Page 122 of The Earl She Once Saved

“You are more beautiful than I remembered.”

“You remember me, then.”

His smile did not move. “Every day.”

Rafe remained near the doorway. He said nothing. Verity hated that she noticed.

Roland turned, keeping one hand against her back. “Allow me to present a friend. Mr. Silas Crote.”

Crote bowed. “Lady Edgeworth.”

She heard him call her by that name before, always upon a doorstep and with an account in his hand.

“We have met,” Verity nodded.

“Under less pleasant circumstances,” Crote replied.

“Those were the only circumstances in which your name came to Edgeworth.”

Roland gave a soft laugh. “Still direct. I am relieved to find some things unchanged.”

Verity stepped away from his hand, but her eyes refused to look away. “Why have you come?”

The servants gathered discreetly along the edges of the hall. Win stood at the foot of the stairs. A footman held Roland’s hat but looked toward Verity, awaiting instruction. Roland noticed.

“I have come home,” Roland explained.

She could not believe that she was asking him this in front of everyone, but the question slid out of her mouth before she could think better of it. “Why?”

His smile widened for the room. “Because I have heard what you have accomplished. The estate restored, the fields profitable, the debts cleared. All of it your doing.”

Crote’s gaze sharpened. Verity understood then why Roland had brought him. He had not come merely to reclaim Edgeworth. He brought a creditor to see that there was something here with which to settle accounts.

“You knew nothing of what I accomplished,” she snarled.

“My dear—”

“You left before the roof of the east wing began to fail, before the harvest that barely fed the tenants, before men came to these doors with your notes in their hands and called me a liar because I could not tell them where you were.”

Roland’s expression remained indulgent. “I know you suffered.”

“You do not.”

“I know I caused you pain.”

“You left me to answer for fraud committed in your name. You took my mother’s fortune, lost it, and disappeared.”

The charm about his eyes loosened.

Verity continued before fear could silence her. “You left me alone to pick up the rubble of your past mistakes. Now that I have managed to build something out of it, you have returned to admire the construction.”

Roland caught her wrist. His fingers closed hard enough to grind the bones together. Sergeant exploded into barking. The sound filled the hall. He lunged forward, teeth bared, every hair raised along his back. Roland released Verity and stepped away.

“Control that animal.”

Sergeant placed himself before her.

The footman moved uncertainly. “My lord?”