Absent in the Spring (The Shakespeare Sisters 3)

‘Miami’s different. I have other reasons for visiting there.’ Why the hell did his thoughts immediately turn to the cool blonde with the hot body? ‘Family reasons.’

‘Of course you do. And how is your family?’

They spent the next five minutes on small talk, then moved seamlessly on to business. Grant interrupted them with a tray of coffee, then quietly left them to it. The next thing they knew he was interrupting them again, reminding them of the videoconference they were due to join.

‘I’ve set up the conference bridge,’ Grant was telling him. ‘I need to switch on the monitor.’ He walked over to the screen on the wall and turned it on, adjusting the camera above it to capture Lachlan and John. ‘The microphone’s off,’ Grant told them. ‘You can unmute it when you’re ready to start.’

The monitor sprang to life, revealing a conference room with frosted-glass walls. A large oval oak table was in the middle of the screen, with an older man in a dark grey suit sitting there. Lachlan recognised him from his visit to Balfour and Robinson. Malcolm Dunvale – John’s friend.

Malcolm leaned forward and pressed a button on the spider-shaped speaker in front of him. ‘Ah, you’re there. Good. We’re just waiting on Lucy, she should be here in a minute.’

Lachlan ignored the way that made his pulse speed.

John leaned forward to unmute their own speaker, and spoke to Malcolm in a friendly voice. The two of them had known each other for years, Lachlan remembered, and they were reminiscing about old friends. From the gist of the conversation he realised that Malcolm – and Lucy, he assumed – were in London, not Edinburgh. Curiosity piqued him.

‘Is Lucy’s flight late?’ Lachlan asked. ‘Is that why she’s not here yet?’

John shot him an interested look.

‘No we travelled down last night,’ Malcolm said. ‘She just had some personal business to take care of this morning.’

Lachlan opened his mouth to ask what kind of business, then closed it again. It was none of his concern, was it?

He glanced at the clock next to the monitor, frowning. She was already ten minutes late.

‘I do apologise for this,’ Malcolm said. His accent sounded less broad than Alistair’s, but it still made Lachlan think of that pub in Glencarraig and the warmth of the fire in the centre of

the room. ‘I’ll just pop out and see if anybody has heard from her.’

Lachlan tried to ignore the way his stomach tightened. ‘Yeah, that would be good.’ Where the hell was she?

But as Malcolm went to stand up, the door behind him opened, and Lucy walked in. She was wearing a jacket and a scarf, which she unlooped and hung on a coat rack in the corner. ‘My apologies for being late,’ she said, glancing first at Malcolm and then at the screen. ‘I hope I haven’t kept you waiting too long.’

‘Everything okay?’ Malcolm’s voice was low, but still audible on the speakers.

Lucy didn’t say anything for a moment, but stood there, looking at her boss. Then she painted a smile on her face and walked over to join him at the conference table. ‘Everything’s fine,’ she said, not quite meeting his eye.

‘Hello, Lucy,’ Lachlan said.

She looked up, and he felt the tightness in his stomach disappear. ‘Lachlan.’ Her voice betrayed nothing, and yet he could see there was a tenseness to her expression that wasn’t there before. ‘How are you?’

‘I’m good. I didn’t realise you were in London.’ And he didn’t like it. He’d spent the last few days imagining her in Scotland, surrounded by misty rain and sandstone buildings.

She reached out for the glass of water in front of her. Was her hand shaking? ‘Just for today. We fly back this evening. Malcolm had some business here, and I had something I needed to do.’

He bit down the urge to ask her what.

‘You sound as busy as Lachlan,’ John said. ‘He’s always on an airplane, too.’

Lucy looked up again, her eyes meeting his. Lachlan noticed a wariness that he hadn’t seen before. ‘Maybe that’s why she gets me,’ he said, smiling.

She didn’t smile back. What was going on? Was she regretting their weekend in Paris? Lachlan didn’t like the idea of that. Those days had been magical, sensual, and he wanted her to remember them that way.

‘Lucy, maybe you could get the ball rolling with an update on where we currently are?’ Malcolm prompted. He was looking confused too.

‘Yes, of course.’ Lucy leaned down for her bag, pulling her files out. When she sat back up, her expression was impassive. ‘Shall we start with the most recent correspondence from Duncan MacLeish’s solicitors?’

For the next twenty minutes they discussed the case, with Malcolm and John occasionally interjecting, and Lucy calmly answering their questions. They didn’t seem to notice that she missed a beat a couple of times, nor that she answered a couple of their questions wrongly. They didn’t notice an edge to her voice that wasn’t usually there.