Page 82 of The Runaway Duchess

“I like this hotel,” Muriel commented, waving across the room at another party of diners just being seated. “The Mephams. I met them this morning. We walked the shoreline. It was beautiful, and fascinating. Glendinning says there’s an algologist I should meet. Underton?”

“Underwood.” Neal nodded. “Of course. I’ll introduce you.”

“Splendid!” Muriel beamed and turned to Lavinia. “And what do you think of the algae?”

—

Lavinia marshaled her forces and beamed back at Muriel.

“I’ve never thought of it.” She kept her chin high. A few days ago, if she’d been quizzed about some woody, shrubby, soppy, or mucky thing, she would have put on her best Pendrakean expression and pretended knowledge.

Confronted with Muriel Pendrake herself, she had no such recourse. Nothing but her own ignorance to fall back on, her own empty head, decorated with a pretty smile.

Now Muriel would exchange a pained look with Neal, and they’d draw closer together and discourse about fascinating muck to their hearts’ content.

Birds of a feather. A society of two perfectly suited plumes.

Muriel didn’t look at Neal. She looked straight into Lavinia’s eyes with unfeigned warmth.

“How was the botanizing in Mawbyn? Anything of interest?”

Lavinia’s throat felt scratchy, so she took a small sip of ale.

A friend. That was how Neal had introduced her. Lavinia Stowe. We’ve been out in the field.

“Mosses,” she managed.

“Tomorrow you’ll have to show me what you collected.” Muriel addressed Neal and Lavinia, smiling upon them both. “I adore bryophytes.”

Her waving tresses gleamed in the light like beaten copper. She was so statuesque. So vivid. So legendary. And on top of it: so horridly likable. She’d accepted Lavinia’s presence without batting an eye. She tried to include Lavinia in their discussion, as though they were all three fellows in science. Potential friends.

Lavinia hooked a lock of hair behind her ear. Her own tresses had seen better days. The ends were dry, and the roots had gone greasy.

“Is your husband joining us?”

Lavinia didn’t startle. Too many years of sustaining flank attacks in Society. But the question stopped her breath.

Muriel hadn’t meant to attack, of course. She’d asked the question with charming frankness.

Lavinia’s eyes fell to her rings, which must have twinkled as she moved her hand, capturing Muriel’s attention. The gold looked heavy, the jewels outsized. She wanted to make her hand into a fist and stuff it under the table. If someone could have told her that one day, she’d feel the impulse to hide her diamonds . . . that she’d long to flaunt instead some bit of arcane knowledge about iguanodon teeth, or the genus Taraxacum . . .

She’d have laughed. She and George would have laughed together.

“No, my husband isn’t joining us.” She lowered her hand in her lap, the movement slow and graceful. “I wish he were, though.”

She looked down at her plate to avoid seeing if Neal reacted. If he didn’t react.

How strange. After all her recent revelations and reversals, she suddenly wished that George sat beside her.

She and George had been birds of a feather, like Neal and Muriel. If he were here, she wouldn’t feel the odd one out.

“Next time, then?” Muriel turned back to Neal. “I forgot to say, about the pitcher plants . . .”

Lavinia faded into the background. If George were here, he would arch his brow at Neal and Muriel, shake his head, drawl in her ear, his voice caressing and contemptuous, as familiar to her as her own.

My Vinnie. A wallflower among the botanists.

If George were here, he would turn Truro upside down until someone produced a bloody bottle of Möet.