd risen with the sun and spent two disappointing hours at the rock pools, before a dog with matted fur and a frenzied bark sped her down the beach and up to the hotel.

A poor start to the day. She'd hoped to avoid dining room chitchat.

"Reginald," said the woman. "What did that gel say?"

"She believes you are wrong," the man responded.

"But I am never wrong. Tell her."

"Excuse me," said the man, louder. "Sir Reggie here. This is Lady Chiswick, my mother. She is never wrong."

Muriel frowned.

"I am hardly a girl," she informed Sir Reggie. "I have reached the far side of thirty."

"Have you?" Sir Reggie raised his brows, impressed. "Dang it. Well preserved. I say."

"You've said quite enough, Reginald," said Lady Chiswick. "What is your name, gel?"

Muriel tried not to sigh. "Muriel Pendrake."

"The bicycle gel!" Lady Chiswick nodded triumphantly. "Just so."

Bother. She should have known.

Lady Chiswick leaned forward. "You plan to bicycle scads of miles with the Mutton Chops."

"Legs of Lamb," corrected Sir Reggie. He tilted his head with a thoughtful frown. "Or was that the dance troupe I saw that time in Leicester Square?"

"I know why," continued Lady Chiswick, ignoring her son. "You are one of those gels who loses her head over men in uniform."

"What's this?" Muriel's cheeks heated. "You don't mean—like Lydia in Pride and Prejudice? I think the phenomenon is specific to regimentals. Officers, not…bicyclists."

"You cannot fool me, gel. I could tell which one caught your fancy." Lady Chiswisk persisted. "Your eyes were out on stalks, like a lobster's."

Muriel willed the floor to open. That was just how she felt when she looked at Kit Griffith. Was it so very obvious to everyone? Did her eyes really seem to pop from her face?

"He is as handsome as he is rich." Lady Chiswick's gaze hardened. "And he is not for you. My Clarinda has caught his fancy. It is to be expected. Clarinda has every advantage." She allowed a pregnant pause. "I have decided to encourage the attachment."

"Are you sure that's wise? Looks and money aren't everything. The man is a rake." As soon as she said it, Muriel's stomach gave a tiny kick. Good Lord, was she really joining into the spirit of this nasty, nonsensical competition?

"Nothing doing." Sir Reggie piped up. "We were school chums. I'd never say he's a rake. More of an axle." He chuckled at his own joke while both Lady Chiswick and Muriel stared. "Axles allow wheels to rotate," he explained. "And he lives and breathes bicycles. So, he's an axle, not a rake. The humor depends on the other definition of rake, which is—"

"He is neither a rake nor an axle," interrupted Lady Chiswick. "He is a bachelor of pleasing appearance and address, good family, and large fortune. And since their fateful meeting last year at Lord Etherington's ball, he has been in love with your sister."

"How do you figure?" Sir Reggie wore an expression of earnest inquiry.

Lady Chiswick made a vague gesture. "He shows the telltale signs."

"Right-ho." Sir Reggie returned his attention to his plate. After a brief moment, he lifted his head, and his fork. "Such as?"

"Such as…" Lady Chiswick looked cross. "He was speechless to see her again."

"Oh, but that was because he couldn't place her." Sir Reggie explained around a mouthful of fried whiting. "Then he saw me and twigged."

Lady Chiswick spoke more coldly. "He invited her to call on him at Titcombe Hall."

"Did he? Where was I?"

Lady Chiswick said something sotto voce in reply, but the exchange already had faded from Muriel's notice. Her brain whirred along its own track.

Clarinda.It was a pretty name. How did Griffith think of her? Was she Clarinda with the school-chum brother? Or did he associate her with the marriage-minded Lady Chiswick? Or something more intimate, a heart-shaped birthmark beneath her left collarbone?

She glared down at her dissected toast, a jumble of angular fragments and dark crumbs. Had Griffith lied to this Clarinda, pretending to offer something more permanent than a tickle? Or had he lied to her? Led her to believe that no particular woman claimed his affection, when he was all but engaged to a young miss?

Either way, she felt confirmed in her negative assessment of his character. Of course he had a large fortune! He was only playing at being an artist. Even his talk of shamelessness amounted to nothing. It was a spoiled rich boy's fantasy of rebellion, a bohemian spin on sowing one's wild oats before landing at the altar. He was detestable, but typically so, his every action evidence of the shallow purpose and lazy hedonism that characterized men of the upper echelons.

She'd wasted too much time thinking about him already.

"I pray Clarinda does not lose her head," she said, rising from her chair. "A bit of rational evaluation will shatter her illusions. Better now than later."

"How do you dare?" Lady Chiswick paled. She put so much starch in her voice it creaked. "Your temerity astounds me."

"I have heard that before," Muriel admitted, feeling suddenly tired. Doubtless, she'd hear it again. In New York City, as her professional prospects crumbled.

"Good day, then," she said, and turned away.

"It is unnatural!" Lady Chiswick cried after her. "A woman astride a bicycle. Only one thing comes to mind."

Muriel turned back.

Lady Chiswick sat straighter. "The thing that unnatural women have been known to straddle."

Sir Reggie went purple. He coughed violently, sipped his tea, and coughed again.

"A broomstick!" Lady Chiswick threw back her head. "Think on that, gel."

Muriel stood stock-still. After a moment, she gave herself a shake.

"I will," she promised. "If I figure out how to make a bicycle fly, you will be the first to know."

She spun on her heel to the sound of Lady Chiswick's harrumph.

As she sidled between the tables, she could hear Lady Chiswick address her son, the command resounding.

"You will take Clarinda to Titcombe Hall today."

Sir Reggie's protest followed, floating on the air: "I certainly will not. The poor fellow's parents are due this afternoon. Everything about them makes him savage. He used to open letters from home and straightaway break a window, or torture a cat. Best steer clear until the dust settles."

Muriel stopped short. Torture a cat? And to think, Griffith had smirked affectionately about fluffy gray Athena!

"Today, Reginald." Lady Chiswick's voice snapped like a whip.

Muriel marched on, sparking with indignation. Horrid rake! And horrid lady! Did she truly intend to encourage an attachment between her daughter and a cat-torturing libertine? Had she no soul?

The beau monde was a blight on humanity.

Once she'd exited the dining room, Muriel scoured the hotel grounds for James, who was, in a sense, an emissary from the beau monde, for all he'd been raised in a backwater.

"You have a soul, James," she said when she found him, sprawled in a caned chaise longue in a shady corner of the walled back garden. "How?"

"Don't ask me." James rested his book on his lap. "I'm a brain surgeon. All I know about the soul is that it doesn't reside in the pineal gland." He shaded his eyes to gaze up at her. "You're looking peaky. The fried whiting didn't agree with you?"

"I didn't have the fried whiting." She dropped into a chair and recounted the scene at breakfast.

"My God," he said when she'd finished. "You might have been burned at the stake."

"I'm going to burn Griffith at the stake." She scowled fiercely. "The man tortures cats!"

"You're on your own there." James stretched and sat up, turning sideways in the chaise and setting his shoes on the ground. "I'm not burning anyone. I vowed to do no harm." He brushed a lock of hair from his forehead and sighed. "On top of which, the evidence is unconvincing. Your Sir Reggie was scant on detail."

She stared. "I don't need to know the ghoulish particulars. You're not defending him? What if he broke into your house and swung Fezziwig around by his tail?"

"I'm having a hard time picturing it."

"He's a paragon of beauty, that's why." She hugged herself, eyes wandering the garden, which was densely planted, flowers clustered between azalea bushes and Himalayan rhododendrons.

Those pale purple stars of clematis—they were the same shade as Griffith's cravat.

She spoke in a whisper. "A handsome face can conceal unspeakable ugliness."

"You don't say," said James dryly. "To be clear, I can't picture Griffith holding Fezziwig by the tail, because Fezziwig would cut him to ribbons. That cat is a demon."

"Oh." Muriel deflated, pressing her palms to her temples.

"I have no idea what Griffith has done in the past or might be capable of doing. For all I know, he's another Vlad the Impaler." James shrugged. "But I always take hearsay with a grain of salt."

"Very mature." Muriel let her arms fall. "I always take hearsay with dried kindling and a match."

James regarded her, his mouth crooked, as though he couldn't decide between a smile and a frown.

"Muriel." He set his book beside him. "You are upset that Griffith wouldn't accept your commission. So am I, because I understand how much those illustrations matter to you, and because I'd imagined a passionate romance unfolding as the two of you bicycled along the shore, the wind in your hair, love poems spelled out in glistening seaweed upon the golden sand."

"Ha," she said as her heart gave an unwelcome thud.

"I wanted it to happen," James continued, coolly. "I even forgave you your willingness to abandon me."

Drat. That.

Abashed, she bit her lip. "You would have come along, of course." She squirmed, then yelped as wicker prickled through her skirt.

It was no more than she deserved.

She'd volunteered herself without sparing a thought for James, too caught up in the heat of the moment. But she'd have remedied the situation if it hadn't turned out as it did.

"I was going to ask you to bicycle with us."

"Thanks. I'd rather play tennis." James threw his arm over the back of the chaise. "The point is that Griffith made you feel something you haven't in quite some time."

"Not him. His art."

James arched his brows meaningfully.

"Fine," muttered Muriel. "Him too. I don't know how to explain that part."

"Attraction. Lust. Desire." James drummed his fingers. "It's highly explicable."

"I gave him a lobsterish look, didn't I?" Pain stabbed behind Muriel's left eye. "That's how you could tell."

"That, and the fact that you kissed him in front of me."

"I do manifest lust like a crustacean. Damn." She put her thumb on the ridge of her brow. "Thank God, it's over now. I want nothing to do with him."

"Hmm," said James. More drumming of the fingers. "What about a night in his bed, though? That wasn't a half-bad idea."

"Was it not?" she snarled. "Clearly, you haven't listened to a word I've said."

James considered her with a superior smile. "Either that, or I have listened entirely too well."

She knew better than to ask him to explain.

"Enough listening to me, then. It's your turn."

"My turn? You constantly dismiss all my wisdom. Why should I give you more priceless advice if you're going to ignore it?"

"I don't want you to say anything else about me. I want you to say something about yourself."

"Myself?" James laughed. "I celebrate myself, and sing myself."

"James," she sighed.

"It's the beginning of a poem by Walt Whitman. You're going to America. You should know it. Shall I continue?"

"No. Quoting a poem is saying nothing."

"I couldn't disagree more."

She ground her teeth. "No poems. And don't tell me that it looks like rain."

He tilted back his head. A breeze riffled the leaves of the dogwood tree—like the rhododendrons, this particular species was native to the Himalayas. Shadows shifted across his face.

"It does look like rain."

"It doesn't." She inhaled sharply. "Tell me you'd rather not speak of it, and I'll stop prying. But please don't pretend not to understand me. You are consumed by some care. It ravages you."

She realized she could hear the sea, the steady breaking of the waves underlying the more ephemeral sounds: the humming bees, the rustling greenery.

After a long moment, James blew out a breath. "I can speak of it." A muscle in his jaw ticked. He opened his mouth, then closed it.

They sat in silence, listening to the waves.

Muriel finally said, "I can tell you my latest theory if that's easier. You can offer corrections."

"Latest theory?" His glance was both amused and wary. "How many have there been?"

"Several. I've been worried."

"So, you invented stories?"

"They each had their basis in observation. Ready?"

"God help me."

"Your heart was broken by a faithless rogue. A handsome, poetical dastard who lured you with false promises, then left you without warning. Despite his callous behavior, you have remained under his spell. You pined and pined, eschewing food, company, and the light. This trip is your chance to put all that behind you. My duty is to help you forget him, and to learn how to love again."

"Are you quite done?"

"Quite." She clasped her hands. "That's it, isn't it? I can see by your eyes."

"Blast my eyes." James blinked. "All this pollen. And that's not it. I don't need to learn how to love again. I need to live in a different world."

"There wasn't a handsome, poetical dastard?"

"No. No, there was a handsome, poetical French chemist named Gilles. He's hopelessly tender and alarmingly honest, and he didn't break my heart and I didn't break his. Both of us knew exactly how long the affair would last. It began last winter when I went to Paris." He paused, searching her face, then clarified: "As a representative of the commission inquiring into Pasteur's discovery."

Muriel nodded encouragement. When James had previously mentioned Louis Pasteur's treatment for rabies, and his own work publicizing Pasteur's method in England, he'd done so delicately, giving her abundant opportunity to slow him down or redirect the conversation, offering particulars only in response to specific questions.

Sometimes memories flooded her, and sometimes not.

Now she was fully in the present, with him.

"When did it end?" she asked.

"This spring. He was in England for nearly a month, helping me with my experimental study of—"

Again, a slight hesitation.

"The disease," said James. "Testing the action of drugs. Preparing recommendations. I've told you about my report."

"Yes." She nodded again. The report was cause for hope. James believed that rabies could be eradicated in Britain. But she didn't need to hear more at the moment. "About Gilles, though…"

"He's brilliant." James shook his head, a smile curving his lips. "But he can be careless. And the laws are different in France. Men like us have less to fear. I don't blame him."

"James." Muriel felt a rush of cold in her chest. "What happened?"

"It's still happening." His smile faded. "Letters I wrote to Gilles ended up in someone else's hands. Maybe he left them in a drawer in his hotel room. Or—he hated the London weather and bought himself a heavy overcoat. Maybe he didn't take the coat back to France. Maybe he gave it to a down-at-heel hansom driver, forgetting my letters were in the pocket. Maybe he was robbed of his pocketbook on his way to the train station. I can't ask him. He was only passing back through Paris. He's somewhere in the French countryside. Not that I would ask if I could."

He raked a hand through his hair.

"These letters." The cold in Muriel's chest was spreading.

"It's blackmail. What's ravaging me." He looked away.

They were alone in the garden. Even so, Muriel felt a horrible, creeping sensation, as though the hedges were filled with staring eyes.

Blackmail. How vile. How violating.

"I pay," said James. "And for my coin, I receive back my letters, one at a time. Whenever I think the ordeal is finally over, my blackmailer sends his boy round again." His short laugh was bitter. "I didn't realize how many bloody letters I wrote."

"Your blackmailer." Muriel sprang up. "The monster!" She paced a small, frantic circle. "Who could it be?"

"I don't know." James watched her patiently. He must have traveled already through every possible emotion.

She controlled herself. "The letters. Do they reveal…?"

"That they were part of an exchange between two chaps affectionately buggering each other?" He lifted a shoulder. "They give the distinct impression."

Muriel's knees were shaky. It wasn't thirty years ago a man could be hanged for buggery. Even now the punishment could extend to penal servitude for life. But those convictions required proof the act had taken place.

"If they were published," continued James, "my name would be dragged, of course. Public scandal. Disgrace. Disinheritance. You know my father. And depending on the dispensation of my blackmailer, and the moral purity crusaders, I might even stand trial."

"For letters alone?"

"You were somewhere in the Indian Ocean when Parliament passed the Criminal Law Amendment Act. Gross indecency between men was made a misdemeanor carrying a sentence of up to two years."

"Gross indecency," echoed Muriel. "That's…vague."

"Deliberately so. It's a catchall. Extortionists are now proliferating more quickly than pimps."

She sank heavily into the chair.

"This is why I didn't tell you." James's expression was difficult to read. "Your worry has increased and mine exists in the same measure."

Muriel's helplessness besieged her—a dull, heavy feeling made worse by the acid sting of the injustice. She held onto her elbows tightly.

"No," she attempted. "I am more worried, and you are, therefore, less worried. It's the rule."

"A rule that depends on there being a fixed amount of worry. But worry isn't six apples, where you take four, so I have two."

"We are sharing the worry." She spoke with firmness, rising and crossing to the chaise. "That's what's important. Move over."

As soon as she settled beside James, he draped an arm around her, and she burrowed into his shoulder. It was a surprisingly comfortable position. James rested his chin on her head, and his breathing grew slower and more even.

"It wouldn't be difficult to discover Gilles's address," she said after a time.

"To what end?" James's voice was low. "He's not in danger. And nothing he could tell me would change the situation. He'd suffer agonies of guilt, and I prefer to think of him happy, in Provence, in a villa surrounded by…what grows in France?"

"Rosemary," she offered. "Lavender. Apricot and almond trees. Sunflowers."

"God, yes. Marvelous. Why cast a pall on all of that?"

"He might not see it that way."

"I see it that way." He said it in a tone that brooked no objections.

"All right." She lifted her head, scooting back to face him. She squared her shoulders. "What are we going to do?"

He returned her look, contemplative, then gave himself a small shake.

"Right now," he said, "we are going to do what people do at the seaside. We are going to fritter away the day. Recline under one of those tents on the beach. Watch the sand fleas hop about."

"You can read your novel." She was sitting on it. She raised herself up and pulled it free. "Some Points on the Extirpations of Tumors of the Brain." She read the title and let the book smack down on her thigh.

"What if we go down into town instead?" she suggested. "I can scout for a painter who isn't an unreasonably attractive reincarnation of Vlad the Impaler, and you can scout for a fisherman with an attack of the ague."

"Infinitely preferable," replied James at once. "I despise sand fleas. And bathing tents. Anything striped. You'll note I always wear solid colors." He stood. "Let me get my surgical bag. One of the maids told me her youngest sister slipped on the stairs the other day and broke her arm. The doctor set the bone, but I wouldn't mind paying a visit regardless. Fore Street, she said."

"Fore Street, then." She came to her feet and hooked her elbow through his. "Who knows? We might accomplish our aims with daylight to spare."

"In that case, I'm also scouting for a tennis partner."

"Failing that," said Muriel, "I can at least provide us with a proper picnic."