As the sun rose over Hampstead, Quenby tied her muddy trainers and left to run through the eight hundred acres of heath behind her flat. Swimmers were already immersed in the ponds, stroking their way back and forth across the water. Others, like her, were jogging in the hills.
She’d wanted to dislike the Hough family last night, wary of their pomp and circumstance, but there wasn’t much pomp involved and the circumstances were awkward enough to take off the edge of formality. Lucas’s parents had been quite gracious to her as they exchanged stories over dinner in Anabelle’s terrace home, across the Thames in Greenwich.
Quenby had answered their questions, all of them friendly enough, but mostly she’d just observed, not sure exactly what to do. They all teased each other, like Lucas had teased her. And they all seemed to enjoy one another’s company.
She’d watched Anabelle and Mrs. Hough working together in the kitchen, laughing as they’d peeled potatoes. A mother and daughter who loved each other.
Not everyone had a family who liked being together, she knew that, but sometimes she’d wondered what it would have been like to grow up surrounded by people she loved, who loved her as well. A family to visit when she was on holiday.
She raced up the heath, her lungs burning in spite of the cool air.
Grammy had been her only family after Jocelyn left, and after she died, the concept of home went with her. One didn’t just invent a new family. They were either born or adopted or married into one.
Even though she longed to be loved as strongly as Daniel loved Brigitte, for someone to pursue her like they were pursuing this woman he’d lost, she couldn’t imagine trusting a man with her heart and her future in marriage. Or risking getting hurt again.
Her mobile rang a few minutes after eight, and she glanced at a number she didn’t recognize. Perhaps Evan was contacting her about the story. She hoped so. With the new information she’d unearthed in Newhaven, she was hoping she could change his mind.
She slowed to a walk. “Hello?”
“Is this Miss Vaughn?” a man asked. She didn’t recognize his voice.
“It is.”
“This is Paul, Mrs. Douglas’s nurse. I met you at her house.”
“Of course.”
She heard something slam in the background, perhaps a door. “Mrs. Douglas asked me to contact you. She would like to speak with you again.”
“Did she mention what she’d like to speak about?”
“A man named Eddie Terrell.”
“What about Mr. Terrell?”
“She wants to tell you in person.”
Lucas had said she could borrow his car today if she needed it. The streets of London still intimidated her, but after his lessons and her practice yesterday, she felt confident enough to drive around Tonbridge alone.
But if Lucas needed his vehicle after all, she would take a train back down. “I could visit her this afternoon.”
“Mrs. Douglas will be relieved to hear it. She’s been having trouble sleeping the past few nights.”
“Please tell her that I’ve had trouble sleeping as well.”
Back in her flat, Quenby called Lucas before she showered and changed. He agreed to let her borrow his vehicle, though he offered to drive her to one of the boroughs south of London before she set off on her own. She readily agreed to this plan.
The Tube delivered her to Canary Wharf in East London, and she found Lucas’s flat in a silver tower, overlooking the Thames. When he answered her knock, he leaned over to kiss her cheek, but she backed up, stunned, as if he were a porcupine who might pierce her. Though Chandler would probably say Quenby was the prickly one.
Red splashed over his face, drowning his smile. “It’s customary among friends to kiss on the cheek.”
“I know that,” she said, trying to absolve herself from her awkwardness. “Where I’m from, we shake hands.”
Or give hugs, but she wasn’t about to hug him. The professionalism between them had already slipped over to personal, and she was grasping to rebuild the wall that once kept them apart.
He opened the door wider. “One day I hope you can trust me, Quenby.”
She stuck out her hand in response, shaking his stiffly. Then she stepped into the open reception room of his flat with its kitchen, dining table, and sitting area—the furnishings black and white with clean lines and orderly shapes. There were only two pieces of artwork on the wall—photographs of the rain forest, palettes of a thousand green lights to burnish the gray outside.
Outside the sliding glass, a silver-railed patio extended over to what she assumed was a bedroom or two. The stormy expanse of the Thames stretched below the windows, barges furrowing through its slate waves, docked boats banging against a pier.
Lucas slipped up beside her. “I like to watch the boats when I’m working.”
“I’m afraid I’d be too distracted to get any work done.”
“You don’t seem like the type to be easily distracted. Except, perhaps, when a certain red tractor forces you off the road.”
She laughed, grateful for the familiarity of his teasing. She much preferred it over the cheek kissing. “I expunge distractions.”
He took a step away. “Now I’m afraid.”
“You don’t distract me, Lucas.”