Page 28 of The Earl She Once Saved

Ezra watched her straighten.

“How are the stairs?” Win asked him.

He placed a hand over his heart.

“I had hoped we might never speak of my humiliation again.”

She frowned. “I had hoped you might learn from it.”

“Ah, cruel woman.”

“I have been called worse.”

“I doubt it.”

Win looked at him then. And Verity could see that softness break through the surface, if only briefly. Then, she turned away. Verity saw all of it. She said nothing.

Ezra looked back at her. Verity raised one brow. He had the decency to appear embarrassed. That settled it.

She liked him … and quite against her better judgement. He was able to bring Rafe back, the Rafe she was curious to know. Those were the thoughts that refused to leave her alone in the darkness of the evening. Her dreams were full of memories, which merged with wishes and fears.

The house was silent when Verity woke. She did not know exactly what had disturbed her. Her room lay dark except for the last glow of embers in the hearth. Rain whispered faintly against the window.

Sergeant lifted his head from the rug. Verity listened.

Nothing.

Then, it came again. It was a man’s voice, but he was not speaking. It was a cry, raw enough to strip sleep from her entirely.

Sergeant stood up and Verity was already out of bed.

Chapter 6

Rafe woke with a hand around a sword that was not there.

For one wild second, he could still hear the guns. They were there, beyond the dark room, beyond the walls of Edgeworth, the heavy concussion of artillery rolling over ruined ground, horses screaming somewhere in the smoke, a man calling for his mother in a voice that had gone thin with blood.

Rafe dragged in a breath and then, the room returned. He could see the bed curtains, the faint glow of the dying fire and his own hand twisted in the sheets.

There was no blood. There was no Spain.

He sat up. His nightshirt clung damply to his back. Sweat ran cold beneath his hair and along his temples, gathering beneath the scar there.

For a moment the field hospital came with it, a young woman bending over him while pain burned white through half his skull.

Stay with me.

He closed his eyes. That had not been the dream. This dream was older in one sense and newer in another. It changed its order but never its contents. There was a battery torn apart, black mud beneath boots until one realized it was not mud, Ezra falling, men shouting names no one answered.

And always that final instant before waking, when Rafe knew one of his friends was still alive beneath the dead and could not reach him.

His breathing remained too quick. He forced it slower.

One.

Two.

Three.