He strode from the parlor and into the foyer, just in time to see Jones shutting the door and his mother’s carriage pulling away. The butler seemed surprised to see him so soon and said, “Is there something you need?”
“My horse,” Lucas said cautiously, for he had not ridden since the attack. “And quickly.”
Jones stepped out to call on the footmen with the message, and Lucas shook his head to clear it. This meeting with Stalwood had to be about Oakford and Caldwell. And he could only hope it would help him clear his mind to work on that case.
Because right now he needed the distraction.
Diana stood at her kitchen table, chopping dried herbs before she slid them into marked vials for future medicines and tinctures. Normally the work was pleasant, for it helped her clear her mind.
Today…well, today was different. In truth, she feared every day would be different for the rest of her life, because of Lucas. It had been nearly two days since she slipped from his home, away from his life and returned to her own. Only the London cottage was now haunted by thoughts and memories of the man. Here he had touched her, here they had kissed, here he had held her, comforted her.
She shivered and some of the dried herbs scattered across the table. She swore and swept them off the edge and into her palm to try to fill the vial again.
She had every intention of going back to the countryside, but hadn’t made the arrangements yet. “Not that it will be any better, I fear,” she said, jolting at the sound of her own voice. Her house felt so quiet now without Lucas in it.
“Still talk to yourself, do you?”
She pivoted at the voice in her door. It was one she recognized, as was the gentleman who owned it. The one standing there, staring at her.
Boyd Caldwell.
Out of instinct, she scurried away from him a few steps until she flattened herself against the opposite wall. She had not seen this man for almost two years. Not since he seduced and then left her. He looked the same. Tall, broad-shouldered, with dark hair and green eyes. He was older than Lucas. Older and far less alluring.
She thought for a moment of the accusations that had been made about him being the traitor. She’d been so focused on her father, she hadn’t let herself consider the other man.
Now she couldn’t stop thinking of it.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Boyd said, ducking into the kitchen and shutting the door behind him, though he had not been invited to do either.
She wiped her shaking hands along the front of her apron and tried to gather her composure. “You almost are. I have not seen you in two years, Boyd. What are you doing here?”
He smiled. Once, what seemed like a lifetime ago, she recalled being taken with that smile. Now she felt uncomfortable with it turned on her.
“I cannot come to call on an old friend?” he asked.
She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “We were never friends, Boyd.”
That smile broadened, became a little lewd as his gaze flicked over her. “No. I suppose we weren’t. We were much, much more.”
“If you have come here for that, you will be sadly disappointed,” she snapped as she folded her arms across her chest like a shield. “I know the truth about you now, Boyd.”
He arched a brow. “Do you now?”
She realized in that moment that there was a double meaning to that statement. She’d meant it as a reminder that she now knew he had a family, a wife, that his advances were self-serving and had no future.
But she also knew about the suspicions that surrounded him. If true, she knew he was a traitor. A murderer. A person who had stolen her father and nearly killed the man she loved.
She lifted her chin. “I know about your family,” she said. “Do you have other secrets?”
“As if you don’t.” The smile turned to a smirk, and he looked around her kitchen. “You are just like your father with all your weeds and potions.”
She stiffened. “Yes, you knew my father well,” she said, carefully testing the waters further. “If anyone was a friend to you in this house, it was him.”
“Once,” he said, the tone curt and short.
She tilted her head. “It is harder to be friends with a dead man, I suppose. And one whose daughter you seduced.”
“Is that the story you tell yourself?” Boyd asked, facing her again. “That you were the sweet innocent who was taken in by a dark and evil man? You batted your eyelashes at me aplenty, my dear. Don’t mistake the messages you sent.”
