Page 30 of The Earl She Once Saved

And she … she had already seen him once when there had been nothing left to preserve … bleeding, fevered … afraid.

He thought himself dying and held her hand because there had been no dignity left to lose. He could not bear her seeing him so again, not now, not when he knew who she was.

Roland’s wife.

The thought came deliberately.

He placed it between them like a wall.

Roland’s wife.

She was the woman who had taken his brother’s name.

She was the woman who had stood before a priest and chosen him.

Whatever Rafe remembered from a field hospital belonged to another life.

He made his voice cool. “I am perfectly well.”

Verity’s mouth flattened. “Clearly.”

“It was just a bad night.”

She hesitated. “How often does it happen?”

His gaze sharpened. “That is not your concern.”

The words landed. He saw them land. Her face changed, the softness disappearing so completely he might have imagined it.

Good.

That was what he wanted. Was it not?

Verity lifted the candle. “Then forgive the intrusion.”

He should have stopped there.

Instead he murmured. “There is nothing to forgive.”

Her eyes met his. “Your tone suggests otherwise.”

Rafe looked away first. “Thank you for coming.”

It was coldly said, precisely enough to be dismissal. Verity understood.

“Good night, then.”

“Good night.”

She turned. The candlelight traveled with her down the corridor, catching once in the loose fall of her hair. Sergeant followed. Rafe watched until both disappeared around the corner, then he shut the door.

The room seemed darker than before as he settled in bed. However, sleep did not return. He had not expected it to.

Rafe lit the lamp upon the desk and sat before the empty paper. Drawing had begun during the war because there were nights when words were intolerable.

A pencil required nothing. It did not ask a man what he had seen or why he still saw it. It permitted the hand to move while the mind found somewhere else to go.

Rafe began with the window, the line of it, the folds of the curtain and the shape of the chair beneath his discarded coat. He worked without thought, but then, the pencil changed direction. It started creating a jaw, a mouth, the curve of a cheek …