Page 146 of The Earl She Once Saved

“It needs mending.”

“You told me so before breakfast.”

“Then I was right.”

Ezra drew the strap through the buckle again. His fingers were steady. Rafe had seen those hands work under fire, closing a bandage while men and horses fell about them. Today they seemed occupied by a task that would not hold his attention.

“You saw what happened in the yard?” Rafe asked.

“Enough of it.”

“I ought not to have made a spectacle of her.”

Ezra looked up. “You spoke when your brother meant everyone to stand quiet and watch him shame her. If you regret the manner of it, you may tell her.”

Rafe thought of Verity turning her face away. He did not know whether an apology or anything he said now would ease her fear of what Roland might resort to. He reached for a brush and drew it through his horse’s coat, though the groom had done the same work that morning.

Ezra let the bridle hang. “Win will have heard of it by now.”

“She was in the doorway. I saw her.”

“I did not.”

He set the bridle over the stall door. Rafe waited. Since his return from the war, Ezra had seldom allowed a silence to remain empty unless he had something he could not yet bring himself to say.

“I asked her to come to London,” Ezra revealed.

The brush stopped in Rafe’s hand.

“When?”

“Last evening. Before the ball grew crowded.” Ezra looked toward the open stable doors. “I thought I had found a … tolerable moment.”

“And what did she say?”

“That Verity could not spare her.”

Rafe laid the brush aside. “She may believe it.”

“I know she believes it. She would not use Lady Edgeworth as an excuse.”

Outside, a groom led a pair of horses across the cobbles. Ezra waited until the sound of their hooves faded.

“I told her we could make a life there,” he continued. “London is full of people who have come from somewhere else. We might find a street where no one knows she has kept house here, or asks how much her father earned. I have my half-pay. It would be a modest beginning, but we could manage it.”

Rafe remembered Ezra beside the drawing-room window weeks ago, watching Win carry away an abandoned tray. He had spoken then of the things affection gave a man no right to disturb. Rafe had hoped the two of them might find a way through those things together.

“Did she tell you your position was the difficulty?” he asked.

“Not plainly. She said I should consider what people would think. A half-pay officer’s son courting a housekeeper.” Ezra’s mouth tightened. “As if I had ever given a damn for a person’s rank.”

“You have not.”

“She has. She must live with what people make of her. I can tell her their opinion is worth nothing to me, but that does not make it worth nothing to her.”

He retrieved his cane and tested its weight before stepping away from the stall. His bad leg had stiffened in the damp. Rafe knew the small change in his gait, though Ezra would have denied it if asked.

“Verity would want her to be happy,” Rafe said.