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“I told Perran.” Tomas caught their old lurcher by the scruff of her neck before she could nose Muriel’s skirts. “I’ve extirpated tumors myself. I’m no homicidal vivisectionist, you know that. Operative treatments are yielding encouraging results.”

“Thank you for those letters.” Neal smiled at his cousin. “She trusts your medical opinion more than she does that of her own sons in this instance.” It was true. She’d refused to listen to Perran or Jory, both well-respected doctors, convinced they’d let desperation override their reason. But in the end, Tomas, too, had failed to bring her around.

Neal released Kelyn’s hand and pressed his fist into his thigh. The muscle in his arm went rigid. “If anyone could have convinced her, it would have been you.”

“Stubborn woman.” Tomas shook his head. “God love her.”

Heddie Traymayne had always been stubborn. She’d ignored her symptoms for months. Neal suspected she’d seen signs even earlier than she admitted, that her illness was well advanced before she sought advice, and that, as a result, she was correct in her assessment.

Surgery was not an option.

Tomas took the hand Neal had released and kissed his wife’s knuckles. “Well, my treasure, what say you to midsummer in Penzance?”

Kelyn dimpled. She had a round, sweet face and a steadfastness that acted as an anchor for her more mercurial husband. “As long as you keep the twins out of the fires.”

“Might have to truss them like chickens,” Tomas grumbled. “The scamps.”

At that moment, they’d set their sights on Muriel and were waddling toward her at full speed, grubby hands outstretched. She drew back against the wall with a gasp.

“Do you have children of your own?” Kelyn addressed Muriel kindly, as Neal scooped a twin and held him kicking under his arm. Davy Strout, Loveday’s fiancé, a strapping fishermen with a shoal of siblings, seized twin number two and turned him upside down. His squeals of delight were piercing. Muriel made a face.

“I am not so fortunate,” she said.

“But you do like children?” asked Emmeline. She was the youngest of the sisters and, with her slim figure, brown ringlets, and lively green eyes, the acknowledged beauty of the family. She’d emerged from the kitchen with several manchet loaves on a board and was watching Muriel with her lips pursed.

“Of course I like children.” Muriel smoothed her skirts and Emmeline’s eyes followed the gesture, although whether it was the rings sparkling on Muriel’s hand or the vivid blue silk that caught her eye, Neal couldn’t guess. “And I adore babies. They’re lovely tucked into wickerwork prams on the Champs-Élysées.”

Emmeline goggled. Dear God. Neal hoisted his twin onto his shoulder. The boy immediately grabbed a fistful of his hair. Davy still dandled the other upside down and his face had turned red as a tomato.

“These two are a menace.” Neal unwound his hair from the tugging hand and tweaked the boy’s nose. “They’d do better in a wicker hamper.” He glanced at Muriel, but she was staring dreamily into space. Her eyes seemed larger and more luminous. She’d been speaking completely in earnest. She did adore babies, just not the two in front of her. She adored perfectly composed, picturesque babies, babies presented at opportune moments by the nursemaids and governesses who cleaned them, petted them, and dried their tears.

His future wife, so untypical in so many ways, typified her social class in others. He had a feeling he could break his brain trying to figure it out. He sighed, depositing his twin gently on the threadbare carpet.

“We could sail to France, would you like that, Kitto?” Davy flipped the boy and set him on his feet. Kitto turned a dizzy circle and sat hard on his bum.

“Why, have you a sailing ship?” Muriel’s head snapped toward Davy, the mist clearing from her eyes. She stared, lips parted. Davy cocked a brow, not above a bit of grandstanding.

“I captain a fine fishing boat,” he said, grinning madly. “Will that do you?”

Davy was a good chap, Neal had always thought, and devoted to Loveday, but, regardless, a bit of a jackanapes. If he didn’t watch himself, Emmeline would give him a wallop with the breadboard. Her pursed lips had compressed into a hard line, and the bread was in danger of sliding off the board. She’d tilted it like a cricket bat. She was a high-spirited girl and fiercely protective of her older sister. Neal stepped between Emmeline and Davy to offer Muriel a wink.

“Leave Davy to the pilchards,” he said. And to Loveday, he thought, but added only: “We’ll sail to France from the Lizard, how’s that? It’s a shorter trip.”

The words ignited something within her. Her eyes burned his.

“You mean it?” she asked, oddly breathless. His jaw tensed. Oh, he would break his brain for sure. He’d intended to jape, not proffer a real possibility.

“You truly want to sail to France?” He said it with barely contained disbelief. “Like a smuggler?”

“Exactly,” she cried. “Yes, that’s it.” Her color had heightened. Ferocity of expression ill befitted such a doll-like countenance, but by God, she managed. All she wanted was the cutlass. He touched a thumb to his forehead and laughed his perplexity. What in bloody hell had happened to Muriel Pendrake between today and the date of her last letter?

You asked what I would most like to see on our venture, she had written. I find I cannot rank my various enthusiasms. Certainly the rare clovers, and the rushes, and that unusual heather you’ve described with the pink flowers tipped with crimson anthers. As eager as I am to explore the cliffs, coves, and valleys—the whole of Cornwall—and learn every one of her native plants, I confess I have a keen interest, too, in touring your hothouses in Truro, particularly to see the pitcher plants from Borneo. Perhaps I’m being greedy trying to fit it all in. We haven’t yet begun and already I fear the time will fly by!

That was then. Now, she didn’t seem moved by moorland or heathland, by native species, or for that matter to remember her keen interest in his hothouses, in the pitcher plants and hybridized orchids. Far from fearing her time in Cornwall would fly too quickly, she couldn’t fly to France quickly enough.

“In that case, you are better off with Davy,” he said, with a slight bow to the younger man, who puffed out his chest, then frowned as Emmeline ground his toe with her heel. What Emmeline muttered sounded to Neal very like sail to the dickens.

Kelyn seemed to think so. She cleared her throat and took the breadboard carefully from Emmeline’s hands.