“True.” He cocked his head, a wry smile curling the corners of his mouth. “Are you trying to talk me into wreaking vengeance, Lady Augusta?”

I smiled. Here was my Lord Evan. “Not at all. But it would be understandable if you felt violence toward the man.”

He crossed the room to me. “Do not fear, my love. I am not going to kill the man who may be the key to my exoneration.” He took my hand and lifted it to his lips, pressing a firm kiss upon it. “If I am, indeed, not a murderer, I would prefer to stay that way. For many reasons.”

I closed my hand around his in a sudden sweep of emotion. Yes, so much was at stake.

Through the window, I saw a young man—Sully, the doctor’s stable hand, presumably—untie the horses and lead them in the direction of the back of the house.

Evan released my hand and took a seat before the hearth, but I could not sit still. We might soon have a way to clear his name, and the prospect buzzed through my body. I wandered the room, noting a vase of fresh roses, a collection of poetry, a needlework box. The doctor’s wife had refined taste.

The mahogany mantel clock ticked away the minutes.

Evan had withdrawn again—his head bowed, fingers steepled—but this time I left him to his thoughts. If I was feeling the strain of what was to come, then he must be feeling it ten times over.

After forty minutes, a gig finally pulled up outside the house, drawn by a glossy chestnut, its driver dressed in a black coat and a black Clericus hat, a doctor’s ensemble. Sully, the stable hand, emerged to take the horse’s head, clearly reporting our arrival to his master; the black-clad man nodded and cast a surprised look in the direction of his house. He sprang down from the gig with a great deal of vigor.

A young man’s vigor.

“Is that Dr. Lawrence?” I asked.

Surely not.

Evan came to stand beside me, but the man was already entering his front door and obscured from our view. We both turned at the sound of the front door opening and closing and the muffled sound of a male voice giving instructions.

Then footsteps, and the drawing room door opened.

The man who entered—without a hat but with a smile—was of medium height, with the same dark curls as his children, brushed back into a fashionable style. His brown eyes were kind—the sort of eyes one wanted in a physician—and, at that moment, curious about these two strangers in his house. But most pointedly, he could be no older than thirty years of age. Far too young to be the Dr. Lawrence who had attended the duel so long ago.