Page 45 of The Earl She Once Saved

Rafe crossed to the sideboard. Ezra watched him pour coffee.

“You were out.”

“Yes.”

“All night?”

“Nearly.”

Ezra hesitated amusedly. “With Lady Edgeworth?”

Rafe looked at him. Ezra raised his cup.

“Observation. Not accusation.”

Rafe drank. The coffee was too hot. He welcomed that, too.

Ezra studied him for another moment, then his tone altered. “The dreams again?”

Rafe went still. There were few people he permitted to ask that question. Ezra was one of them.

“Yes,” he sighed.

“Bad?”

Rafe looked toward the fire. “They have been worse.”

Ezra nodded without pity. “Same ones?”

“Mostly.”

A long silence settled. Ezra rubbed his thumb absently across the silver head of his cane.

“You still draw?”

Rafe did not answer immediately.

Ezra’s mouth lifted slightly. “That means yes.”

“It passes the time.”

“It did more than that.”

Rafe glanced at him.

Ezra looked into his coffee. “There was that girl.”

Rafe’s fingers tightened around his cup. “What girl?”

“Oh, come now.” Ezra sounded offended. “The one who tended to you.”

Rafe said nothing.

“You’ve been drawing her for years, although you never wanted to show me those drawings properly.”

Rafe shrugged indifferently. “I drew many things.”

“You drew trees, horses, buildings, and dead men when you were in especially cheerful spirits.” Ezra looked at him. “And her.”