Page 77 of The Earl She Once Saved

“That was not what I meant.”

A faint color rose beneath her cheekbones.

Rafe watched it. “What did I say last night?”

The color deepened.

“You were … delirious,” she told him. “You spoke of the war.”

He swallowed heavily, wondering if he had spoken before the physician in his delirious state. “Only the war?”

Verity adjusted the blanket unnecessarily. He looked at her hands. They gave her away. There was care in every movement, too gentle for mere obligation. She smoothed the linen where it had twisted beneath his arm. She gave him the glass of water. When he coughed, her hand moved toward his shoulder before she stopped it.

She was glad the fever had broken … more than glad. Rafe felt something dangerous and hopeful shift inside him.

“Verity …” He started, but a knock on the door interrupted him.

She stepped away. The door opened and Win revealed herself upon the threshold.

“My lady.” Her gaze moved to Rafe. “The Earl has a visitor.”

Chapter 13

“Miss Marchmont,” Win announced.

Verity’s hand tightened around the glass she still held.

Celestine … of course. Who else would call before noon to enquire after a man who had taken ill less than two days after dancing with her?

Verity set the glass beside Rafe’s bed. “You have a visitor.”

“So I gathered.”

His voice was still rough, though the fever had broken. The physician had ordered rest, and Rafe appeared to regard the instruction as a personal insult.

He shifted against the pillows. “Tell Miss Marchmont I am indisposed.”

“I believe your appearance would make the point adequately.”

His mouth lifted.

“I shall go and inform her of it,” Verity told him.

It was only when she reached the passage that she realized Celestine’s arrival had left something cold inside her. She could not quite call it anger, because she had no reason for anger.

Celestine was unmarried. Rafe was unmarried. Their families had known one another for years, and half the county plainly regarded their union as inevitable. Celestine’s interest in him was neither improper nor concealed.

Nor, Verity reminded herself, was it any concern of hers.

Still, as she descended the stairs, she kept hearing Rafe’s fevered voice.

I looked for you.

Had he?

Fever made men speak nonsense. Verity had heard dying soldiers beg forgiveness from mothers who had been dead for years, swear vows to women who did not exist and confess crimes no waking man would have imagined committing. Yet Rafe had spoken of hospital rolls, surgeons, letters … details.

Had he truly searched? By what means? For how long? Had he asked after a surgeon’s nameless daughter in every hospital along the route? Had he carried the memory of her face through the war as he claimed?