He slid closer; his stealthy steps barely stirred the water around them. “And what were you searching for?”
Not a “what,” but rather a “who.” And yet, less was more. She knew better than to reveal too much about her purpose here. Shivering, she huddled in her soaked cloak. “Sli-slippers,” she whispered.
He angled his head, setting the long knot of hair drawn at his nape to fall over his shoulder.
At the piercing, unasked question, Verity lifted first one foot and then the other. “I’ve lost them. They are my s-sister’s.” Her voice broke. For it was easier in this moment to focus on the idea of returning home with Livvie’s footwear missing than the fact of her current interrogation at the hands of a stranger who oozed lethality.
He was coldly implacable. “And yet, something drove you into the sewers to risk your sister’s slippers.”
It wasn’t a question but rather an observation doled out by a man who was as clever as he was well built. As such, Verity set her mouth. To hell with him. To hell with his questioning. And her patience—with him, and with every man who made it their mission to suck control from her—snapped. “Are you going to kill me?”
His mouth moved, but no words slipped forward, and knowing that she’d knocked him off guard strengthened her. “Cut me with your knife?” Lifting her heavy hem above the water, she marched forward. “Rape me and leave my body to rot?”
The stranger scraped a disdainful stare up and down her frame, clear in his gaze what he thought of her body. “I don’t rape women,” he said frostily, not disputing the former charges she’d leveled.
And every last bit of gooseflesh upon her body that hadn’t already been on end from the frigid water soaking her through stood.
Her courage flagged, and when she again spoke, she forced a strength she didn’t feel. “What is it to you if I’m in these tunnels?”
“Sewers,” he said flatly.
Yes, she knew where they were.
The stranger touched the tip of his knife to the clasp at her throat; she sucked in a breath, braced for the thrust of that dagger—that didn’t come.
“And it matters. The reason you are here matters very much, Miss Loveless.”
“Lovelace.” It was an inane correction to make, given that she was one wrong utterance away from being stabbed through the heart.
His gaze sharpened on her face, one that searched for insolence? Or was it her secrets he sought? Or mayhap both. And with an intuitiveness born of the need to survive, Verity knew she’d never leave these sewers unless he had the information he sought. “You were correct. I was . . . I am searching. I’m desperate.”
“Your sister,” he ridiculed, as though Verity’s caring about anyone were foolhardy and a folly.
But if Verity drew her last breath alone in this pit of hell, she’d own that her every action, her every decision in life—including this very one now—had been with Livvie in mind. “My sister,” she said quietly, and for the first time since she’d let herself fall the six feet into these tunnels, a calm settled over her. “I’ve lost employment. My apartments will follow. And our survival depends on my being here amongst the toshers.”
His brows lifted slightly in a near imperceptible elevation that could have been a trick of the shadows playing off the darkened walls. “And what do you know of toshers, Miss Lovelace?”
“Next to nothing,” she confided, and her heart thumped erratically as she looked upon her captor in an altogether new light—a necessary one. Verity drifted closer. He was well over a foot taller than her, and she had to crane to look at him. As she did, she searched a face shockingly symmetrical in its beauty: carved features, hawklike nose, slightly bent from having been broken. Nicked and scarred as it was from his high forehead to sharp cheeks, the marks still did little to diminish an astonishing handsomeness. It momentarily distracted, made him . . . human. And therefore, safer for it. The man was preferable to the Devil he’d professed to be. “Are you familiar with the toshers who work these tunnels?”
“Toshers don’t work the tunnels,” he said flatly. “They live here.”
Before Verity could pose the question hovering on her lips, a portentous rumble sounded in the distance.
She froze; her gaze locked on her captor, and where his features had been carved of stone before, now there was a disquiet reflected in his eyes that riddled her with more terror than the previous weight of his blade against her. “Wh-what . . . ?”
With a curse, he sheathed his dagger. “Come on,” he barked, and raced off, not bothering to see if she complied.
At that unexpected freedom, Verity backed herself in the opposite direction.
He suddenly stopped and spun back. “Are you mad?” he thundered.
The only madness would be remaining here and facing his wrath head-on. Except . . . the pandemonium at her back reached a fever-pitched crescendo that gave way to chirping and shrieks. Her stomach twisted. “What is that?”
Muttering a black curse that carried through the tunnels, the man raced back and snagged her wrist.
“What? I don’t—” Her words ended on a squeak as he yanked her through the tunnels.
Verity tripped and stumbled, her heavy skirts slowing her. The wool dragged in the water, and frustration welled within her. “What is that?” she cried for a second time, this time her question nearly drowned out by a deafening uproar; it licked at their heels.
And her captor became the unlikeliest savior, pushing her ahead, propelling her in front of him. Her feet numb, her body trembling with a combined fear and cold, she allowed him to shove her on.
Her breath rasped, noisy in her ears.
Or was that his?
She paused to glance back and found his focus singularly forward.
“Move,” he thundered.
Verity stumbled, and righting herself, she pressed on.
They reached the end of the tunnel passage, and he yanked her by the back of her dress, wrenching her close. Except . . .
“My slippers,” she cried out. Only they weren’t hers. They were Livvie’s. Livvie’s favorite pair. Livvie’s only pair.
“You’re off your head,” he shouted down at her. “If you go back, you’ll find your feet a feast for a thousand rats and no need for any damned slippers.”
Before she could formulate so much as a thought, he hefted her up and tossed her atop a two-foot-wide ledge; the path led onward through a narrower, darker tunnel.
Her sudden savior drew himself up as easily as one drawing oneself upon a swing. “Get moving,” he clipped out, nudging her lightly between the shoulder blades.
Bile stung the back of her throat.
At his order.
At being caught alone with this lethal figure.
At herself for having made so many mistakes this night.
Going off with this brute, however, would mark the height of the greatest folly.
Verity considered the five-foot drop down.
“That would be a mistake.” He sounded almost bored as he correctly predicted her intentions.
A moment later, a sea of black came rushing forward.
Verity swallowed a cry and told her legs to move. To no avail. She stood frozen, her bare feet locked to the brick floor, and she closed her eyes, prepared for the rising flood of water and rats to gust over her.