Page 82 of Lavender’s Lost Duke

“Samuel ought to have allowed me to tell you who I was when he feigned my sickness.”

Her eyebrows pulled low. “You weren’t ill?”

“No,” Thomas motioned for her to take a seat. “No, I shaved my face and intended to tell you who I was. Only, that was right when Lord Chilcott increased the amount he was willing to pay people for information on my whereabouts. They didn’t want me putting everyone in more danger.” He rubbed his chin. “I hated it, but I believe they were correct.”

Lady Lavender nodded, obviously taking in the information. Thomas went back to the sideboard and filled a plate for her.

“So all those prayers really went toward you growing back your beard?”

Thomas felt burning at the back of his eyes. “You—” he cleared his throat. “You prayed for me?”

She smiled. “Of course I did. You were so . . . sick . . . I wasn’t allowed to see you. I assumed the worst.” She said it all with a laugh in her voice, but the truth of the worry lay behind her soft hazel eyes.

“I apologize for deceiving you. In every way. And for making you worry.”

She locked eyes with him. “You are forgiven. What book did you bring with you to breakfast?”

Thomas swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat at her forgiveness. He chuckled and pulled out The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes from beneath his arm. “I believe you’ll recognize this story.”

A smile shone in her eyes. “I do.”

“I’ve been helping you teach Jack to read using this.” He felt unaccountably nervous for his next admission. “I think I could make a difference by teaching others to read as well.”

“I have no doubt that you will.”

Thomas shook his head. “Your belief in me is more than I could wish for.”

“It is well deserved. Jack’s reading—and apparently writing—has improved immensely.” She shifted in her chair. “Forgive my impertinence. Might we begin anew? There is no one here to properly introduce us, but—” she stood and bobbed a curtsy. “My name is Lavender Gardner. How do you do?”

Thomas swallowed before he too, rose from his seat and bowed low over her hand. “Lovely to meet you, Lady Lavender. I am Thomas Monteclare, Duke of Fenleigh. I believe I have some explaining to do.” He’d been worried that this would happen, that she wouldn’t know how to act around him. He wasn’t looking forward to meeting her all over again. Thomas Monteclare might be a duke, but his past decisions did nothing to recommend him to a woman as pure as Lavender Gardner. What she might think of him once she knew that he was a waste of a human being before he’d met her.

But he refused to lie to her again. “I have been honest with you, if not complete, when I spoke to you about the Duke of Fenleigh. No, I was not his servant. But the things I told you about him were real.”

“You have a propensity to be drunk?”

“Not anymore, but I did.”

Lady Lavender squinted her eyes at him. “You said the duke was lost.”

“I was. I might still be. But I’ve found parts of myself that I needed.” He held up the book again. “I found a purpose to my existence. I learned that I want to use my position to conduct change where change is needed. I’ve found clarity with time away from drinking, and now I find it in the garden. I found trust in the people I choose to surround myself with.” He placed the book on the table and walked around the corner so that he might take her hand in his. “I found a woman who has driven me to distraction from the first time I saw her, and my feelings have only increased with each passing moment spent with her.”

Lavender studied his face with the intensity of a painter preparing to make a pivotal stroke of the brush. Then she blinked her eyes and took a small step back. “Is Jack still here? We have much to do to clear your name.”

Thomas winced at the change in topic. He wanted to lay his sins before her, show her precisely who he was and then have her make sense of the man he’d become. If anyone could convince him that he’d changed, it would be her. But apparently that time was not now.

He didn’t blame her. He needed to prove to himself that he was able to keep the virtues he’d learned now that he was thrust back into the life of a duke. “Yes, Jack is still here. But I believe he is preparing to leave soon.”

Lavender looked beyond Thomas to the footman waiting at the edge of the room. “Would you please call for Jack?”

“Certainly, my lady.”

Once the man had left the room, Lavender began to pace. “We’ll need to pack quickly, but we are going back to London with Jack.”

Thomas didn’t miss that she said the word we. He felt himself nodding along with her. “I’ll follow you anywhere. Do you know what we will do?”

Lavender tipped her head back and forth as if she were uncertain. “I have full confidence that we can have a course of action by the time we arrive. But I fear that once word gets out that you’ve returned home, there might be some people who come in search of you here that would make it unwise for us to remain unprotected.”

An hour later, Thomas found himself sitting across from Lady Lavender and her maid in a carriage. Jack was driving them all back to London. Lady Lavender situated herself with a stack of books at her feet. Her maid picked one up, opened to the first page, and pointedly ignored the two of them.