Page 21 of The Earl She Once Saved

This was warmth, real and immediate.

“Bellamy.”

“Thornlow.”

They met halfway across the gravel and clasped hands hard enough that the gesture became something nearer an embrace without quite surrendering to one.

The stranger referred to as Bellamy laughed.

“You look offensively well.”

Rafe patted him on the shoulder. “You look late.”

The man pressed a hand to his chest in mock offense. “I have crossed half England to be insulted upon arrival?”

“You expected better?”

“Never.”

Rafe’s face had opened in a way Verity had not thought it capable of doing. The reserve was gone, so was the watchfulness. For a moment, he was simply a man pleased beyond concealment to see another man alive.

Verity stood a little apart and disliked the effect it had upon her understanding. A Thornlow ought not to look like that.

Roland possessed warmth in abundance, but it had always been warmth performed for an audience, charm applied like polish. His smiles had been invitations only until one discovered the price of accepting them.

This was nothing like Roland. That was inconvenient.

The man noticed her. His attention shifted without awkwardness.

“Lady Edgeworth, I presume.”

Verity inclined her head.

“This is a good friend of mine, Mr. Ezra Bellamy,” Rafe introduced the stranger.

She smiled. “Welcome, Mr. Bellamy.”

He came toward her with the slight unevenness she had not noticed at first. Only then did she see the cane. It was a handsome thing of dark wood with a silver head, though there was no ornament in the way he used it. His right leg moved stiffly, the motion controlled but not easy. He caught her glance and spared her the pretense of not having seen.

“Spain kept a small portion of me,” he clarified. “I considered it greedy, but the matter was not open to negotiation.”

Verity looked at him. There was no bitterness in his face and no invitation to pity either.

“How restrained of it not to demand the rest of you,” she replied.

Ezra’s eyes immediately brightened. Behind him, Rafe made a sound that might have been approval.

“Exactly so,” Ezra nodded toward Rafe. “I like her.”

“You have known her twenty seconds,” Rafe replied with a frown.

Ezra shrugged. “I am decisive.”

“You are reckless,” Rafe corrected.

“That, too.”

Verity ought not to have liked him. She had developed, over several years, a useful suspicion of men who became charming too quickly. But Ezra’s ease did not feel like Roland’s. It asked nothing of her. That was the difference.