Page 39 of The Reclusive Earl’s Scandal (Vows and Vanity #1)

Word came in a rushed alert, written on a piece of thick, cream-colored card, but the prettiness did little to sway from the message.

Lord Thornshire has been injured in a robbery. Lady Rebecca, you must make haste to Thornshire House. Rebecca rushed out of the room as soon as she read the message.

Without a second to spare, and hardly remembering to call for her lady’s maid in her panic.

She found Mr. Kingsley and gasped out where she was going, and why, and ordered a carriage to be prepared immediately. Rebecca wound her cloak around her in a wide fan of fabric, and then she was out the door, hurrying, fear clawing up her throat.

Please be well , she thought. Please be well, please be well .

The journey was torturous, and Rebecca couldn’t stop herself from tearing up when she thought about how he may have been injured.

Her mind conjured up the worst of scenarios.

A broken limb, fractured bones, a serious head injury.

She had witnessed men left without the ability to walk from a simple tavern brawl. If he had been hurt with intent…

And by whom ? Rebecca was a mess of jitters, her feet tapping frantically on the carriage floor as she ordered her coachman to go faster. As soon as they pulled up outside Thornshire House, she wasted no time in fleeing the carriage and to the door that was already opening for her.

“This way.” The hurried guidance came from an older woman, a housekeeper, Rebecca assumed, and she was quickly led through the house, up the staircase, and to a room that had the curtains pulled closed.

In the room, Lady Thornshire stood by the window, her face gray with distress, while Lady Elena sat on the edge of the bed, glassy eyes lifting to Rebecca.

Guilt flashed across her face before she looked away, but said nothing.

Rebecca finally looked towards the earl lying unconscious in his bed, face drawn and pale, and his eyes a deep purple.

It was as if somebody had swept paint beneath his eyes.

His lips were just as pale as everything else, and there was a tightness to him, as if even in slumber he was in pain.

“What happened?” Rebecca whispered, daring to draw near on his other side.

A maid was wringing out a cloth to dab on Edward’s forehead, but Rebecca had the strange notion to hold out her hand, silently asking for the cloth. With a quick, questioning glance at Lady Thornshire, who nodded, Rebecca dabbed away sweat from his face. She cleaned gently and slowly.

“We do not know for certain,” Lady Thornshire told us. “Constables brought him to us, but said that they could not apprehend the man who had done it, but they had seen somebody take off from the alley where Edward was found.”

“Where?”

“Near Farriers,” Lady Elena said quietly, looking up at Rebecca.

Blame curled her lip before she quickly composed it, and Rebecca realized why: Farriers was the tailoring shop Edward had told her he was going to get his wedding suit from.

Her heart squeezed painfully. Lady Elena blamed their wedding and so blamed Rebecca for Edward’s injury, but if she truly thought that, she did not make a nasty comment as she had done before.

“Heavens,” Rebecca whispered, more tears slipping down her face. “How badly is he injured?”

“We do not know until he wakes up and can respond to pain,” Lady Thornshire answered, her voice flat. She let out a broken sob, and, too late, Rebecca realized just how recent her husband’s death had been. Less than two years, from a mysterious heart attack at a dinner gathering.

She half turned to the dowager countess, who had a hand covering her mouth, her eyes fixed to the ceiling as if she forced herself to remain composed.

“Lady Thornshire, if you need a moment, I can stay with him,” Rebecca murmured. “I would like to stay with him.”

“I do not want to leave him,” Lady Thornshire admitted quietly.

“I have—I have not done well by him, and he must know I will be here when he wakes up.” The hesitance before when was evident, and nobody commented on it.

Edward’s hair was matted with blood at the back of his head, and there was no telling yet how hard he may have been hit, or fallen.

“If you are out of the room when he wakes up, I will ensure to call you immediately,” she promised. “Rest. He will be terribly self-deprecating to wake and find out he has caused everybody sleepless nights.”

“He will probably say we deserve it,” Lady Elena muttered quietly, but not cruelly. “After all, we have caused him plenty by bringing him back to London.”

Ah . That was the source of her blame. Rebecca wondered if Lady Elena blamed herself for Edward and her meeting in the first place.

If she had not meddled and pressured perhaps he would not have shown so much resistance to Catherine.

Rebecca tried to push those thoughts away, only to wonder why she cared so greatly about Edward not choosing her in another version of his return to London.

Why did her stomach clench with jealousy at the thought of him choosing Catherine to please his sister, or perhaps to please himself, had he found her agreeable?

She shook it off, and urged Lady Thornshire and Lady Elena to take their rest. Finally, the two ladies did, leaving a maid in the corner of the room to chaperone.

Gently, she turned back to continue dabbing the cloth on his face, her words soothing.

“I do not know if you can hear me, Edward, but I wish to speak anyway.

My father does not remember, but there were some nights last Season that I waited up to ensure he came home, and in doing so I would find him half collapsed in our entrance hall.

He would be slurring all these terrible, incoherent mutterings, and I would ignore his attempts to speak.

All I did was pull him to the drawing room and I would wash away the sweat from his face as best as I could.

Sometimes he had some scrapes and I tended to those, too. I do not think he knows this.

“Over time, my resentment for him grew. I ought to have been in bed, preparing for my next ball. Instead, I barely slept, always waiting for him to stumble home, and then tending to him, because I could not bear for any footman to see him in such a state, or my mother. What I am trying to say is that I can take care of you no matter what comes, Edward. I do hope you do not fall to vices like my father, but if you do… if you do please speak with me before it is too late.”

She watched his eyes flickering in the deep slumber he was in.

Idly, she brushed her fingers over the waves of hair falling over his forehead.

The touch was far more tender than she intended it to be, but she let her hand brush down the side of his face.

Holding her breath, Rebecca just gazed at him, watching for the moment his eyes opened.

They didn’t, not for hours and not even the physician could help so she dutifully stayed at his bedside.

Sometimes she sat in a heavy silence with Lady Elena, who held her brother’s hand and bit her lip in worry.

At some moments, Rebecca caught Lady Elena looking at her as if wanting to say something, but in the end said nothing, and only left the room.

Lady Thornshire watched Edward from further back whenever she came in, and Rebecca felt the woman’s eyes on her, too.

“You care for him,” Lady Thornshire commented. It was just the two of them in the room with Edward. Lady Elena had gone to rest. The dowager countess moved closer to the bed, taking up the chair Lady Elena had occupied on and off.

“I do,” Rebecca said. “He is my friend.”

Lady Thornshire went quiet long enough for Rebecca to look over at her in question. She found the gaze already on her, pensive.

“When I was courted by my husband,” Lady Thornshire said slowly, “I did not want to marry.

Not at all. My mother pushed me, threatened me with spinsterhood.

I was a week away from being sent to the country when I met James Carmichael.

Back then, he was not the earl, not yet, and he always apologised for not bringing an official title with him yet.

I cared little, for I had finally found somebody whose company interested me.

I kept him waiting, perhaps cruelly so, but he always said it amused him.

He always said that he knew we would marry eventually, so he did not mind waiting.

I will wait until I can make you my countess properly, if that is what you wish, he would always tell me.

“I adored him. We had a beautiful life together. Edward told me that he told you about the twin daughter I lost. That carved a hole in my family, but James patched us together every morning. He asked the family to continue dining even when one of us did not want to face the world. We faced it together, or else we would crumble silently and isolated, and he could not bear that. None of us could. I watched my daughter and son sit at the dining table day after day, hollow ghosts with grief beneath their eyes.”

Her eyes dropped to Edward now.

“Something in Edward died when Elena’s twin did, and I feel as though the lights simply never came back on.

I pushed and pushed him—through my grief, through my frustration at not knowing how to help him.

I forced him back into London’s ton and at first I was hardened against my decision, and then I began to regret it when I could not understand what it was doing to him. He hides it well, but I am his mother.

“And then I saw him with you, Lady Rebecca, and suddenly the candle that had been blown out in him years ago was lit once more. Something sparked. And I am his mother, so I notice when he is worn down by the world, even if I have been unkind about it at times in my need to make him the best earl he can be. I know he would not live with himself otherwise. But you… I think you see the same as I do, do you not?”

Rebecca’s throat closed up at the unexpected emotional conversation. She didn’t know what to say, but she nodded.

“I do,” she finally said, when Lady Thornshire didn’t look away from her.

“You say you love him as a friend, and that might be true, but I wish to leave you with one question. His candle blazes brightly for you, even if he has not said it. Does yours for him?” The dowager countess gave her a knowing look, and Rebecca could only blink as she patted her son’s hand and left the room.

It left Rebecca in silence with Edward as she gazed down at him.

She thought of every moment with him. Of how she had wanted to protect him from Catherine’s schemes when she had discovered them, of how she gravitated towards him at every ball and had always looked for him first when she entered a space.

She thought of how he always made her feel better, and how she had waited for his visit during her week of illness.

She thought of how his hands had felt on her waist, and how he made her feel something that had been overwhelming and tangled in her chest. She recalled trying to name it some time ago.

She thought of the silver cravat beneath her pillow, kept safe.

His candle blazes brightly for you.

I love you, Rebecca.

He had never said anything more on the matter, for she had been so insistent on them being friends, of their marriage being convenient, but who had she been trying to convince more? Him, or herself?

And that feeling that wrapped around her heart…

The word echoed through her mind, as quiet as a whisper.

Love.

She thought of her mother’s sobs over losing her memories stitched into ball gowns, and she thought of the former Lord Thornshire asking his family to dine together to make it through grief together.

Her mind swirled with holding Edward after he had broken down in the carriage, and how he had done the same when she had fled the ballroom in tears and then spilled her devastation over her father’s actions.

How they had supported one another, how he had stood by her, but she had equally stood by him.

She had always thought that love would strike her like lightning but…

what if it was the slow drip of honey, sweet and slow to collect?

What if it was deeper—something that had needed more time to develop because love had known neither of them were ready for it at the beginning?

Rebecca’s breath quickened as she brushed the cloth over Edward’s brow.

“I love you, Edward,” she whispered, testing out the words even if he could not hear her. They felt… right . They felt as though they slid into a place in her heart that she hadn’t known had been there, but had only waited for her to discover it.

As soon as she pulled her hand back to rinse the cloth again, fingers caught her wrist. She startled, finding Edward’s eyes half opened, his mouth pulled into the weakest smile.

“You do?” he asked, his voice rough.

And Rebecca choked on a sob at the sight of him awake, and barely thought about what she had confessed before she was calling for Edward’s family.

They all rushed in with the physician in tow, but Edward’s eyes didn’t stray from Rebecca as he was examined.

Hers did not leave him, either, and she was aware of how furiously she blushed.

She had always blushed around him, hadn’t she? She could see that now, and her own blindness made her want to laugh. Edward dutifully kept his mouth shut and let the physician assess him.

“He lost a great deal of blood,” the physician commented. “Between the wound in his thigh and the blow to the head, you will be in recovery for another week or so. Lord Thornshire, I recommend a monitored use of laudanum until you begin to heal a little more. How does that sound?”

“Is that not addictive?” Lady Thornshire worried.

“It can be,” the physician admitted. “But it will be monitored, and with the promise from Lord Thornshire that should he begin to depend on it he will alert somebody, then I am happy to proceed.”

After a moment, Edward nodded his head jerkily. And then he laughed quietly. “Does this mean I do not have to attend a ball for that week?”

Relief loosened Rebecca’s chest so tightly that she didn’t hesitate: she moved closer to Edward and clasped his face in her hands. She met his gaze for a mere few seconds, and saw that twitch of a smile on his mouth, and then she pressed her lips to him.

For the first time since a time she could not remember, Rebecca’s mind emptied, and she moved closer to the Earl of Thornshire, her future husband, her friend.

And she knew how deeply she had already fallen in love without even realizing it.