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This way, she could say, and lead them right to him. He’d look up from his bicycle, sweaty, surprised, and heart-stoppingly handsome, and he’d drop his wrench, and Lucy would pale, and perhaps they’d start forward at the same moment. They’d fall into each other’s arms. Kit deserved that. He deserved a magnificent reconciliation. And he deserved also to choose when and how and if it happened. Lucy had hurt him, badly. They all had.

Muriel couldn’t spring them upon him, not without fair warning.

“Of course.” She nodded. “Good luck, with everything.”

As soon as the three women had walked away, she collapsed on the bench and stared at the remains of their meal, the teacups and plates. The woman in pink had folded her napkin into a rabbit.

She would tell Kit as soon as her legs were in working order. He would do with the information what he wished.

Her hands balled into fists in her lap. A sneaky, slippery, treacherous thought began to writhe in her brain like an eel.

What if she didn’t tell Kit? She could keep the encounter secret. She could keep him for herself for one more week.

Her heart hammered.

All she had to do was nothing. Lucy and the others would board a train to London. She and Kit would spend seven golden days together in St. Ives, six silver nights. She wanted that time, all of it, so intensely the prospect of losing an hour robbed her of breath. There was precious little time, in the scheme of things. To share under such constraints meant unreasonable sacrifice. She’d been fuzzy-headed last night, overestimating her own selflessness. But love wasn’t stingy, or dishonest. And she loved him. She loved Kit Griffith. His eyes, his hands, his voice, his swagger, his soul. Lucy loved him too, perhaps in the same way she did. And when the world went dark for Kit, hers was the name that called him back. Lucy was his light.

What was Muriel’s love if it interfered with that light?

She sat perfectly still, sick with desire and guilt, hollowed out by poisonous temptation. Even her appetite had deserted her.

She ordered breakfast regardless. She needed strength to decide her next move.

—

Kit had done what he had to do in the tack room. He’d taken off his pedals, and Muriel’s, cleaned and rethreaded them, replaced a spoke and adjusted the rest, checked the brakes, and generally assured himself that the day’s problems wouldn’t be mechanical in nature. Now his head was swimming from the fumes of the cement Butterfield had used to re-adhere his front tire to its rim, and he was more than ready for a second breakfast.

Kemble had the same idea. “I’m bloody starving.”

He beat Kit to the door and jogged into the hall, as though the two of them were competing for the very last kipper. Which maybe they were. An ungodly number of people had been coming and going since dawn, their voices and footsteps a constant din. Probably they’d descended on the bar like a plague of locusts.

“I need a blacksmith.” Egg spoke in a small voice, slumped against a wall, cracked leather halters and frayed ropes dangling all around him.

“Abandon the thought.” Deighton was using a rag to polish his badges. “We ride on the hour.”

“On the hour?” Prescott checked his watch and exchanged a look with Butterfield, whose stomach growled audibly. An instant later, they were gone.

“But I can’t ride with a broken handlebar. I thought it had come loose yesterday, but look, it’s actually broken.” Egg turned to his bicycle, propped against the wall beside him. “Just look.”

Deighton did not look. “Don’t pout. You’re a Mutton Wheeler. You can ride.”

“But—” Egg’s expression turned plaintive.

With a muffled curse, Kit forsook all hope of second breakfast and stalked to Egg’s machine. A proper fix would require a blacksmith, but he could rig up a temporary solution, quick and ugly. He’d unscrew the handlebar from its socket and jam in a broom handle. There was a broom in the tack room, but not a saw. He’d have to break it. Very ugly. Maybe he could sand the edge.

“This is doable,” he told Egg.

“Doable? And you’ll do it? Oh, ripping! I’ll run for a bite, then?” Egg’s eager question was hardly out before he shot from the room.

Kit worked for several minutes to remove the broken handlebar before he realized that Deighton hadn’t departed. He was standing with his legs spread and his arms crossed, watching him.

“Yes?”

“That machine belongs to my wheelman. You don’t have to fix it.”

Kit exhaled. “You’re welcome.”

Deighton grunted.