Page 151 of The Earl She Once Saved

“Then I was angry that you let me find them, only to tell me they meant nothing.”

His face tightened. “I know that, too.”

She touched the paper near its edge. He had drawn her with such care. For weeks she tried to make that care fit beside what he said of Celestine Marchmont. It was easier to believe the picture belonged to a feeling he had already set aside.

“I had no right to make you doubt what you saw,” he confessed.

Verity glanced at him. “Why this one?”

“Because it is you as I see you now.” His gaze went to the portrait, then returned to her face. “It is yours to keep, if you want it.”

“You would … give it to me?”

“Yes.”

She expected an explanation. He offered the drawing outright and left her free to take it or refuse. Verity drew it nearer. The paper rasped softly against the polished wood.

All the years after the field hospital, she believed he had gone on with his life and forgotten hers. She knew now that he searched for her. Even so, some guarded part of her resisted what the drawings told her. She saw how readily Roland used a tender thing once he knew of it. Rafe was asking her to believe that tenderness might survive being spoken of plainly.

“I want it,” she whispered.

Relief altered his face. He did not reach for her hand. He stood while she studied the portrait, giving her time to look without defending herself against his gaze.

“You made me kinder than I am,” she told him.

“No.”

“I know the woman you have drawn. She has never had to turn a creditor from her door.”

“She has. I have seen her do it.” His mouth lifted a little. “She is capable of smiling afterward.”

Verity felt warmth rise into her cheeks. She bent over the portrait again but did not move it away from him.

Suddenly, the door opened. Roland stood upon the threshold, with his hand still on the latch. His eyes went first to Rafe, then to the drawing beneath Verity’s hand.

For a moment no one spoke. Verity saw the picture as he must have seen it: his brother close beside her and a portrait made with intimate attention lying open between them. She put a hand upon its upper edge. The paper was too large to hide.

“I wondered where you had got to,” Roland mused.

“I was working,” she answered.

“So I see.”

He crossed the room at an unhurried pace. Verity knew that manner. In the first months of their marriage, he used it when entering a room where she was happy without him. By the time he reached the table, her grip on the paper tightened.

Roland looked down at the portrait. “You have caught her likeness, Rafe.”

“It belongs to Verity,” Rafe replied.

“How generous.”

Roland slipped the sheet from beneath her fingers. He did it gently enough that she might have held on. To resist would have torn it herself. She let him lift it.

He carried it toward the window, where the remaining light fell across the page. He studied the drawing for longer than its details required. Verity watched the slight movement of his jaw. He saw the smile Rafe preserved there. He saw that Rafe knew it.

“How long?” Roland asked.

Rafe did not answer.