Page 66 of A Potion for Passion

“What about them?”

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I have to go. I’ve a patient in dire need. I was to be with him by eleven. Your arrival put it quite out of my head, my darling. Alas, I cannot tarry.”

He moved about like a sleepwalker, picking up his clothes, restoring order to Flora’s appearance, all the while murmuring words of apology and consolation.

Only when he settled the bonnet back on her head did he feel ready to meet her eyes. He’d feared to see disappointment there, but instead was met by a look of phlegmatic resignation.

“I understand,” she said. “Your patients matter to you. You’re not a mere showman, but a healer, as your success with Major Wilberforce has proved.”

“Ah. Good.” He didn’t want to talk about Wilberforce now. His body was in one world, his thoughts in another, and the major had no place in either of them.

“He’s decided to stay in the locality,” Flora went on. “For he wants revenge.”

“Indeed.” Lawrence took some bottles at random and put them into a bag, anxious to give credence to his lie. Why was she talking about this? Was it just nervous chatter, to stop herself dwelling on what had happened between them? And on what hadn’t happened, but should have?

“He’s making his plans even as we speak. But you mustn’t tell anyone.”

“A secret plan, eh?” Lawrence pretended interest. He plucked a few stems of wormwood from a hanging bunch and added them to the bag. “So, on what mission of vengeance is he bound? Something to do with the military?”

“In a sense. You know the wreckers operating hereabouts? The men who put out false lights and lure sailors to their deaths so they can steal cargoes? Of course, you do. You saved him from these men. He’s going to work with the soldiers at the fort to bring them down and make them face justice.”

The bag slipped from fingers suddenly frozen and clattered to the floor. He made a great show of bending over to check the bottles, while his mind worked frantically. He couldn’t trust himself to look at Flora right now. His fear and his guilt would surely be written all over his face.

There was only one gang of wreckers locally. The one with which he was in cahoots. And if they swung from the gallows, he could easily swing with them.

How ironic, that the man whose life he’d preserved now threatened his. Men like Pryce would want Wilberforce dead to save their own necks. If he had any sense, he’d want him dead, too. If he’d known the major was going to cause trouble, he’d have let him take his chances on the storm-scoured beach that night.

Probably.

Curse the man! Lawrence would have to find out where he was and try and call in the debt the major owed him. But was it too much to ask him to turn a blind eye to a rabble of felons?

There was only one way to find out.

Clutching his bag in one hand, he pulled Flora toward him with the other, and kissed her thoroughly. He smoothed her hair back from her face, struggling to keep the regret from his voice as he bade her farewell. He gave her enough time to vanish from view before he stepped down from the wagon, hurried across to Belle’s stable, saddled her up, and turned her head in the direction of Dorchester.

A fifteen-minute ride would take him to the Portsmouth milestone, his rendezvous point with Nathaniel Pryce.

And in that fifteen minutes, he needed to make a decision that would be a matter of life and death.

For if he couldn’t stop Major Wilberforce, he himself—and a dozen other men—would have to explain themselves at the next county assizes.

And, chances were, their audience wouldn’t be very sympathetic.