Page 43 of The Earl She Once Saved

Verity grabbed mane and reins together. The animal came down sideways. Mud slid beneath her hind feet.

“Easy, girl, easy!”

Another frantic beating of wings broke from the hedge. The mare bolted. The reins burned through Verity’s hands. Wind struck her face.

“Whoa!”

The lane vanished beneath them. Behind her, Rafe shouted her name. Verity hauled upon the reins. The mare threw her head and ran harder. Then one hind hoof slipped and the world tilted.

Verity felt the saddle shift beneath her and knew she was going down.

Chapter 8

Rafe saw the mare lose her footing. There was no time for thought. One moment Verity was ahead of him, fighting the reins as the animal plunged through the mud, and the next, the mare’s hindquarters went sideways.

“Verity!”

Rafe drove his own horse forward. The lane narrowed between hedge and ditch. Wet earth flew beneath the hooves. Verity’s mare struggled to recover, one foreleg striking wildly while the saddle tipped beneath her.

Rafe reached her just as she began to fall. He caught her around the waist. For an instant, her full weight dragged against his arm, then he pulled hard, and Verity came out of the saddle.

The mare went down. Rafe twisted as they fell. He had enough time to think only one thing.

Not her.

His shoulder struck the ground first. Pain burst through him, then Verity landed against his chest and the mare crashed into the mud beside them, close enough that he heard the terrible thud of its body and felt earth shake beneath his back.

Rafe tightened both arms around Verity. The horse scrambled. A hoof struck the ground inches away. Then it was up again, with the reins trailing, frightened but standing.

Rafe could hear the mare snorting. He could also hear his own breath and Verity’s, but the violence of the moment was gone. She was lying on him. Her face was against his throat. One of her hands had twisted into the front of his coat, while the other rested against his shoulder.

Rafe did not move. Neither did she. Her breath came warm against his skin. He could feel every one of them.

In.

Out.

Alive.

“Are you hurt?” His voice sounded wrong, too rough for the storm of emotions inside of him.

Verity shifted slightly. “No.”

“Are you certain?”

“I think so.”

He opened his eyes. She lifted her head. The world stopped. Mud streaked one side of her face. Her hair had come almost entirely loose, with dark strands falling around her cheeks. Her eyes were wide and still startled, stripped of every defense he had learned to expect from her.

Right now, she was not Lady Edgeworth. She was not Roland’s wife. She was not the woman who met every word of his with a blade sharpened for the purpose.

She was the girl beneath the lamplight, younger, tired, looking down at him while rain struck canvas and pain moved through his skull like fire.

He had seen that face while believing himself about to die. He had remembered it through countries and battles and years. Now it was inches from his own and she was looking back as though she remembered, too.

Rafe’s hand was still at her waist. He became aware of it slowly. He became aware of the shape of her beneath his palm and the warmth of her body against his. Her fingers remained clenched in his coat.

Neither moved. Years seemed to collapse between one breath and the next. There had been a night once when he had held her hand because he had been afraid to let go. There ought to have been all the difference in the world between them, yet there was none.