Page 8 of The Mysterious Miss Lydia
He was about to look away when...there. He caught another glimpse of red hair, a vivid contrast to the brown trunk and green leaves.
A second later she ducked back to her hiding spot. Was she...eavesdropping?
With a frown he walked a little farther away, out of earshot, with Richard following at his heels. Their other friends had left them already, and Luke had been hoping to talk to his closest friend about the sensitive matter he’d been investigating.
But why on earth would a young lady be spying on them?
Luke peered back toward the odd creature hiding behind a tree, but he couldn’t catch sight of her.
“Hogan, what are you looking at?” Richard said.
Luke turned to his friend just as the other man winced. “I have to stop calling you that, don’t I?”
Luke just barely held back a sigh.
“Not Captain, either,” Richard muttered. “I guess I can call you by your title, eh? Or would you prefermy lord?”
Luke sighed as he caught Richard’s sly smile, still as mischievous as when they were boys despite the fact that there was some gray now in Richard’s beard, and the area around his eyes bore distinct creases. “You find yourself very amusing, don’t you?”
The revered scientist shrugged. “It’s not every day one of my friends becomes a viscount.”
“Yes, well...” Luke tugged at his cravat. “Not exactly a cause for celebration, is it?”
Richard flinched, and Luke felt a pang of guilt.
“I didn’t mean...” Luke said, at the same time Richard said, “Of course no one’s happy about it...”
They both trailed off and shared a rueful smile. They’d been friends since their school days, and while their lives had gone in very different directions in the decades since, he was still more like a brother to Luke than...
Well, than Luke’s own brother had been.
But that thought did nothing to ease his discomfort now. He might not have been close with his older brother, but he’d never once envied him the honorary title of viscount, nor his place in the succession of the earldom.
“Shall I call you—”
“Just call me Luke, Richard. It’s not as though you’ve never called me by my given name before.” Though for most of hisadult life he’d been called either by his surname or by his military title.
Shakespeare might have had his theories about a rose by any other name, but as far as Luke was concerned, a name held quite a bit of meaning.
It was jarring to have to change one’s identity so late in life.
He crossed his arms, his gaze trailing back to that tree and that mysterious redhead. What was she about?
And what were the odds that her being back there was some coincidence after all the nefarious happenings going on around him these days.
“So, you really think there’s some sort of criminal activity going on at the Home Office,” Richard said.
“I do, yes.” Luke kept his gaze on the tree, waiting for another glimpse of the lady.
“But I thought Sir Cedric said it was an error in communications,” Richard said.
Luke glanced over at his friend. “You’re supposed to be the smart one, Richard.”
Richard arched a brow. “And I am. In science. But I don’t see how—”
“He only told me that because he wants me to stay out of it.” Luke huffed.
Blast. He sounded like a peevish old spinster. But really, it was difficult not to be offended at the way he was so unceremoniously being tossed out of the only place he’d ever really belonged.
