Page 13 of The Earl She Once Saved

Her head turned. “Why?”

“Because it is mine to come to.”

There it was. The old anger rose instantly.

“Yours.”

“The responsibility is,” he clarified.

“I have carried that responsibility for years,” she reminded him.

“I know.”

“You know nothing of it,” she scoffed.

“No,” he admitted. “Not yet.”

The answer silenced her. She expected defense, authority, or some reminder that the land belonged to his family and that her command of it existed only because circumstances temporarily permitted it.

Instead, he looked ahead into the deepening evening.

“You may resent my being here for as long as you like,” he spoke. “I imagine you will prove very accomplished at it.”

She rolled her eyes. “How generous.”

“But it will not make me turn back.”

Verity pressed her lips together. He did not look at her. Neither gave way. After that, neither spoke.

The lane narrowed as it climbed toward Edgeworth. The hedges grew high on either side, damp leaves brushing their shoulders. There was not room for two horses comfortably abreast, yet neither animal seemed inclined to yield the path.

Gradually, almost imperceptibly, they drew closer. Verity became aware of Rafe’s knee against hers. There was only cloth between them. The contact was slight. It should have meant nothing, but her entire body noticed it. Still, she kept her gaze fixed ahead.

The evening smelled of wet hawthorn and horse, of leather warmed through the day, and distant woodsmoke from the cottages below. Somewhere beyond the hedge, a blackbird gave one last call before dark.

Rafe shifted in the saddle. His knee brushed hers again. Verity looked at him. It was a mistake. Without his hat, his hair had dried untidily from the rain. A smear of mud marked one cheek. Her gaze moved upward, to his temple. The scar remained, although it was faint now, just a narrow pale line disappearing into his hair.

Her scar.

The thought was absurd, but her hands remembered closing it. Her fingers remembered the needle, the torn skin, the blood she wiped away again and again while he lay half-conscious beneath the lamp. She wondered whether he remembered that, too.

Rafe turned his head. Their eyes met. Verity looked away so quickly that heat rose beneath her collar.

By the time they reached the stable yard, lamps had been lit beneath the archway. A groom hurried forward. Verity dismounted before he could assist her. Her boots struck the stones.

Rafe came down beside her. “Verity.”

She handed over the reins. “Yes?”

He was quiet for long enough that she turned. There was no mockery in his face now, no dry answer waiting.

“I do not know this land.”

She stared at him. Rafe glanced toward the darkness beyond the stable roofs.

“I know what the ledgers say. I know what the solicitor tells me. I know where the boundaries are drawn upon a map.”

He looked back at her.