“But by God, man—you’d never seen a picture of her?” Alan’s ringing laugh rose to the rafters of the gardener’s cottage. He’d listened to Neal’s account—expurgated account—of the two Mrs. Pendrakes with transparent absorption. A rare occurrence. Alan tended to anticipate and interrupt, his thoughts running dizzying laps around his interlocutor’s. It was a habit that had made him unpopular during their school days.
Neal was already regretting telling him anything.
“Of course I hadn’t seen a picture.” He leaned back in his chair, threw a boot onto his knee. A well-fitted, modern boot. With apologies to his grandfather, he’d tossed the Hessians in the dust cart.
Alan’s eyes were glinting behind his pince-nez. Just like him to stick on the point that made a chap feel a bloody fool. But dammit, it wasn’t Neal’s fault that he’d been tricked. How was he to know his ignorance of Muriel Pendrake’s appearance would be exploited by a deceitful debutante?
“Muriel is a botanist,” he added, too testily. “Not a toothpaste model.”
“Heaven forfend,” murmured Alan with mock horror. His tone, and cocked brow, left no doubt he was remembering Neal’s past entanglements. “Since when are you prejudicial to a pretty smile?”
“Since now.” Neal scowled. “Wipe that Cheshire cat look off your face. It’s bad for your image.”
Alan flashed more of his teeth, a very fine set. None of them pointed and dripping venom as the caricaturists would have it.
“You remember Gareth Bidmead?” he asked. “I wrote the notice for his new opera—one-act musical comedy, absolute rubbish. Spare yourself a dire evening.”
Neal grunted. “No danger there.” His taste didn’t incline toward light opera, but if it did, the name Gareth Bidmead was more than enough discouragement.
“If he ever talks to me again,” continued Alan, “which I doubt, I’ll have to tell him the whole story, to make it up to him. I won’t use any names.” He raised a hand as though to ward off objection. “Mrs. Pendrake will be protected. But it’s too good to waste—a readymade libretto. Even Bidmead can’t butcher it.”
“Kind of you,” said Neal dryly. “Make a tragedy of a man’s career, then offer him a farce in compensation.”
“Well.” Alan leaned back in his chair. “He is a friend.”
Now it was Neal’s turn to laugh. “What of your own masterpiece?” He stood, stretching, and angled around the furniture to open the door. Sweet air rushed in. He propped his shoulder on the doorframe, reflexively patting his pockets.
His brain always caught up a moment too late.
No cigarette case. He’d given it to Lavinia.
“Finished.” Alan stroked his side-whiskers with studied nonchalance. Even at Oxford, he’d insisted on styling himself like a septuagenarian wit from the Age of Reason.
Neal thought the venerable man of letters routine a tad overcooked. His was the minority opinion, based on more than a decade of friendship. The public took a different view.
“On to the next.” Alan’s voice flexed with its characteristic blend of arrogance and irony. He was gazing at Neal narrowly, all speculative intensity. Suddenly, he rose.
“So.” He drew out the word to complement his saunter. “The first Mrs. Pendrake returned to her husband.” He joined Neal in the doorway. “And the second—she’s still in want of one.”
Neal shrugged and looked away from Alan’s smile at the vast garden: pink and white and green. Roses and poplars. “That’s my understanding.”
Lavinia had left only a brief note with Mrs. Lampshire.
I’m wanted in London. Happy plant hunting.
How he’d stared at those Ps.
He and Muriel had plant hunted happily. They’d traveled to the very tip of the Lizard peninsula and all the way back to London in companionate tranquility. She was levelheaded and knowledgeable and continued to show herself a far livelier conversationalist than the dullest pages of her manuscript predicted. When they’d discussed that manuscript, and he’d shared—haltingly—his suggestions for revision, she’d thanked him warmly.
“The libretto requires one more reversal.” Alan recalled his attention by rapping the doorframe with the top of his walking stick. “The amorous pairs must swap partners.” He swung the stick to the right. “Mrs. Pendrake with the husband of the false Mrs. Pendrake. The false Mrs. Pendrake . . .” He swung the stick to the left so it thumped Neal’s chest. “With you.”
“Bloody hell.” Neal knocked away the stick.
“She’s the Pendrake I want to meet.” Alan delivered two more raps to the doorframe. “I salute the intelligence that can improvise. She’s wasted on that husband, clearly. But then, I expect she’d be wasted on you as well.”
“How wasted?” Neal couldn’t bite back the words in time.
Christ. Could he have sounded more like a jealous lover?
Alan grinned. He enjoyed setting traps. But when he spoke, his tone was almost gentle. “Your goal is to find a like-minded mate and settle down. You told me as much. That was the impetus for your little botanical junket.”
Sunlight flashed on the lens of his pince-nez as he pivoted toward the garden. “In real life, old boy, you marry the imitable botanist, Mrs. Muriel Pendrake.”
One last rap to the doorframe and he stepped out onto the path.
He’d always had a penchant for dramatic exits.
Neal walked after him, and Alan slanted him an amused look. “What did you say her name was, the false Mrs. Pendrake?”
Neal glared. “Lavinia.” As though Alan had forgotten it. He forgot nothing, the smug bastard.
“And you’re convinced she returned to her husband?”
“Perfectly.” Neal spoke through clenched jaws. The showy rogue had betrayed her, but clearly, she still cherished their attachment. At the Red Lion in Truro, he’d heard it in her voice. The wish she’d made had been for George.
“He’s a libertine? Young and handsome?”
“Stop it already with the bloody Socratic method,” Neal growled at him. “But yes, she gave me the distinct impression that he is a pretty, philandering blackguard who has many times over abused her trust.”
“So they’ve been married a good while, or a bad while as the case may be.” Alan said it musingly.
Neal hesitated. If Alan could figure out who she was . . . Blast. He did—and didn’t—want to know. He bit his tongue, hoping didn’t want would win.
“I believe his name is George.” He supplied the last piece of information at his disposal, and, God help him, he hung on Alan’s next words with bated breath.
Alan stopped walking. The sun licked up all the shadows, and the day baked with unseasonable heat. He didn’t look uncomfortable despite his full-skirted frock coat. He considered Neal coolly, then slowly shook his head.
“The details don’t correspond to any couple of my acquaintance.” He seemed, though, to give it more thought, brows drawn together. Something had fired in his mind.
Neal flattened his lips. What did it matter if Alan identified her? She was married. She’d returned to her husband. What else was there to know?
Nonetheless, he couldn’t tear his eyes from Alan’s face.
A buzzing fly broke the spell. Alan batted it away, as though he were batting away the whole train of thought. He scowled down at a rosebush. “What’s wrong with these blasted roses?”
Neal breathed out through his nose.
“Slugs,” he said at last, drawing up to Alan and considering the leaves.
Alan picked one and held it up to the cloudless sky. Blue shone through the holes.
He brought the leaf closer to the lens of his pince-nez, then lowered it, sighing.
“Punctuality isn’t Mrs. Pendrake’s forte, is it?” He handed Neal the leaf. “You don’t think she called at the house?”
Neal gazed across the lawn, at Umfreville House, the London seat of the Dukes of Umfreville. Alan had taken up residence when his elder brother, the current duke, went abroad with his family.
Neal shook his head. “I told her to meet us at the gardener’s cottage.” The cottage, a lovely little building, with an espaliered fig tree framing the door, had been standing empty, and so Alan had offered it to Neal for the duration of his stay in town.
“She’d rather see the grounds,” he said, and knew it was true. “Like-minded.” He sighed, and Alan raised a brow.
“You will propose, then, as planned?”
Neal let the leaf fall, tracking its topsy-turvy descent and cursing himself. He’d left London intending to propose to Muriel Pendrake on the Lizard peninsula.
But everything had gotten mixed-up along the way.
When he had finally arrived at the Lizard, with the correct Mrs. Pendrake, they’d spent days poring over rare algae. No intimate dinners. No picnics. They’d attended gatherings hosted by birdwatchers. They’d gone for rambles with the botanically inclined headmasters of local grammar schools.
Neal rubbed the back of his neck. He’d no deuced idea if he’d propose.
“Hark.” Alan gripped Neal’s shoulder, turning him.
Muriel had appeared, framed between the poplars at the other end of the rose garden.
When Neal reached her, he pressed her hand. It had only been two days since they’d parted company at Paddington Station, but he felt the warmth of their reunion.
“Hallo.” She pumped his arm hugely, then waved at Alan, who approached at a snail’s pace.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said. “I decided to walk and got tremendously lost. I ended up flagging down a gentleman who’d been in the diplomatic service in China. We had a fascinating conversation about the laying of telegraphic cables. Gorgeous garden!” she called out to Alan as he came into range. “I think I came in the wrong way, but I loved that little bridge by the yew hedge.”
In a matter of minutes, Alan and Muriel were strolling down the path like bosom companions.
Neal let the two of them pull ahead and sat on the edge of a fountain. He’d invited Muriel expressly to introduce her to Alan. Alan had the power to get her “Recollections” into the right hands. The question was—would he exercise that power? It depended on Muriel, on whether she, or her writing, impressed him.
As Neal watched them stroll, he could tell from Alan’s gestures, his laughter, that he needn’t worry.
Alan had taken a shine to Muriel.
Well, why the hell not? He’d taken a shine to her too. His mother would take a shine to her. His sisters, his brothers, his cousins—everyone would take a bloody shine to her. Wasn’t that what he wanted?
When he finally stood and caught up with them by the tulip beds, Muriel was all smiles. She had an undeniably lovely smile. She was an undeniably lovely woman. It was undeniably lovely to be in her presence.
A butterfly fluttered past, winging for the trees, as though to underscore the point. She watched the butterfly with satisfaction.
Of course she knew it was a Vanessa cardui. They both did.
“We’re off to Otis & Boyd’s.” Alan named the publishers and shot Neal a sideways look. “Otis is always in his office this time of day. He’s mad for travel books, and he doesn’t mind a bit of heft.”
“Capital!” Neal tried to telegraph his thanks to Alan, and his enthusiasm to Muriel. He nodded at them both. “You two do that, then. I’ll peel off to Varnham. Better if I check over the Borneo shipment sooner than later.”
A silence descended, threaded with the buzzing of bees.
“You’re not coming with us?” Muriel sounded not peevish, but disappointed.
“I’d just be in the way, wouldn’t I?” Neal felt heat prickling his neck. Nothing to do with the sun. Everything to do with his awareness that he was, perhaps, acting a cad.
He glanced at Alan, but Alan had arranged his face into a careful blank. No opinion here.
In the libretto, Neal ended up with Lavinia.
But in real life, Neal and Muriel belonged together.
He’d already lived a libretto. He’d made too many dramatic mistakes. He’d turned his mother’s hair white. He’d missed his father’s final months, missed his very funeral. He’d led his best friend into a viper pit. He’d entered into disastrous affairs. He needed to make a sensible choice. And yet . . .
He’d fallen in love with a married woman he’d never see again.
No way around it, then. His latest mistake had already been made.
He couldn’t pursue Muriel. He’d ruined himself for that life.
“You’re better off without me.” He said it with too much force, then tried to temper his tone. “I’ll look forward to hearing all about it.”
“At dinner?” Muriel tipped her head. “We could meet at the Criterion. Their curry cook is destined for a knighthood.”
“Not tonight.” Christ. He sounded a perfect ass. “I suspect I’ll be occupied most of the evening with that shipment.” He cleared his throat. “We’ll see each other at your lecture on Saturday. We’ll have dinner after that.” He glanced at Alan. “You’re invited, of course.”
“Of course,” Alan echoed, brows raised.
“And I’ll ask Hitchens to come along.”
“Why not Bidmead too?” Alan’s mouth quirked. “We’ll make a party of it.”
Neal glared, but Alan was bending to pick a sprig of lavender.
After a moment, Muriel shrugged. “All right, then.”
She didn’t look terribly put out. But as they all three walked together toward the house, she sighed.
“It doesn’t seem we’re ever going to get a moment alone,” she said. “But I don’t mind speaking in front of the both of you. Neal.”
No more smile. Her expression had become steely with determination.
Neal’s collar grew tighter. Suddenly, he found it difficult to swallow. Alan slowed his pace, and he fought the urge to clutch his friend’s sleeve, to prevent his dropping back.
“Neal. The answer is yes.” The air whooshed out of her. “I appreciate that you haven’t pressured me, that you invited me to Cornwall, showed me Truro, that you were never impatient. That you let me arrive at my own conclusion.”
A bird twittered. No, not a bird. Alan had started to whistle. Everything made sense, and nothing made sense.
What was she saying?
The sunlight, Alan’s jaunty whistle, the green hedge, the exemplary woman beside him—the perfect pieces all fit together jaggedly. The gorgeous day was cracked with horror, visible only to him.
What had he done?
As Neal looked down at Muriel’s face, a resplendent smile spread across it.
“It feels wonderful, doesn’t it?” She sighed, this time with satisfaction. “When you’ve made up your mind?”
Not a word occurred to him.
At the house, it was she who pressed his hand. “I’m not worried about the details. But I needed to tell you. Once I knew myself, I was going mad holding it in.”
They stood gazing at each other. He didn’t know what to say, how to clear up the marvelous confusion he’d generated, and so he said nothing, letting the moment lengthen, until he realized that the script called for a kiss.
God above. Was he engaged?
Her chin tilted up.
“Muriel.” How to let her down gently? “Muriel, I hold you in the—”
“Onward to Otis & Boyd?”
She was looking over his shoulder, at Alan. Neal turned, thrusting his hands into his pockets.
“Onward.” Alan flourished his walking stick. “Or the doughty Otis, hardest-working editor in London, languishing for want of new talent, may retire early to his club.”
“Fie on that! Not a moment to lose.” Muriel fell into step with Alan, flashing a great grin at Neal over her shoulder. “Good luck with the Borneo shipment. More pitcher plants? Wonderful!”
The look Alan tossed over his shoulder was decidedly more quizzical.
After they disappeared, Neal stood stock-still in the shadow of Umfreville House.
Caught between Pendrakes.
Maybe Bidmead would do better with the scenario than he had. He couldn’t do worse.
Christ, Neal had butchered things.
Finally, he shook himself and struck off, cutting across Hyde Park toward Varnham Nurseries, alone.