Page 81 of The Runaway Duchess

She looked up. Her expression arrowed through him.

She was illuminated, hope in her eyes, and fear. Her lips parted.

“I don’t know where to begin,” she said, voice tremulous but urgent. “I suppose it started—”

“Mr. Traymayne!”

Both of their heads jerked around.

“I didn’t realize you were back.” Robert Glendinning, one of Varnham’s chief hybridists, was approaching along the path pushing a wheelbarrow of shell sand. He was a wide man, bearded, with a gleaming bald head, the perfect foil for his slender companion, a striking woman, with a strong jaw, a Roman nose, and a mass of coppery hair.

She froze, her garden knife pointed at Neal’s heart.

“Mrs. Pendrake has been bored among the gladioli.” Glendinning was all smiles. “So we spent yesterday with the fuchsias. We took cuttings from the Alba, and if I do say . . .”

He didn’t. Neal was already on his feet, dimly aware that Lavinia hadn’t moved. Muriel Pendrake, the real Muriel Pendrake, came right up to him, shifted the knife to her left hand, and gave his right a firm shake. Her gaze met his squarely.

“Neal,” she said warmly. “I can call you Neal? What a ridiculous mix-up!”

—

Hours later, Neal sat in the dining room at the Red Lion Hotel, jerking his gaze between Muriel past and Muriel present, feeling more mixed-up than he’d ever felt in his life.

Muriel present—Muriel two—no, the one and only Muriel exhibited none of the reserve she’d demonstrated in her letters. Her prose might be airless, but she herself was a breath of fresh air. More than a breath. A rollicking gust.

At the moment, she was launched on an explanation of her side of the mix-up.

“It’s an epic tale,” she’d said at the nursery. “I’ll need a pint to do it justice.”

She had her pint now, and she narrated with singular vivacity. He could scarcely follow the twists and turns of the plot, not least because his swift glances at Lavinia broke his concentration.

Lavinia looked . . . not vivacious. She sat bolt upright, her posture rigid, watching Muriel with a fixed smile on her lips.

Neal glanced at Muriel, cut his eyes back to Lavinia, then rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. His divided focus was making his head pound.

Muriel deserved attention. He redoubled his effort, concentrating on her words.

Her story had begun at Paddington Station, when the cabbie had driven off before she could collect her portfolio. She’d hopped into another cab and started after him.

“We gave furious chase,” she said, shaking her glass so that the ale lipped the rim. “Or rather, we tried to give furious chase, but the London traffic moves like treacle. We were furiously stuck behind an omnibus. I realized I was better off on foot . . .”

As she kept talking, with increasing animation, Neal felt dizzied by a possibility. What if this vivacious woman was also an imposter? What if the Muriels kept multiplying? His eyes slid to the front door. A third Muriel might fling it open at any moment.

Nonsense, of course. Lavinia’s deceit had warped his mind.

His gaze returned to Lavinia and their eyes met. She’d been looking at him. She seemed to read his passing thought, or at least, the censure in it. Her smile faltered.

Dammit.

Muriel was laughing as she described her frenzied sprint down the street, how she’d dodged hooves and wheels, screaming blue murder.

“A Good Samaritan came to my aid, because he thought my child had been stolen. He went haring off, quick as lightning. When he reached the cab and recovered the portfolio, he was terribly out of sorts. Didn’t think it worth the risk to life and limb. But you know differently. I have a new species of primula in there! Among other treasures.” She grinned at Neal, and suddenly he found himself grinning back.

Yes, this was Muriel. The right one.

She wrapped up her account neatly as a potboy brought another round of beer.

In the end, she’d missed the train, returned home, waited for Neal’s letter, received nothing, dispatched a missive to Truro, then followed on its heels.