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Her face was contorting. She would weep. Rail. What a wretch he was.

“I don’t expect you to forgive me,” he said. “I never meant to hurt you. I take full responsibility for . . .”

She drew in her breath, made a choked sound. He braced himself, brain teeming with curses. Hanging was too good for him. She kept choking, face flushed.

“Can’t marry me?” She sputtered, blinking rapidly. Tears stood in her eyes.

He became aware again of the crowd. Heads had turned their way.

“No,” he said desperately. “But please believe . . . if things had gone differently . . . But they didn’t, and I . . . No. I’m sorry. I can’t. I hope . . .”

“Ah! A mortal wound! I shall never recover,” Muriel gasped. She was most undeniably convulsed . . . with laughter.

“I don’t understand.” He furrowed his brow, helplessly, maddeningly aware that the joke was on him, although he didn’t yet see its contours.

“Neal, you possess great personal charm yourself.” Muriel tried to still her trembling lips. “I hold you in the highest possible esteem. But I have absolutely no intention of marrying you, or anyone else. What sense would that make, when I’m bound for China?”

He released his breath. This whole time she’d meant . . .

“Yes,” he said. “You answered yes.”

He broke off. She’d answered yes to the question that had inaugurated their correspondence. Not to the question he’d never posed, the one that had seemed to him so obvious that it had become an inevitability, a trap.

Her smile was wry as she waited for him to grope his way forward.

“You’re coming on with Varnham? You want the contract for the expedition to Sichuan? The one you turned down?”

She nodded. “I’ve had a change of heart. Going to Cornwall helped me remember how much I love being in the field. And how good it feels to get away from London.”

How immensely, irrefutably compatible they were.

How utterly, absolutely not engaged to be married.

Humiliation, elation, chagrin—they came in waves.

Her smile gentled as she searched his face. “Getting to know you has been a part of it,” she said. “I admire your vision for Varnham. I want to be a part of that enterprise.”

Suddenly, she had to smother more laughter. “But you . . .” She squeezed his hand. “You imagined somehow you’d stumbled into a betrothment. Oh, my poor boy. You could have said something. But you worried I was too far gone in my swoon.”

Her laughter rang out.

He felt as though he had been struck by lightning. A bolt of pure electricity couldn’t make his face feel hotter. The tops of his ears were blistering.

“How did you even think it?” She was looking at him with curiosity, amusement, exasperation, and affection all mingled together. A sisterly look.

He tried to laugh, managed a puff of air.

She grasped his other hand, lifted both of them.

“Buck up,” she said. “Your cheeriness is your chief appeal. Maudlin ill becomes you. Maybe you need a change of scene as well. Back to Brazil?”

He cleared his throat. “Cornwall will do.”

A dark-haired, red-bearded man walked briskly past on the way to the door. Muriel twisted to watch his progress. “That’s Mr. Hewett. I should . . .”

“By all means.” He dropped her hands, and she was off like a shot. He stuffed his hands into his pockets, lifted his shoulders. Tried to look as though he hadn’t just played the buffoon in front of God knew who. Idiotically, he pursed his lips, ready to whistle, like a schoolboy.

Don’t mind me.