Page 24 of No Match for Love (Regency Love Stories)

“Lucas, I really am sorry, but this cannae wait. Patrick’s in real bad shape, and I need ta know if I need to get Bow Street in on this.” Colin tried to speak quietly, but Lucas was sure Miss Faraday heard every word.

Seeming to read his mind, Miss Faraday stepped back. “I will wait over there just beyond the hedge. There was a bench. And I can... cover my ears?”

Lucas sighed. He was taking a real risk here, but everything he knew so far of Miss Faraday showed her to be trustworthy.

She’d not questioned him further about his pugilist activities.

She’d shared her own secrets with him. She hadn’t even ratted Charlie out that first night.

It would have to be enough. “It’s all right, Colin. Just tell me.”

Colin wasted no time. “Some men set on Patrick Trenway on his way home from work tonight. It was to be his last day. He’d told his employer that he would nae be back, an’ he was walking home when he was attacked.”

Lucas stiffened with the recounting, alarm shooting through him. “Is he all right? Does he know who attacked him?”

“He’s alive. Lucas... they...” Colin hesitated, glancing at Miss Faraday. “They said t’was a warning.”

“A warning about what?”

Colin threw up his hands. “For taking tha wrong street home? For leaving his job? For having yellow hair? All I know is we helped him, and within a couple days, the man was attacked and left for dead. If he wasn’t near the club, who knows what might have happened.”

Lucas put out a hand to stop Colin’s rant.

He sighed heavily. This was definitely a reason to pull in more help, and he hated that he’d kept such an iron fist that Colin hadn’t felt capable of just going for Bow Street right away.

“Tell your contact at Bow Street. And get a doctor on my expense.” He glanced over his shoulder, noting Miss Faraday’s frozen form as he did. “I’ll come tonight. When I can.”

Colin nodded. “That’s what I expected, but I dinnae—never mind. We can talk when ye come.” With a brisk bow to Miss Faraday, he turned and melded back into the shadows.

Watching him depart, Miss Faraday said, concern coloring her voice, “Do you think the man is all right? I have some skill in medicine... I could help.”

Lucas shook his head. “A doctor will be called. You do not need to worry over it.”

Yet that very expression creased her forehead. “You are certain? I am not inflating my skill; I truly could help.”

“I do not mean to offend, Miss Faraday. I know your skill is as you say—you demonstrated yourself capable with Mrs. Brander and myself—but there is no circumstance in which I could whisk you away from the garden to help and not risk both our reputations.” And, if Colin was correct in his suspicions, the attack had to do with their work in helping men find new jobs, and he could be risking her well-being by bringing her to the club.

“Does reputation really matter so much when a man’s life may be at risk?” Her voice did not hold censure, rather frustration. The same frustration he currently felt.

“No. But a doctor will do as much as either of us could.”

After a moment, she finally nodded. “You are right, of course. But it goes against every fiber of my being to not help.”

“Mine as well.”

They stared out into the shadowed gardens for several more heartbeats.

“I, ah, do not wish to reopen a conversation you clearly wished closed...” Miss Faraday said slowly, still looking out into the garden.

Lucas heaved a sigh. There was no avoiding it.

He’d known the moment he recognized Colin that there was no keeping the truth from her now.

At least not a portion of it. “Very well, Miss Faraday. I was the man in the street that night, and I would request that you keep that information to yourself, if I may.”

“Yes, of course. I am sorry you would ever think I would do otherwise.”

Lucas pressed his eyes shut. His words had come out harsher than he’d intended.

“No. I am sorry. I did not mean to imply you are not trustworthy. I...” He looked down at her, making a deliberate choice to share more than he usually might.

He’d look into his reasons for that later.

He expected they had to do with the draw he felt toward her that he was so far unsuccessful in fending off.

“I find it hard to trust. It is easier to keep everything under my control.”

Miss Faraday’s eyes flicked between both of his. “I think it is natural to want to control your situation. But I do not think it is possible to control everything.”

He tightened his jaw then forced it to relax. “Nevertheless, I try.”

The ghost of a smile whispered across her lips.

He could not help himself. “What are you smiling about?”

Her mouth lifted even more. “Well, if I am honest...”

“I would hope you are.”

She gave him a censuring look then continued, “If I am honest, I was thinking of ways I could thwart your control. I know, I know, it sounds very unkind of me. But where you have a tendency toward control, I tend to rebel against it. So it was my first natural response. I promise not to follow through. Much.”

Despite himself, he found his mouth curving to match hers. “And how would you thwart my control?”

“Oh you know, be late for outings, convince Charlie to hide your lucky cravat, those types of things.”

“My lucky cravat?” he sputtered, the melancholy turn of the evening lightening in the face of Miss Faraday’s jests.

She lifted a shoulder. “You have to have a lucky cravat, do you not? Or... lucky gloves? Boots?”

A surprised chuckle surfaced from his mouth. Her eyes met his again, this time a measure of delight within.

“Did you just laugh?” she asked.

“Hardly.”

“But a bit, I believe.”

“Perhaps a minor amount,” he conceded, though he did not see the importance of whether he had or not.

She gave a little cheer, stopping before the stairs. When had they arrived back at the house?

“I do not see what there is to cheer about,” Lucas said.

“Lord Berkeley, I had not believed you capable of laughter. I find it a marked success that I have managed to coerce such a reaction from you.”

“You must not experience many successes in life, Miss Faraday.”

“You cannot know how very satisfying this particular success is, Lord Berkeley.”

He gazed down on her, bemused and entertained and... and lighter than usual. The stress was still there—he was still concerned for Patrick and the club—but it had dimmed. Like a two-hour-old wound rather than a two-minute-old one.

“Lucas. Miss Faraday,” his mother’s voice called from the doorway, breaking through the reverie he’d lost himself in.

He cleared his throat, stepping back, not having noticed when he’d closed the distance between himself and Miss Faraday.

“We are missing the two of you, if you are able to return?” Humor colored Mother’s question.

“Yes,” Miss Faraday called, starting for the doors. “Yes, of course, I am so sorry to have stolen your son for so long.” She reached his mother, and the older woman entwined her arm with Lydia’s in a show of affection.

“Oh, we missed you just as greatly. Come now, Lucas, we are going to start some card games.”

Lucas followed behind them, not certain where exactly his emotions stood.

He felt strung between several feelings at once.

Lingering happiness, stress, concern, even confusion all muddled together.

He definitely would not be winning any card games with his mind like this.

Perhaps he could escape early and get to the club. He needed to do so as soon as possible.

His eyes followed Miss Faraday as she joined a card table then turned back and beckoned him to join her.

Or perhaps he would stay a little longer.