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Muriel fell asleep on the train to Falmouth, her head on his shoulder. Neal rested his cheek on her hair, enjoying the feel of it against his skin. He was drowsy too, and the light streaming through the windows heated the compartment, pressed down his eyelids.

They’d all gone late to their beds.

She stirred against him, and he sat up, gazing out at the countryside. Green fields dotted with cows. Some sheep. Come midsummer the green would deepen leaf by leaf.

Come midsummer.

He drifted. Drifted to Golowan, Muriel’s first. The long day giving over to night, the paths dark, glowworms in the hedges. He was walking with Muriel, her hand in his, walking up to the bonfires on the hills, and then to the orchard, where the air was tart with swelling fruit. He lifted Muriel up onto a barrel, slid his hands up her legs, rolled down her stockings, and she bunched her skirt in her fists, held it higher and higher, exposing her bare calves, her sweet kneecaps, the tops of her thighs, which he kissed, so she gasped, jumping at his touch. He reached to steady her, one arm deep inside her skirts, palming the fullness of her backside. She lifted her skirt higher, and he licked to the apex of her thighs, to the split in the linen, the dark damp gold of her peeking out, and Christ, how he wanted to taste, to lower her over his mouth, and . . .

Ahem.

The discomfort of flesh bunched inside trousers grown suddenly tight alerted him to his . . . state.

Think of Blumenbachia chuquitensis.

He made a furtive adjustment. Like he was a bloody schoolboy. Except as a schoolboy he’d never slipped into daydreams about a woman on a barrel. It had taken Muriel to unlock the erotic potential of your basic English cask.

They’d barely gotten to explore the possibilities.

Last night, he’d have liked to hop off his own barrel and show her more exciting ways of positioning herself. A knee hooked over his shoulder, perhaps, or—once he removed the satin slipper she’d shredded on the nail heads in the floor—her instep flexing in his hand as he nestled between her legs, his tongue working a slow rhythm. Jigging could involve any part of the body, provided the practitioner had the agility and the endurance.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t the time or the place for such an intimate performance.

She’d rehearsed the steps he taught her as she stared at his feet, the pink tip of her tongue at the corner of her mouth. Utterly, adorably concentrated. She’d proved a quick study.

Tomas’s eyes had started when he’d charged back into the room and glimpsed the two of them atop the barrels, tapping out one of their childhood routines. Neal hadn’t been able to let the opportunity pass.

“You’ve been edged out,” he’d called. “You’re no longer the second-best barrel-top dancer in Kyncastle. She is.”

“Second-best?” Tomas and Muriel had sputtered their indignation in unison.

Muriel fit right in with the Traymaynes, in terms of competitive spirit.

“You haven’t seen Emmeline?” Tomas had peered into the dim corners of the room. “She and Druce seem to have vanished. I’d hoped to find them here, eating ginger biscuits.” He’d stared moodily at the crumbs on the plate.

“It’s a nice night.” Neal had bit back a smile. “Perhaps they went to look at the stars.”

“My worry exactly.” Tomas’s frown had deepened. What a bear he was with Emmeline. Neal’s protectiveness as a younger brother had always taken on a more doglike quality. He was at the ready to attack should his sisters bid him, but he didn’t lumber about, nosing for trouble.

“Let’s ourselves go look at the stars,” Muriel had suggested, and he’d returned to earth, swinging her down from her barrel. Arm in arm, they’d breezed past Tomas and through the crowded assembly room, out into the clear, cool evening air.

They’d walked along the harbor, pressed close, the moonlight silvering the ripples on the bay. Luckily, neither of them cared overmuch for stars. When they stopped walking, they found their attention equally fixed on the closest—rather than the farthest—points of interest.

Eyes. Lips.

He glanced down at her, the dark gold lashes against her smooth cheek, mouth slightly open.

Should he propose in Great Peth? Or wait until they reached the Lizard? Yes, wait until the Lizard, when they’d walked over heath and down cliff paths fringed by honeysuckle to a quiet, sandy cove, picnic basket in hand, in fulfillment of his first promise.

Suddenly, Muriel bolted upright, the crown of her head knocking his cheekbone, elbow driving into his side. Her eyes were wide open, unseeing and terrified.

“A dream,” he murmured, a strange bubble forming in his chest.

When she had bad dreams, he would be the one to soothe her. He would come to know her moods, waking and sleeping, to know what visions played out behind her eyelids, her most secret fears—and desires.

Slowly, she relaxed her posture, muscles loosening, as her gaze focused.

“What was it?” he asked.