Page 7 of The Earl She Once Saved

Rafe glanced toward the house. “I would have come sooner, had the army permitted it.”

“And while the army did not permit it, Edgeworth was obliged to continue without you.”

He looked back at her. She had not raised her voice. She did not need to.

“My brother’s affairs—”

“Your brother’s affairs brought creditors to that door before breakfast and bailiffs before dinner.”

The wind pulled one corner of her shawl loose. She caught it without looking down.

“He mortgaged land already burdened, borrowed against harvests not yet sown, and persuaded half the county to invest in a venture which never possessed anything so inconvenient as an honest account. When it collapsed, he fled.”

Rafe’s jaw tightened. He knew the facts. He had received letters in Spain, each worse than the last, though facts upon paper possessed none of the force of hearing them from her.

She continued before he could answer.

“I sold what could be sold. I renegotiated the leases he neglected, dismissed the steward who had been helping him falsify the books, and persuaded the tenants not to abandon farms whose repairs had been left unpaid for years. We survived two poor harvests and one winter in which the west wing had no roof.”

She looked toward Edgeworth. For the first time, something warmer than anger entered her face. It was not only tenderness, but also possession earned through suffering.

“I held it together.”

Rafe followed her gaze.

“Yes,” he said. “You did.”

The admission appeared to unsettle her. Her eyes returned to him more sharply.

“And now you have come to take it.”

“I have come to do my duty.”

The sentence sounded respectable. It also sounded hollow.

He heard it as she must have heard it: a younger son returning with the war conveniently finished, speaking of duty after a woman had spent years performing his family’s share of it.

Her mouth curved without humor. “Duty. How fortunate that it has found you at last. To be honest, I was expecting you sooner.”

Before he could reply, she turned. Sergeant rose and fell into place beside her.

“Lady Edgeworth.”

She stopped but did not look back.

“I have not come to turn you from your home.”

At that, she faced him. There was no gratitude in her expression, only a weary comprehension that made him feel foolish for having offered so little and expected it to matter.

“It ceased to be merely my home some years ago, Colonel. It became my duty. And as you yourself know well, a duty is something we carry with pride.”

Then she walked toward the house. The mastiff went with her, though he looked back once at Rafe with what seemed an accusation.

Rafe remained beside the carriage. He imagined his return to Edgeworth in many forms. None included finding the woman he had never forgotten standing beneath his brother’s name.

His brother’s wife.

The thought lodged beneath his ribs and refused to move. But then, it forced him to follow her inside, where the house told him more than Verity ever could.