Page 157 of The Earl She Once Saved

In the morning room, Henshaw had brought more questions than answers. Rafe laid Roland’s threat before him while Verity described the words used in her bedchamber and the rumor Cordelia had heard. The solicitor listened without interruption. He asked who else had heard the threat, whether Mrs. Fenwick’s note had been kept, and whether anyone had yet approached Verity claiming to act on a physician’s advice.

When they left him to speak with Cordelia, Rafe understood that they had taken a necessary first step. He also understood why Verity listened so intently to every question. Roland had begun to prepare an account of her conduct for other people to believe. They needed more than Rafe’s promise to stand in his way.

The thread came that afternoon from the last man Rafe would have trusted to offer it. Crote was waiting outside the study for Roland, with a packet of bills tucked beneath one arm. He looked Rafe over as he approached, lingering on the boots still marked by garden mud.

“Your brother keeps me waiting these days,” Crote moaned. “It was different when he needed money badly enough to come looking for me.”

“He has kept a great many people waiting.”

Crote laughed. “You needn’t tell me his habits. I know your brother’s history better than anyone. Every debt and every fine prospect that came to nothing.”

Rafe would have passed him. Then Crote added, “And most of the women left behind when the prospects failed.”

He stopped. Crote seemed pleased to have held his attention.

“Roland never stayed to see a bill paid if he could help it,” he revealed. “He went up to Edinburgh once with hardly enough in his pockets for the journey. Came back with a match that had money in it.”

“A match?”

“A Vane girl. Her people thought well of his title.”

Rafe looked toward the closed study door. Crote took his silence for interest and went on.

“Once her money ran dry, he left her exactly as he left the one here. Went looking for the next.” He chuckled at the likeness. “There’s a neatness to it, if you’ve watched him as long as I have.”

“When was this?”

“Before he found his present countess. I cannot put a year to every folly of his.” Crote shifted his packet to the other arm. “Ask him yourself, if he is ever inclined to admit an old debt.”

“How is it that neither Verity nor I ever heard of these wives and mistresses?” Rafe asked.

“He kept such arrangements quiet in Scotland, and their families had little wish to spread word of their humiliation,” Crote replied with an indifferent shrug.

A minute later, he walked off as Roland’s voice sounded from the far end of the passage. Rafe continued into the study and found a reason to speak briefly with Harris. He heard little of the clerk’s account of the culvert. His attention remained on the name Crote had given him.

Vane.

Crote might have mistaken an arrangement for a marriage. Roland had pursued fortunes before. Rafe knew enough of his brother’s conduct to fear Crote’s account might be true, that there was a woman in Edinburgh, abandoned before Verity ever came to Edgeworth. Rafe kept his questions to himself for the remainder of the day.

After dinner he went to the old estate office. Roland avoided the room for years and now used its writing table when he wanted to examine accounts without Verity present. A lamp had been left burning low. Bills and invitations lay beside packets of older correspondence, their edges uneven beneath a paperweight. Rafe closed the door.

He knew he had no right to search his brother’s letters. He thought of Verity telling him how Roland had threatened her, and of Henshaw asking how many people Roland had already spoken to about her health. Rafe moved the paperweight aside.

The first packet contained demands from creditors. In another he found a letter about a failed investment and a note from Crote requesting payment. He read only enough to see that neither mentioned Edinburgh. Roland’s recent post lay beneath them, folded together without order.

A woman’s hand appeared on the third sheet. The letter had come from an address in York. Rafe read it once, then again more slowly.

Roland,

I am told you have returned to Yorkshire. I had hoped to hear it from you, but I have long since ceased to expect the courtesy of an answer.

You left me with debts I could not pay and promises I could not prove to anyone who came asking. My father’s money is gone. I have made what life I can without it, though you must know how little choice you left me.

I have written before to ask what you intend. Each time I have waited, thinking that even you would answer your wife eventually. I can no longer afford to wait upon your inclination. What passed between us in Edinburgh has not ceased to matter because you chose to go away.

I ask only that you reply to this letter and tell me when you will come to York. If you will not come, say so plainly. I am tired of hearing where you have been from people who suppose I must already know.

Arabella