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Neal had never been very rich, or very poor. He would never be able to understand her trajectory, the highs and lows, the aspirations and disappointments.

“Or doesn’t your mother want you to stop digging holes? I recall she’s fond of it herself.”

She worried for a moment she’d gone too far. But Neal didn’t bridle, simply raised a brow.

“She knows why I’m committed to Varnham.” He drummed his fingers on his vasculum. “When I was with Elizabeth, I wasn’t myself. I was trying to fit into the wrong mold. My mother saw that.”

“So you ended it.” She tugged at her bonnet strings with a touch too much force.

“Elizabeth ended it. She’s thriving, I hear. Engaged to a baronet. Her father’s monkey puzzle trees are thriving too. I had occasion to check when I was last in London.”

There, a touch of irony. And she had doubted he had an ironic bone in his body. Another of his London acquisitions.

“But you wanted to know how I felt about Muriel Pendrake.” He grinned, a crooked grin, most likely intended to charm. Was that his London grin? She gave the bonnet strings a final tug and dropped her hands.

“I’ve changed my mind,” she said. She felt strangely humiliated, as though, in recounting the story of his engagement, he’d rejected her. She’d never been faulted for her beauty or her wealth. Quite the contrary. Beauty and wealth were her chief recommendations. Perhaps her only recommendations. To him they seemed no recommendation at all.

Despite herself, she had developed a fascination for his blunt gaze, the rough line of his outrageous nose, his smile, that tanned neck he exposed like he really was a king among outlaws. Why, she would fall in his estimation if he knew she was an absconded duchess. If he knew her only knowledge of plants derived from years of helping her mother spend the dahlia budget. He’d probably preferred her with her rashes. At least then he could keep priding himself on his colossal respect for her mind.

Mrs. Pendrake’s mind. Mrs. Pendrake’s courage. Mrs. Pendrake’s insufferable erudition.

But his eyes had dropped to her mouth. His breath had caught when she smiled. He wasn’t immune to her—the real her, Lavinia.

“I’ll tell you anyway.” His eyes glowed. The pause lengthened. Slowly, he raised a thick arm, and she thought for a heart-racing moment he was going to pull her against him. But his gaze tracked sideways, and he swung the arm back and forth, waving in greeting. His coat rattled and clanked. Flustered, she turned. A man in tartan trousers bounded toward them, waving his bowler hat. When he reached Neal, he let out an undoctorly whoop, caught him behind the neck with a hooked arm, and tried to wrestle him to the ground. Neal, with a powerful twist, rolled him across his broad back. The man landed neatly on his feet and seized Neal again, but this time they embraced, laughing.

“Muriel.” Neal spun to grin down at her. “Meet my cousin Tomas.”

Chapter Five

Merry confusion reigned in the household of the Kyncastle Traymaynes. Neal smiled at the familiar commotion. There were new faces, but the tenor hadn’t changed over the decades. In the large, bright dining room, children tumbled underfoot. Dogs barked hopefully as platters of chops passed over their heads.

Boiling was what his mother called it when family came together. The house scarcely holds the whole boiling of us.

Muriel didn’t seem to know what to make of the boiling. Nor did his cousins know what to make of Muriel. His letter describing a female botanist joining him for a bit of collecting hadn’t prepared them. How could it have? He hadn’t been prepared himself.

Pretty as an apple blossom was Tomas’s murmured pronouncement once Muriel had been swept up in the whirl of introductions. Neal had smiled at the saying, even as he bristled at the implication. Muriel Pendrake’s prettiness was neither here nor there.

But pretty she was. Her pale blond hair was only a few shades more golden than apple-blossom white, and her eyes startled with their crystalline blueness. Now that the swelling had subsided, her nose appeared thin and straight as a pin. Its fineness emphasized the full and rosy lips, cut along the lines of a cupid’s bow. Gone, the sweet, off-kilter quality to her features, the disarming imperfections. Her loveliness overwhelmed.

He tried to stay beside her so she wasn’t boiled alive. Soon, though, he was corralled, first by Tomas’s sisters, Alice, Loveday, and Emmeline, and then by Kelyn, Tomas’s wife. Kelyn fired questions as their twins—crawling when he’d seen them last—clung to his legs. One of them gnawed his shin. A man always had a reason for gaiters. If this expedition had taught him anything thus far, it was that.

“Hold tight,” he warned as he walked the length of the dining room table to where Tomas knelt, arms stretched out. Gleefully, the twins released Neal’s legs and began to climb their father.

“And how is Nessa?” Kelyn had followed. “And Jenni?”

“Both thriving,” said Neal. “Eager for news of you and the children.”

Kelyn set a dish of fried potatoes on the table, which was already groaning beneath the weight of the repast. Family meant everything to the Traymaynes. Alice, the eldest, had long ago married and moved across the valley, but her siblings still celebrated her return to the house, a near weekly occurrence, with elaborate, exuberant meals. For Neal’s less frequent visits, they outdid themselves.

“What a feast,” he said, admiring the spread of steaming dishes.

“And how is your mother?” The question coincided with a small lull in the noisy preparations. Neal had been waiting for it. He looked at Kelyn, then at Tomas, who dislodged the twins and came to stand at Kelyn’s side. Tomas’s face had grown uncommonly grave.

“Sharp as ever.” Neal took a breath. “And hoping you all come to Penzance for the Golowan Festival.” After a moment’s hesitation, he continued in a lower voice. “She says it will be her last.”

He suddenly felt Muriel’s eyes on him. She was standing nearby, against the wall, keeping out of the path of the children, the dogs, and the bustling women. She didn’t approach, but as his gaze brushed hers, he saw that she was listening. He acknowledged her presence with a small nod. He didn’t want her to feel she was intruding. He’d brought her into the thick of it all. She could hear anything he had to say.

Kelyn took his hand. “That might not be so, Neal.”