Page 7 of The Runaway Duchess

“Well,” she said. This had all gotten rather out of hand. The train was chugging now. She smelled coal smoke. And something else, some green, heathery scent the man had brought with him through the trees.

“Was it the first time?”

“What?” She blinked at him.

“The strawberries.” His gaze had sharpened again, roving across her forehead, cheeks, chin. “They never disagreed with you before?”

She stiffened, resisted the urge to scratch. “Once before. I was very young.” She’d been given a strong purgative, then put into a soda bath, and afterward her father rewarded her for her bravery by reading to her from her favorite book of fairy tales. “I’d avoided them since.”

“They were incorporated into something, then?”

He liked to ask questions, this man, to get to the bottom of things. But her honesty had hit a hard limit. She gave a one-shouldered shrug. She wasn’t about to tell him more.

That she’d marched from the balcony to the breakfast table in her wedding dress and forced herself to eat one chilled red strawberry, then another, even as her lips began to prickle. The information would make for a pretty speech.

I poisoned myself deliberately. It was unpleasant, yes. However, I had no choice but to become intensely, rapidly indisposed. Nothing else would have kept my bridegroom from consummating our marriage. I acted to prevent that consummation. You see, another man has already made his mark, a reality to which said groom will prove less amenable than I’d hoped.

“A syrup, I think.” The train belched more smoke as it began to pull out of the station. “I’m much better now,” she said firmly, closing the subject. A pause, while the man seemed to consider something. Then he nodded.

“Good,” he said. “We have a busy week. Tomorrow, we’ll botanize on the moor. In the evening, we’re off to Kyncastle. Then down to Great Peth, and on to the Lizard and back up to Truro. A grand tour of Cornish flora.”

The moment had come. She must disabuse him. Thank you, but I prefer flowers in arrangements on mantelpieces where they belong. When your happily married legendary Mrs. Pendrake shows up, I’m sure you’ll have a splendid time.

His look had turned rueful as he watched her.

“We’re similar, you and I. For years, I was addicted to the danger, and the challenge,” he said. “Succeeding where others failed. The plants of the British Isles bored me to tears. Then . . . things changed. I don’t even miss the old days.” He grinned. “Well, not much. Now that I’m head of Varnham Nurseries, I can always commission myself if I’m suddenly pining to reacquaint myself with frostbite, seasickness, and electric eels.”

She opened her mouth.

We are not similar. I am not Mrs. Pendrake.

It was slipping away, the moment. It had come and gone. She was in the pull of something rare and powerful. Her whole body had tipped subtly forward.

Could it be so easy? Step out of one life and into another?

“Trust me,” he said. “Cornwall won’t disappoint you. Shall we?”

One station fly remained, horse cropping the grass. At the man’s gesture, the driver hopped down to help him load her trunk.

The last car of the train had pulled away from the station. Sight lines opened between the two platforms. Glancing over her shoulder, she could see the liveried figures milling about, and behind, the row of shining black carriages. Cranbrook was stepping out of one, the watch in his hand catching the sunlight. His hand focused her attention. In the train compartment, he’d kneaded her thigh, as he had at that long-ago dinner party, but this time those puffy white fingers had probed her flesh hard enough to hurt. She’d made a small, anguished noise, and he’d laughed and twisted his fingers, panting as she gasped. He liked to hurt. Her distress excited him.

Revulsion overpowered, strong enough to make her retch. She didn’t retch. She hurled herself across the wet grass, diving into the fly, scrambling across the seat. Madness. This was going to end in disaster.

Doom-doom. Doom-doom. Her heart gave her the reminder. She was already living a disaster.

The man swung up after her. Everything about him was warm, confident, relaxed. Head of Varnham Nurseries. He was an enterprising gardener, one who’d gotten his start as a plant hunter. A peculiar, risky pastime. She remembered the year that a blossom like a golden bell won all the medals at the flower show. Everyone had traded stories of the plant hunter who’d carried it out of the jungle, and of the tiger who’d pursued him.

If you wanted to risk life and limb abroad, surely the army provided more respectable opportunities, not to mention attractive uniforms.

And Mrs. Pendrake. A plant huntress? She’d never heard of such a thing. She herself had gone plant collecting once when ferns were at their smartest. Part of a group of giggling debutantes who’d had to turn back when they reached the field because their crinolines didn’t fit through the stiles.

Tapa Shan mountains. Mongolia. Mrs. Pendrake and husband—legends among plant hunters. And where was this husband? With any luck, chasing after a rare rhododendron in Borrioboola-Gha. If he planned to meet them in Cornwall . . . the game would be up before it began. But what was the game? Where would this ruse lead her? She’d have to flee to Mongolia herself to escape Cranbrook’s reach.

When news of her disappearance reached London . . .

“It’s not far to the inn.” The man interrupted her racing thoughts and she tried to smile. A fearless, legendary smile. Her face felt stiff and tight. She’d borrowed—no, stolen—a life. It might be taken back at any moment.

The fly jostled as they drove in a wide circle over the grass. They tilted onto a rutted dirt lane. There. She saw it as they rolled past. The privy. It stood in the shade of a large tree. Unsurprisingly, a brown one.