Page 169 of The Earl She Once Saved

Rafe stayed quiet. Verity reached across the table for the portrait, then left it where it lay. She went to him.

“I have loved you longer than I was willing to admit,” she whispered.

His breath caught. She put her hands against his chest and felt his heart beating beneath them. When he touched her cheek, she leaned into his hand. She waited through too many years and too many almost-spoken words to let the distance remain.

Verity reached for him, and he kissed her.

Chapter 30

By breakfast, the whole county knew.

A footman heard Roland name Arabella in the morning room. Tunstall opened the door when Roland left it. The guard who stood outside Verity’s bedchamber had gone down the road with wages in his pocket and a story to tell. Rafe could not have said which of them spoke first. By morning, the kitchen knew of the Edinburgh marriage, and messages had come from two neighbors asking whether Henshaw’s account was true.

Rafe went downstairs to find Roland gone. His brother’s horse had been taken out before dawn. A groom said he heard Roland order the road to Ripon, where he had lawyers who dealt with his debts before. He left no message for Verity and did not ask to see the marriage line again.

There would be no keeping the matter within Edgeworth. People spent years speculating about Roland’s disappearance and his return. Now they had something more than a rumor to speak of: a marriage record, a living wife in York, and a second ceremony performed while the first marriage remained in force. Even those who listened to his concerns about Verity could see what he stood to gain by calling her unwell.

Rafe found Henshaw at the writing table, answering the neighbors’ notes. He received word that Roland was already asking advice in Ripon.

“Will someone move against him?” Rafe asked.

“For the bigamy?” Henshaw laid down his pen. “I cannot say what may follow once the papers have been examined more widely. Arabella and Miss Calder have the strongest accounts to give.”

“Verity wants no prosecution.”

“She told me so.”

Rafe heard her explain it before Roland left the room the night before. She would give the evidence needed to establish that she had never been his wife. She still feared for the tenants, but she would no longer sacrifice her own future and Arabella’ peace to the uncertain hope that punishing Roland would protect them. Arabella had endured enough of Roland already. Verity would not ask her to endure that for the sake of a conviction.

Rafe wanted his brother called to account. He had heard what Roland said to Verity and opened the door Roland locked against her. The thought of Roland remaining at liberty while the two women bore the cost of proving what he had done sat badly with him. Yet Verity’s freedom belonged to her. If she chose to spend it elsewhere than a witness stand, Rafe would stand beside that choice.

“He has gone to his lawyers,” Rafe nodded.

Henshaw followed his glance toward the drive. “He will hear more of this in Ripon than he wishes.”

By noon, Rafe understood what the solicitor meant. A man from the village brought a question about the grazing rents and stayed long enough to say that Roland had been seen at the posting house with no one willing to sit beside him. The Marchmonts sent a note withdrawing their invitation to dine. Mr. Lacey, who stood in the yard while Roland humiliated Verity, asked whether he might speak to her before settling a boundary matter.

Rafe set the messages aside. People who called Verity strange for doing the work Roland abandoned were finding their judgment again now that his wrongdoing had a name. She would decide whom she wished to see. He was glad, at least, that Roland could no longer count on their easy belief.

A bit later, he found Verity at the steward’s table. Harris brought down the lease books, their leather covers softened by years of use. Papers spread beneath Verity’s hands in careful rows. She was working through them one by one, making notes beside each tenant’s name. A pot of ink stood close to her elbow. In the center of the table lay the Coombes account.

“You should have slept longer,” Rafe urged softly.

“I did sleep,” she replied. “I woke thinking of the leases.”

Harris rose. “I shall fetch the duplicates from the strongbox, Miss Calder.”

The clerk said her name with a slight hesitation. Verity heard it, too, but thanked him as she always had. He went out, leaving Rafe beside the table.

“What are you looking for?” Rafe asked.

“Anything Roland might use to turn them out once I am gone. Rent arrears he could demand at once. Improvements agreed in conversation but never put into writing.” She drew one lease nearer. “Pritchard’s access to the sheepfold is recorded here, but the road he needs to reach it is in an older book. I want the two terms together before anyone can pretend they never belonged to the same agreement.”

Rafe looked at the rows of names. There were more than he had expected her to settle in a morning.

“Henshaw should see them,” he assured her.

“He will. Harris is making copies for the tenants. I signed some arrangements while Roland was away. Henshaw must tell us which are secure and which need other evidence.”