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Every time he used the phrase, he saw her tense.

He lit his cigarette, sent smoke spiraling toward the treetops. “In one of your letters,” he repeated, “you said you smoked Turkish cigarettes. You’ll prefer these, I promise you.”

“Smoke?” She laughed. She saw the look on his face and a thin line appeared between her brows. “I was joking, of course.”

“Not at all.” He pressed the case into her hand. “You picked up the habit on those long ocean voyages and keenly regret that London’s social mores don’t permit a lady to indulge. Why would you deny it now?”

She bit her lip, staring at the neat row of slender cylinders.

“Tobacco appeals to me less these days,” he continued, beginning to find the fun of the situation. “It’s poison in large quantities. We use it to fumigate the nurseries, or make it into a wash to kill greenfly on the bushes. But a pinch mixed judiciously with herbs . . .” He shrugged, took a long draw, and blew a lazy ring that twisted slowly in the motionless air. “You told me you were eager to try it.”

“Of course,” she murmured, shoulders sagging. Then she pushed them back, took a cigarette between her fingers, and set it between lips pursed as for a kiss. For a moment, he admired the absurdity, then he struck the match.

The coughing fit was instantaneous. Her eyes watered as she caught her breath.

“Very nice,” she wheezed, and puffed again, letting the smoke fill her open mouth and roll out.

“Mmm,” he said. “Hold on to the case, then. They’re all for you. Shall we?”

She was coughing as she followed him along the edge of the heath and then down into the valley.

They reached the river at a narrow bend, disturbing a heron that ran a few steps on its long, thin legs, then opened its wings, flying over them, awkward and magnificent. Muriel gasped as its shadow swept her face. The look she gave him was pure wonderment.

Dammit. He didn’t want to share such moments with her, such looks.

She should have broken hours ago.

He clenched his jaw against an answering smile. They’d keep walking. Over mudflats exposed by the ebb tide, along creeks that split off the main river, cutting channels through the mossy banks.

It was cooler by the river, refreshing, and he redoubled the pace, skirting the bracken, ignoring the little white flowers that rose from downy stems, likely catchfly, rare enough to merit a second glance in other circumstances.

He’d given up even the pretense of collecting.

The river turned sharply, and the trees drew closer together. He took the bend and accelerated. Muriel had fallen behind once more, and so he heard, rather than saw, her protest.

He turned at the cry. She’d thrown herself down on a thick bed of moss and lay with her hands beneath her head, looking up at the green canopy.

“We’re rambling too fast,” she said, propping herself on an elbow as he picked his way back to her. “I want to appreciate the mosses. Like Laura Odgers does,” she added, with a touch of asperity.

He dropped down beside her, stretching out his legs.

“Laura Odgers studies moss. She doesn’t sleep in it.”

“I suppose you would know how she sleeps.” She looked away. “I didn’t hear you come back last night.”

Ah. So she’d lain in her dark room listening for his return.

Because she was jealous? Or . . . because he’d frustrated her plan to dig her claws into him more deeply?

Mrs. Odgers, plump, vigorous, and voluble, had kept him late, first rehanging the henhouse door and nailing together new nest boxes, then chatting over several courses—garden vegetables, chicken, fresh berries—and only afterward displaying her specimens, saving the one in which he’d indicated the most interest, the Bryum roseum in fruit, for last.

He hadn’t minded her delaying tactics in the least. An old family friend, she was like an aunt to him, and besides, he’d wanted to linger elsewhere, anywhere but at the inn with Muriel.

On the way back into the village, he’d stopped at the Three Crowns for a pint and stayed for two.

He pressed his fingertips into the moss, rose moss, the tiny green whorls intricate as lace.

“It was a long night,” he said. Was his smile fittingly sphinxlike? He maintained it until she flicked her eyes to him. She’d been getting sun these last days. He couldn’t tell if she’d colored. She was certainly frowning.