Page 12 of The Runaway Duchess

The scrape of stools across the raw floorboards alerted him to her presence. He’d been leaning against the bar, and he straightened as the other men stood or tipped their glasses. As though a woman had never stepped foot in Crawthevyn Inn.

Maybe it was the tulle.

Muriel had changed into a low-cut evening gown, a gauzy shawl wrapped around her shoulders. As she crossed the room, she took small, deliberate steps, circling the puddles. Beer, he hoped. Should he rush forward and throw down a handkerchief? Good God, but he’d arranged things poorly.

Muriel had made it clear in that first letter that she had no intention of working for Varnham. Not because she was renewing her contract with Edevane & Fernsby. On the contrary. She was done with China, done with long journeys and perilous searches. She’d accepted his invitation to botanize in Cornwall, but clearly she’d been operating under some misapprehension as to what that entailed. She’d imagined an expedition on British soil was like a walk in Hyde Park.

What he should have done—too late now—was secure them lodging at a less ruinous hostelry, one of the shipshape little inns on the High Street in Camelford.

He pulled out a chair at the table farthest from the hearth. Nonetheless, she gave a dry, reprimanding cough as she lowered, straight-backed, into her seat. His heart sank by inches, and he batted at a cinder—had chivalry ever taken such an absurd aspect?—as he folded himself into the chair across from her. Wisps of peat smoke curled toward the rafters. The light was so low he couldn’t gauge the color of her dress—gray, blue, lilac?—or distinguish on her face the shadowy marks. What blotch was the rash, and what blotch the sign of her recent storm of weeping?

Mary, the innkeeper’s wife, emerged from the kitchen, scooting a cat with her shoe. “Greedy guts,” she muttered. “Out with you.” She caught sight of Neal and approached, smiling broadly. She wore a cap on her white hair, and her apron, dimness notwithstanding, looked none too clean.

“Neal Traymayne,” she said in a round, rich voice. “What can I do you?”

Last evening, once she’d connected him with the Kyncastle Traymaynes, Mary had plopped down at his table, subjecting him to a lynx-eyed interrogation. With unflagging interest, she’d moved methodically from bud to root of his family tree, getting up from time to time to bring another pasty. She didn’t release him to his bed until he’d eaten three and tucked into a suet pudding.

“Pasties.” He grinned at her. “Four. I worked up a powerful appetite.” He had at that. He’d walked easily twenty miles on his roundabout route to Bodmin Station, with only a few hard biscuits for his lunch. “Another ale, as well.” He raised his empty glass. “Thank you kindly, Mary.”

“And the lady?” Mary’s quick, sharp gaze ricocheted between them before settling on Muriel. Neal had explained that his expected traveling companion was a woman of science, a respectable widow come to assist him with his botanical fieldwork. Whatever image Mary had called up at the words woman of science and respectable widow, Neal would wager by her expression it misaligned point by point with the reality.

“To drink?” Muriel licked her lips. She seemed distracted by the entrance of a small, ragged figure who tottered as he approached the bar, dwarfed by his rucksack. A peddler, Neal guessed.

“Ah . . .” Muriel didn’t so much as look toward Mary. “Möet?”

Christ. She’d answered automatically, Neal felt certain, and meant no insult. He waited a beat for her to hear her blunder, but she continued to watch the peddler with a faint scowl.

Crawthevyn Inn catered to poor colliers and furnace men, farmers, vagrants, horse dealers, cabmen, families in rickety coaches breaking up the journey between coasts. French champagne was not on offer.

“Oh, aye,” Mary shouted above the din. The miners had begun ragging the peddler for a song, a dozen boots stamping in rhythm. “And to eat?”

The stamping ceased, and a miner handed the peddler a foaming glass. Muriel looked away, giving Mary her full attention.

“To eat?” she echoed. “Why—I haven’t seen the menu.”

“You’re looking at the menu.” Mary opened her arms and bobbled a mock curtsey. “Fish and chips or pasties. What will it be, dearie?”

For a moment, Muriel stared, a mutinous expression playing across her features. Was she about to demand lobster salad and asparagus with Montpellier butter? Neal bit the inside of his cheek. In China, she had mingled with Europeans, attended state dinners at the British Legation. But she had also ventured into rural precincts. Her manuscript included words of praise for the kind souls she’d encountered in the villages and described their foods as “delicious” and “more interesting than the knife-and-fork fare” she’d eaten in cities at the consulates. Would she now rebel against a Cornish pasty?

“I don’t know.” She frowned at Mary. “What’s in the pasties?”

“Everything but the devil,” said Mary. “And we’d throw the devil in too, if ever he came to Cornwall.” She threw a wink at Neal, who’d heard, throughout his nigh on thirty years of life, more than several variations on this saying. Muriel opened her mouth, then closed it.

“Well then, pasties it is,” said Mary. “And I don’t envy you, Neal Traymayne.”

She marched for the kitchen, already shouting to the cook. Muriel played with the ends of her hair, such shining, pale hair it looked nearly as white as the smoke.

“Women never like me.” She flicked the strands behind her shoulders. Her eyes seemed suspiciously full, and she dabbed at them with a tuft of tulle.

“You must think I’m being a ninny.” She dropped the tulle and smoothed it, fingers moving with nervous excitement. “The strawberries did something to my brain, I fear.” Her laugh partook of that same nervousness. Her gaze met his, then flicked away.

“I’m typically very strong-minded,” she continued, eyes lowered. “Intrepid. You know, very extraordinary. I’ve done all sorts of amazing things, haven’t I? But all I’ve done since meeting you is shake with premonitions of death and cry. You must be horribly let down.”

“No. No, not in the least,” he said, but she looked up at him through her lashes, shaking her head.

“It’s true, I’ve been wretched. I’m too sick and too tired to make sense, and if we sit across from each other, you have to spend your meal looking at my face. I don’t know how you’ll abide it.”

Before he could protest, Mary’s arms reached between them.