Page 28 of The Runaway Duchess

“No.” He held up the bluebell and watched the wind move the bells, almost heard their soundless chime. “She’s dying. Cancer of the breast.”

On a breath, she folded her arms across her chest, then slowly, she lowered them. He continued before she could speak.

“She hates fuss,” he said. “Anything that smacks of pity. Also, she’s rarely amenable to doctor’s orders. My brothers think she may be the worst patient in the history of the profession.”

She accepted his attempt at humor, mouth tugging into a smile.

“If she were here, and well, would she scale this cliff?” She tipped her head, peering down. The top of her ear peeked through her hair.

“You seem ready to scale that cliff,” he observed. “You’ve no fear of heights?”

“I’ve no fear of anything after that cab ride.” She took another step toward the edge. The sunset had begun to streak the sky, to tip the frayed edges of the windblown clouds with rosy pink. The deeper blue of the sea was ripening to violet near the horizon. The cliffs across the harbor towered, their tops mantled in emerald green. She sighed. “I can see why you’re snobbish about Cornwall.”

One more step toward the giddy edge. She opened her arms to the wind.

Her bonnet sailed wide of her, ribbons fluttering.

“Oh please, no,” she cried. “It’s a Virot!” And she lunged after it. Everything seemed to happen at once. The bonnet vanished over the edge and she reached it a second later, snatching at nothing, swaying forward as he leapt toward her. Something—not her bonnet—shot up in front of them. A kestrel riding a current of air. It set the gulls to screaming.

Muriel flung her weight backward and whirled, ducked her head, and barreled into him, her skull connecting with his chest. He stepped back, pulling them back onto the path, arms coming instinctively around her. They stood unmoving.

Good God. He’d tried not to anticipate the feel of her, the fit of her against him. Her soft, curved flesh radiated the fading heat of the summer day and, pressed close, smelled salty as well as sweet, the light sweat of her exertions mingling with the rose, and some other fragrance—gardenia, variety unknown—diffused by the slippery mass of her hair.

He’d tried not to anticipate, to fantasize, to act . . . but why exactly? Bloody hard to remember. He didn’t want desire to dictate his decisions. Lord knew, his instincts hadn’t always guided him well. His infatuations had flared and faded, flared and faded. The hotter the spark, the quicker the affair burned out. But this time, he’d already done everything differently. He’d met Muriel Pendrake on the page—on over four hundred pages—months before he’d met her in person. He’d reversed his priorities. Laid groundwork. No matter what he did now, this couldn’t flare and fade.

The intensity of the heat he felt did not bode well.

He rested his hands lightly on the fine bones of her shoulders, which pulled back as she straightened, breasts sliding up along his shirtfront. As her head lifted, her eyes fixed on his, violet in the last light, twin mirrors of the sunset on the Celtic Sea. The dratted seagulls were diving now, and he threw up his arm to wave them off. With a little cry, she pressed her face into his neck. He felt the softness of her skin, the moisture of her lips, the shape they made as she smiled. For she was smiling. Laughing at her fear. Or else . . . not so afraid at all.

Every muscle in his body had tightened. If the wind blew at this moment, he’d vibrate like an Aeolian harp.

When she stepped back, she cupped her hands above her face and hunched. He kept his arm raised as the seagulls veered and shrieked. The kestrel had risen higher and hovered. She peeked between her fingers and gasped.

“He’s watching me!”

He wouldn’t blame the kestrel if he was.

“This reminds me of Chile,” he said, still waving his arm, hand fisted. More male vanity. He grimaced. Come on, man, are you going to punch a seagull? The Society for the Preservation of Plumage would put him on probation.

He was laughing at himself as he continued. “James, James Varnham, and I brought his fox terrier with us to South America. Idiotic idea, by the way. In the Andes, condors fancied her for luncheon. We developed a whole gymnastics routine to keep her safe.”

“Are you comparing me to a fox terrier?” A seagull swooped and she doubled over.

“I don’t know.” He grinned at her, boxing the air, uppercut, jab, uppercut, jab. It felt good. “Should I pick you up and run for shelter?”

“We’ll both run,” she said grimly, and was several lengths away before he could command his legs to give chase.

—

Lavinia had a stitch in her side by the time they’d reached the church. Neal suffered no such malady and bounded at once over the stone stile into the churchyard, a far wilder churchyard than any she’d ever seen. The graves were mounded with tangled grasses and the gravestones tilted every which way.

“Dwarf thistle and adder’s tongue,” called Neal, shaking back his hair as he rose and came toward her. He’d draped his coat over a rock down on the path and now she saw that he’d rolled up his sleeves. And soiled the knees of his trousers kneeling on damp earth. He seemed blissfully unaware of the impropriety. As an expert snob, she wanted to wrinkle her nose. But part of her envied him his unselfconsciousness. She was painfully aware that she must look a fright. Sweaty, lank-haired. And her only bonnet—lost!

She gathered herself. Mrs. Pendrake wouldn’t care one jot about a lost bonnet.

Thank heavens she hadn’t been wearing her hat with Brazilian hummingbirds at the station.

“Dwarf thistle and adder’s tongue,” she called back in her jauntiest Pendrakean voice. “I see some eye of newt right behind you. Shall I fetch the cauldron?”