And then she was lifted off her feet. Propelled up. Verity tried to scream. Tried to breathe through the wave.
Only . . .
Her eyes flew open as she was jarred by the quick footfalls of the stranger. She reflexively twined her arms about his neck and clung tight as he raced onward; with the added weight of her sodden skirts and frame, he may as well have moved with the same ease as when Verity had once carried Livvie as a babe.
They—he—continued on, and after an endless path of twists and turns, he crashed through a wide opening. And the coal-tinged air had never smelled safer. A faint glow bathed the bricks, heralding their return to Earth.
“Loosen your damned grip,” her captor muttered.
Only, was it truly fair to think of him in that light? Given that he’d saved her life no fewer than three times in that short span? Those efforts had made a lie of his threat of death. And—
“Are you going to faint?” he snapped.
Verity bristled. “I don’t faint.”
“Aside from you removing your talons from my skin, I don’t care what you do or don’t do.”
She glanced down at her fingers, curled like claws into the fabric of his wool coat.
“I’m not interested in your services,” he said tautly.
“My . . . ?” Verity followed his pointed stare to where she gripped his chest. She gasped and released him. “I assure you, I am not selling services.” Quite the opposite, really. She was searching for her story, the source of her security, and soon to be the reason for her unemployment. Verity burrowed into her cloak, her efforts to find warmth futile. Even so, she rubbed her gloveless palms together frantically in a bid to bring warmth back into the digits. As she glanced around, dread, an increasingly familiar feeling, pitted her belly. “Wh-where are we?”
“Ludgate Street.”
“Wh-what?” she whispered; her shivering intensified, racking her frame until her teeth rattled painfully in her mouth. Bertha would be waiting. Wouldn’t she? Surely, with all that had happened since she’d descended into the sewers, the thirty minutes had passed. And with nothing to show for it.
Nothing but bare feet, feet which had at some point gone numb from the cold. “I suggest you be on your way, lass.” With that, her savior turned on his heels, and she’d no more than blinked before she found him vanished into the shadows.
A sob climbed her throat, and she forced it back, strangling on those useless tears. Could this night be any worse? As if in answer to that very question, the London skies opened up and poured down a deluge.
Squinting through the heavy curtain of rain, she began the long trek home.
Verity made it to the end of the pavement.
A stranger stepped into her path; with a fine French umbrella shielding him and his elegant garments from the elements, there could be no doubting he wasn’t one of the coarser sets that roamed St. Giles. And that truth made him and his presence here all the more dangerous.
“Well, you look a sight.”
That pronouncement was shouted into the noise of the rainstorm, and even through the din, Verity detected the clipped quality of his speech, confirming that which she’d already gathered about the man’s rank.
Hugging her arms around her middle, Verity lifted her chin and made to step around the gentleman. “Step out of my way, sir.”
Undeterred, he angled his umbrella and blocked her retreat once more. “It is raining.” He motioned to where a carriage waited at the end of the street. “Why don’t you let me help you, miss?”
“I’ve nothing to discuss with y-you.” The chattering of her teeth, along with her bare feet, made a liar of her.
“Actually, you do.” He flashed a hard grin.
The storm eased, but the rain persisted. Even as she stood up to her ankles in a puddle, barefoot, with the wind and rain battering at her, she refused to be the mouse to his cat. “What do you want?”
That already flimsy display of a casual grin faded, replaced by a frosty ice. “I want to know what you’re doing around these parts.” He looped a surprisingly strong hand about her forearm.
Verity gasped.
“What are you looking for?”
“Release me.” She wrenched at her arm. To no avail. She cried out when he tightened his hand in a blindingly painful grip.
“You’d be wise to have a care. Nothing good can come from a woman visiting these—”
With a sharp jerk of her knee, Verity brought it betwixt the stranger’s legs.
A hiss exploded from his lips as he crumpled to the ground. His umbrella fell to the pavement, and then the wind whipped it along. The fine article caught a lamppost and ceased its tumbling down the street. “You bitch,” he barked, and then he grabbed for her.
Verity already had her knee up, catching him square in the chest.
He tilted, and then lost his already precarious balance, toppling onto his side. His temple struck an uneven cobblestone.
The stranger’s mouth formed a small, surprised circle, and then his eyes slid shut as he fell facedown.
Verity didn’t move, hovering there, standing over the gentleman. Unable to breathe past the horror.
As she’d been wrong on every score earlier . . . the night indeed had gotten worse.
Good God, she’d killed a man.
Chapter 6
THE LONDONER
QUESTIONS!
Of all the questions about the Earl of Maxwell, there is one pressing question for now . . . Where does he live? And more . . . where has he lived these past two decades . . . ?
V. Lovelace
Two things were confirmed in short order: one, Verity Lovelace, the suspicious woman in the sewers, had found herself in another spot of trouble; and two, she certainly hadn’t required any rescuing from Malcom.
She leaned over the unconscious form of a well-dressed man at her feet.
“You’re incapable of finding anything but trouble.”
With a loud gasp, Verity retrieved her umbrella and wielded it like a rapier she was prepared to spear him with. She stared at him through blank, unblinking eyes for several moments, and then her lashes drifted slowly down and up. “You,” she muttered, lowering her makeshift weapon.
And then she followed his gaze to the prone form behind her. “Are you gonna finish him off?” he asked curiously.
The young woman blinked those enormous eyes. “Finish him . . .” She slapped a hand over her mouth. “No. Of course not. I’d never . . .”
Aye, and her shock at that supposition was just another clue that marked her an outsider to the rookeries.
And yet even with that, the small slip of a woman had managed to fell a man more than a foot taller than her and a good stone heavier. Despite himself, admiration for the peculiar creature stirred. Nay, she hadn’t needed rescuing. Not this time.
As such, he should go . . .
The young woman hugged her arms around her middle. “I think I’ve killed him.”
Alas, she was determined to keep him at her side. “Would it be so awful if you did?”
“Yes.” Her voice emerged threadbare. She’d faced down an army of rats and flooded sewers, and yet this is what should affect her. And shivering in a soaking gown as she was, with her hair hanging in a tangle of equally sopping curls, and barefoot, against all better judgment, Malcom found he couldn’t leave her. Just as he’d been unable to turn out Giles, who’d had his hand severed. Or Fowler, with his damned leg. Or . . .