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His lips twitched. “Not a chance.”
“I understand.” She smoothed her mahogany chignon. “You’re spoken for at the moment.”
She cut her eyes at Muriel, who’d moved a ways off and sat on the steps of a stucco-fronted building, throwing dice with an elderly sailor.
He didn’t realize he was wearing a moony expression until Grace laughed her musical laugh.
“It’s all right,” she said. “I’m spoken for too. You’re both invited.”
He hesitated again. Had she refused to grasp the fundamentals?
“You’re inviting me,” he murmured.
“Yes,” she agreed.
“The gatherings are ladies only.”
“Annie again.” She made a face. “Silly goose. I think she’s scared of toms.”
“I’ve gone a bit beyond tom.”
“So you have.” She considered him.
“I don’t intend to go back,” he added quietly. “If I visit this evening, I visit as who I am.”
She considered him for another moment.
“Well, then. Mr. Griffith.” She nodded. “Half past nine.”
She did glide on, her gait so smooth it seemed her feet didn’t touch the cobbles. Kit’s eyes bounced back to Muriel. His old and new lives had collided again. And yet, he didn’t feel bruised this time, but rather bemused, and unexpectedly hopeful.
—
The warm night air was tipsy with the scent of wallflower and rose. Muriel found herself wishing the walk to the Falmouth Hotel were longer.
“Can we take a turn in the garden?” she asked Griffith, a figure of shadow and moonlight beside her. They could already see the lit-up hotel windows glowing through the trees.
“Let’s,” said Griffith, and linked their arms.
They fit together so well, strolling, their slow strides matched. When she kicked at her skirts, he pulled her into him, absorbing her little skip into their rhythmic pace. She kicked at her skirts often. She was glad she’d found a simple floral-print gown ready-made in her size, something to wear that wasn’t shin-length with oil stains on the hem, but she struggled to readjust to all that cumbersome fabric about her ankles.
“I’m underdressed,” she said grimly, picturing Miss Swanwick, beautiful and beribboned. For his part, Griffith had changed into an evening coat and trousers, his silk cravat folded crisply at his throat. It seemed he’d packed everything a man of fashion might require into that knapsack of his, except a top hat. He’d gone hatless, and left his hair unruly, which gave his elegance an appealingly raffish touch.
She almost wanted to see him stand again beside Miss Swanwick, to scratch some aesthetic itch. They made a gorgeous combination, like an iris paired with a peony.
She kicked at her skirt and sighed. “What if they won’t let me through the door?”
“I’m more worried they’ll try to keep you.” There was a smile in his voice. “You will fascinate Octavia Jenkins.”
“She takes an interest in botany?”
“She takes an interest in redheads.”
“I’m not a redhead.” She flushed. “You said they’re a stargazing society.”
He laughed. “That’s what they say. I’m sure they stargaze from time to time, and Miranda Ellis writes horoscopes under a nom de plume. But it’s a little joke. They’re women born under the same star, so to speak.”
Muriel slowed, looking up at the stars. “I’ve heard James use a similar expression. Men born under the same star. He also says men for whom Greece is the holy land. Or men who are like the Greeks. Because of something in Plato’s Symposium. I haven’t read it.”
