Page 160 of The Earl She Once Saved

“For what reason?”

Win’s mouth tightened. “He brought the morning correspondence to you before taking them to the study. Roland says a servant who cannot remember which of them is master cannot be trusted.”

Tunstall always brought Verity the post. He knew which bills could not wait and which letters from tenants contained news too urgent for the ordinary tray. Roland had arrived to find a house where such habits had kept it working and had begun to punish the people who knew them.

“Where is Tunstall?”

“In the servants’ hall. He is asking me to find a place for the young footman he has been teaching.” Win’s composure thinned. “He thinks the boy will be dismissed next.”

Verity crossed to the door. Sergeant rose to follow her.

“Keep him with you,” she told Win.

“My lady—”

“Please.”

She would not bring the dog into a room with Roland again. The last time Sergeant stood between them, Roland ordered a servant to put him out. Verity could not protect the household by letting him find another reason to threaten the animal.

She went to the study and opened the door without knocking. Roland was seated behind the writing table, looking over a lease. Morning light reached only as far as his hands. He set down the page when he saw her.

“You have dismissed Tunstall,” she echoed.

“He has been paid.”

“He will stay.”

“He has forgotten how this house is governed.”

“He carried the post to me. He has done so for years.”

“Precisely. A habit that must be corrected.”

Verity came farther into the room. “You cannot put a man out after twenty years’ faithful service because he followed an arrangement I made.”

“I am the Earl of Edgeworth. You know very well that I may dismiss a servant.”

“You have no right to make my loyalty a fault in the people who work here.”

Roland leaned back. He seemed content to let her come close enough to the desk to see Tunstall’s name on the list beside him, a line drawn through it.

“You will put him back on the household books,” she ordered. “And you will leave Win and the others alone.”

“The others?”

“The people who kept this house standing while you were away. You will not touch them to hurt me.”

She heard her voice rise and made no effort to lower it. Tunstall was downstairs packing a life spent in Edgeworth’s service into a trunk. There was no need to make her anger graceful for Roland’s benefit. Yet she feared he was provoking her deliberately, hoping someone would hear her raised vice and believe his claims about her state of mind.

“This house would not be here for you to command,” she continued, “if I had waited for you to return and save it. I held it together while you drank my mother’s money into the sea.”

For a moment she saw the man she argued with in the early days of their marriage, when she still believed a sharp enough truth might shame him into answering it. She knew better now. Even so, she gave him no ground.

Roland listened until she stopped. Then he smiled.

“You have made my point rather thoroughly.”

“Your point?”