Page 79 of The Earl She Once Saved

“Thank heaven.”

“He is keeping to his room,” Verity informed her. “He cannot receive anyone at the moment.”

“Oh, I was hoping to wish him a hasty recovery.” Celestine shook her head.

“No.”

Celestine’s eyes widened. “Well, then … if you might only tell him I called.”

Verity lifted her cup. She did not offer. The omission sat between them. Celestine’s smile became a shade brighter.

“I am so glad he is recovering. Rafe was always very strong.”

Verity disliked the easy use of his name.

“He survived the war,” Celestine continued. “I suppose a little rain can hardly be expected to defeat him.”

“He spent several hours riding through it.”

“So I heard.”

Of course she had. The county required neither newspapers nor post when a household possessed servants and its neighbors possessed curiosity.

“It was very noble of him,” Celestine nodded gravely. “To go after your dog.”

Celestine placed her cup carefully upon the saucer.

“Rafe has always been noble. Even as a boy, he was forever rescuing something. A bird with a broken wing. A servant’s child who had fallen into the stream. Creatures other people possessed the sense to leave where they were.”

The words were fond and proprietary. They belonged to memories Verity did not share. She thought of Rafe in the rain, with water streaming from his coat.

I will bring him back.

“He was kind.” Celestine nodded. “Kinder than his brother, certainly.”

Verity’s fingers tightened around the porcelain.

“Though no one expected him to inherit in those days. How different matters might have been if he had.”

The room seemed to sharpen. Celestine looked toward the windows with a small, wistful smile.

“Rafe was never meant for the army. Not truly. He went because a second son must make some place for himself in the world. Had he been the Earl from the first, there would have been no need.”

“No.”

“He might have remained here and all our lives might have been quite different.”

The meaning required no explanation. Rafe would have remained at Edgeworth. Celestine would have been near. Roland would not have held the title. He would not have needed Verity’s fortune. A dozen lives might have escaped their ruin.

It was an imaginary history and therefore perfect. It possessed no betrayal, no abandonment, and no woman living for years beneath a husband’s name while he spent her money elsewhere.

Rafe and Celestine would have married. The image came easily: Celestine in the Edgeworth drawing room, her gloves upon the table, her children playing upon the carpet.

Something tightened uneasily beneath Verity’s ribs.

She put down her cup. Celestine watched her.

“You are very fortunate that Rafe takes such an interest in Edgeworth.”