Page 153 of The Earl She Once Saved

“I do not know. Henshaw can tell us what he may attempt, and what we can do if he does.”

Verity laid the folded portrait upon the open account, where she would remember to take it upstairs. “Then I will speak with him, too.”

“Of course.”

She looked at him and saw the restraint it cost him to leave the matter there. He heard what Roland said. He saw her gather the drawing from the floor. Still, he asked her to join the conversation about her own safety and accepted her answer without trying to settle it for her.

When he went out, she remained at the table until the light failed enough to make the figures in the ledger blur.

***

Later, Ezra found her in the garden. She had taken the portrait to her room and slipped its pieces between two clean sheets of paper. She could not yet bear to see whether all four edges would meet. The garden air helped her breathe. Rain was gathering somewhere beyond the hills, and the wind carried the scent of wet leaves through the late roses.

Ezra approached with his cane in one hand. Verity shortened her pace to meet his without drawing attention to it.

“I hoped to find Win out here,” he confessed.

“She has taken the evening accounts to the kitchen.”

“Of course she has.”

They followed the path beneath the elm. At the end of the lawn, Sergeant slept in a patch of grass the gardeners had given up trying to reclaim from him.

“Have I kept her from something?” Verity asked.

Ezra looked at her. “Win makes her own decisions.”

“That was not my question.”

“No,” he answered. “It was not.”

Verity waited while he chose his words. He spoke at last of London, of the life he asked Win to make with him, and of her refusal. He did not ask Verity to change her mind for her. He told her only that Win believed she could not leave Edgeworth now.

“I did not know she had decided,” Verity revealed.

“She has not told you because she knows what you would say.”

“That I want her to go, if she would be happy with you.”

“Yes.”

“I do. I want that more than I can say.”

Ezra stopped. The wind stirred the leaves above them. Verity saw her words reach him before he looked away toward the lawn.

“She thinks leaving you would mean turning her back when Roland is here,” he told her.

“I should hate for her to stay out of fear for me.”

“She stays out of love. You know what it costs her to leave someone she loves in difficulty.”

Verity thought of Win embracing her that morning, still shaking with relief. For years, Win had offered help without being asked, had known when to bring a shawl and when to leave a room quiet. Verity wanted to give her a future beyond these walls. She could not order her toward it any more than Ezra could.

“I shall speak to her,” Verity promised. “She must know I would never count it a betrayal.”

“She knows, but hearing you say it may help.”

They walked on. Ezra’s cane touched the gravel at even intervals.