Page 162 of The Earl She Once Saved

She looked about the study. The windows were too high above the gravel to climb through safely. A second door led to a cupboard, no farther. She considered calling out, then stopped.

She feared Roland would seize upon her cries for help as proof that she was distressed beyond reason and needed the physician’s care. Still, Verity had to make sure someone heard why she was being kept here. She would need to keep hold of the physician’s name, if Roland ever gave it, and tell Henshaw what had happened.

She sat in the chair opposite the writing table and laid her hands in her lap. They trembled once. She pressed them together until they were still.

She would not weep where the man outside might hear her and carry the sound back to Roland. She thought instead of Tunstall downstairs, of Win holding Sergeant by the collar, of Cordelia begging her to be careful because she was afraid. Roland could shut a door and send a servant away. He could find people willing to hear concern in his voice. She did not yet know how far he could make them carry out his wishes.

Below the window, hoofbeats sounded on the road. Verity lifted her head. This horse was coming toward the house, ridden hard.

Chapter 28

Rafe saw Edgeworth above the trees and urged his horse on.

Ezra kept beside him. They had ridden to York and back with too little sleep, changing horses where they could and stopping only long enough to attend to them. Ezra’s bad leg would trouble him for days. He had not mentioned it, or the answer Win had given him not three days ago. He had simply mounted when Rafe said where they must go and ridden at his shoulder.

The house came into view. A horse stood saddled before the front steps, but Roland’s was nowhere in sight. Rafe was out of the saddle before his own mount had fully stopped. He dropped the reins into a groom’s startled hand and went inside.

Win met him in the hall.

Her face was white. “Roland has locked her in.”

“Where?”

“He shut her in the study first. Then he had his man take her upstairs. She is in her room now, with someone guarding the door.” Win swallowed. “He rode out across the estate.”

Rafe looked past her. Aunt Cordelia sat halfway up the stairs. She held a handkerchief crushed in both hands and made no attempt to hide that she had been weeping. When she raised her head, he saw a fear beyond anything she had shown when she met him and Verity at dawn.

“She would not let him dismiss Tunstall,” Win clarified. “He told me she had grown distressed and must rest. His man would not let me see her.”

Rafe took the stairs three at a time.

Behind him he heard Ezra ask Win to fetch Henshaw’s address and send a rider for him. Then Win called after Rafe. “Sergeant is there.”

The dog was planted across the upper passage, facing a broad-shouldered man outside Verity’s door. His brindled hair stood high along his back. A low growl rose from his chest whenever the man shifted his feet.

“Sergeant,” Rafe called out.

The mastiff turned his head. His tail moved once, but he did not leave his post.

The guard had a hand near his coat pocket. He looked from Rafe to the dog. “My lord told me no one was to disturb her.”

“Move away from the door.”

“I have my orders.”

“So do I.” Rafe stepped closer. “You will stand aside.”

Sergeant’s growl deepened. The man drew back from the dog and gave Rafe room to reach the lock. Rafe turned the key and pushed open the door.

Verity stood in the middle of the room. She wore the brown gown she had worn in the library. Her hands were folded before her, so tightly that the knuckles showed pale. There were no tears on her face. She looked toward him with the stillness of someone who had heard a step outside and prepared herself for whoever might enter.

The sight struck harder than Rafe expected. Roland had taken her from the study and shut her here beneath a guard, intending her to wait while he went about his business. Rafe wanted to go back into the passage and make the man account for every hour of it. He made himself stay where he was.

“Rafe?” she managed to muster.

“I am here.”

She glanced past him at the open door. “You went away.”