Page 24 of A Botanist and A Betrothal (Gentleman Scholars #4)
V esta was surprised that Lincoln was so late returning, and when he finally arrived with two of his friends, he didn’t look quite right.
“What’s happened?” she asked immediately, wondering if she should take him aside for a private conversation or if his friends already knew.
“One of your fiancé's enemies wants to have him arrested,” one of the other men, whom Lincoln had not yet introduced to her, said bluntly, causing her mouth to drop open in shock.
“Arrested,” she repeated, her voice faint even to her own ears.
“You weren’t supposed to tell her,” Lincoln said to the other man with a frown, sounding furious.
“You weren’t going to tell me?” Vesta asked, overcoming her stunned silence with hurt feelings over the fact that he wanted to keep it a secret. Anger wasn’t far behind.
“I was hoping to have it all dealt with before it affected you,” he explained quickly.
“What do you mean, 'affect me'?” she repeated, incredulous.
“What sort of fiancé am I if my integrity has been called into question?” Lincoln sounded torn between weeping and anger.
Vesta stared at him for a moment before forcing a light laugh. “Okay, I think you ought to start at the beginning.”
Lincoln laughed too, but it was as mirthless as hers.
“I don’t even know where the beginning is,” he said. “I don’t know who has brought the charge against me. A constable turned up saying I had to come in to see the magistrate, but Roderick pulled his Everleigh roots out and forced the man to agree that I could meet with the magistrate at my convenience.”
Lincoln had begun to pace in his agitation. “Roderick says he’s going to find a solicitor and meet with the magistrate on my behalf while I focus on this. But I’m afraid the two things are entangled. It’s most likely Horace who has claimed that I’m stealing his research.”
He finally stopped and met her anxious gaze. “It’s likely we’re going to have to involve Mr. Caldwell, and it’s all a great big mess. Therefore, you will be involved, but I didn’t feel ready to tell you yet, and I’m sorry for that.”
Vesta could only stare at the handsome scientist as her heart warmed to the truth of the matter: he cared for her, at least a little bit. Any other gentleman would have walked away—no, they would have run away—from any involvement with her, considering all the trouble this poor man had been through since the beginning of their association.
Was it his love of plants that was so very strong, or did he also care for her to at least some extent? In either case, she felt that his troubles were at least partially her fault, and she quaked at the damage this poor man was enduring for her sake—and his plants, she added to herself with a wry twist of her lips.
The four of them set to work in the greenhouse. Lincoln showed his friends what he was trying to extract from some of the soil to study why the plants were thriving in the same area. “The plant I’m particularly wanting to study has been stolen in the most recent sabotage, so we will have to find another specimen. Can we leave you two gentlemen here working on this while we go get another plant?”
“Sure, sure,” the scientists waved them away, already absorbed in their work.
As they were walking, Vesta commented on their quick acceptance of the assignment. “Are all scientists like that?” she asked Lincoln.
“Like what?” he asked her with a frown.
“So quick to take on a new subject of study and get lost in it.”
Lincoln chuckled, and Vesta was pleased to see that his good humour had been restored, at least to an extent. “I suppose most probably are. We become scientists out of intense curiosity or a thirst for knowledge.”
Vesta’s insides clenched at his words. She wanted to become a scientist. She wanted that curiosity and knowledge to be fulfilled. If she could keep Lincoln in her life, then maybe that’s what she could do with it. The thought of it caused joy to bubble up beneath the surface of her disquiet and fear for the future.
So caught up were they in their conversation that, at first, they didn’t notice the footsteps. But suddenly, Lincoln stopped and turned around, looking at Vesta. “Did you hear that?” he asked her.
“Hear what?” Vesta asked. She had been too caught up in her thoughts to pay attention to their surroundings.
“The snapping of branches, as though someone else is walking in these woods with us.”
“No, I didn’t notice.”
Lincoln grabbed her hand and started to run. Then Vesta heard it too—they were being followed. The sound of crashing branches trailed after them. “It couldn’t possibly be someone who means us harm, could it?” she whispered, though she immediately regretted the foolish question.
Lincoln’s incredulous expression almost made her laugh, considering his greenhouse had been damaged twice in the last week. Of course, it was possible that someone was following them for nefarious purposes.
She picked up her skirts with her free hand and tried her best to keep pace with Lincoln as he ran. She didn’t think there was any rhyme or reason to the direction of his hurried footsteps.
Thankfully, he seemed in quite good form for someone who was seemingly always in a classroom, but she supposed a botanist would have to be capable of heavy work at times. And he obviously spent a great deal of time wandering in fields and forests.
It took all her effort to keep up with him, and she was reasonably certain that the footsteps had gotten quieter behind them—but perhaps that was just because she couldn’t hear them over the sound of her own laboured breathing.
Suddenly, fear almost choked her, but she was relieved at the comforting clutch of Lincoln’s hand as they fled, seemingly for their lives. Then, Lincoln pulled her behind a large rock into an open space she had never seen before.
“I found this series of caves when I was exploring the other day,” he whispered into her ear, causing a shiver that had nothing to do with their pursuers. He pulled her farther back into the darkness, and Vesta had to decide if she was more afraid of their pursuer or whatever might possibly be living in the darkness behind them.
Lincoln’s low chuckle sounded quietly in her ear as he whispered, “It wasn’t inhabited—I checked the last time I was here.”
It was as though he could read her mind, and that thought, too, warmed her despite the precarious situation they found themselves in. Vesta felt bonded to this gentleman, despite all the questions that remained.
He hadn’t left her in the pursuit, and he was doing everything he could to make it better for her. She had to do everything she could to help him with his pursuits.
Suddenly, she remembered she hadn’t yet told him about her Maisie. She had been so distracted hearing he had been threatened with arrest that she didn’t mention that someone else needed to be arrested.
And now, here they were, hiding from unknown pursuers.
How was this possibly her life? And were all the crazy things connected?