Since they’d arrived and he had deposited her in his room, he’d also gone and washed the filth from his person. And without the murky darkness that had served as the setting for their first meeting, Verity studied the broad back of the man who went by no other name than North.
He reached the windows and drew the curtains back a fraction to peer out.
Nervously twisting the fabric of her borrowed skirts, Verity made herself stop. “I didn’t thank you for your . . . assistance earlier,” she said into the quiet.
North continued perusing the streets, only pausing to briefly look back at her. “Is that what you think? That my efforts tonight have all been to help you?”
She dampened her lips. “W-were they not?” He was a glorious specimen, and yet his features were slightly too pronounced to ever be lauded as handsome by society’s standards. He had slashing, bronzed cheekbones. A hard set to a square jaw, slightly too heavy. Prominent scars that stood out starkly. And perhaps she’d the same ill judgment her late mother had shown toward the wholly unsuitable, for her belly danced with her awareness of him as a man.
“Don’t make more of my actions than they were,” he said bluntly, and resumed his inspection of the outside scenery. He released his hold on the gold velvet curtain, letting it slide back into place before he turned around once more. “The only thing I seek is answers.”
“I don’t have any to give you.”
His lips quirked up in a detached half grin. “I didn’t even ask you a question.” Yet. It hung there clearer than had he spoken.
“Fair point,” she allowed. Verity found herself gripping her black skirts once more. That smile, however, softened him. It marked him more man than the beast she’d first taken him as and worse . . . feared him to be.
And yet, he’d also brought her here, saving her from that fiend in the street.
“Who was the man on the street? Is he why you were hiding in the sewers?”
Why she’d been hiding? Her brow furrowed, and then she realized the conclusion he’d drawn. He expected she’d been in the sewers not in search of something, but because she’d been in hiding. Over the years, such similar assumptions had been made. People of all genders made determinations about her presence and her role in life for no other reason than because she was a woman. Those erroneous conclusions had proven a valuable tool that had allowed her to collect information from the unsuspecting. As such, Verity weighed her next words carefully. “I don’t know who he was. Only that he wished me ill.”
“And what was your first clue? The fact that he had a gun pointed at your chest?”
“Actually, yes. That and . . .” She felt herself blushing. “You were being sarcastic.”
“I was,” he said drolly.
“Oh.” Verity sighed. “As I said, the man was . . . is a stranger to me.” Which was, in fact, the complete truth. She could venture and speculate any number of potential enemies, but the list would be long, and the ranks of those foes great.
He quit his place at the window, and took slow, sleek steps toward her. Verity found herself contemplating the doorway and the path to freedom.
“Would you like to leave, Verity?” he asked in that smooth, slightly-too-deep-to-be-considered-a-baritone voice.
“Would you allow it?” She answered his question with one of her own, more than half-afraid of the answer, because she suspected she already well knew the truth.
“I would,” he said surprisingly.
Verity started for the doorway.
“Although I should mention that the bloke who cornered you earlier is circling outside.”
That ominous warning jolted her midstep, and she made herself face him. She felt the color drain from her face; it left her dizzy and off-kilter. “You’re lying.”
Sweeping one arm toward the window, he wordlessly invited her to verify for herself. Verity was across the room in four long strides. Curtain in hand, she peeled it back a fraction to peer out.
Sure enough, that same stranger did a sweep of the streets. To what end would he be searching for her? Because she’d knocked him cold, no doubt.
“Do you still wish to leave?” North taunted.
Reluctantly, she let the curtain fall back into place. Nay. Not when there was a ruthless stranger bent on revenge for her bringing him down. “I don’t know him,” she repeated, carefully selecting her words, sharing that which she knew.
North snorted.
“I don’t.” She lifted her palms. “I’m not lying when I told you I don’t know.” Based on the work she’d done, earning the ire of the ton through the years, there could have been any number of people who’d sent the stranger to speak to her.
North hooded his eyes.
He stalked past her, and unlocking the door, he turned the handle and let the panel hang open. “That’s not sufficient enough for you to stay, Miss Lovelace.”
“Please, don’t send me out there. I can’t leave. Not yet. Not until . . .” He’s gone.
Chapter 8
THE LONDONER
THE SEVEN DIALS
We’ve received reliable evidence confirming just where in London the Earl of Maxwell has called home . . . the Seven Dials.
V. Lovelace
Everything about Verity Lovelace, from her presence in the sewers to the man circling for her now, screamed danger.
As such, he’d be wise to turn her out on her generously rounded buttocks.
In fact, he’d be a damned fool to let her stay.
And yet, he couldn’t very well send her outside and on her way. Not without assigning her to a death sentence.
Bloody hell. Malcom shoved the panel closed. “Fine.”
Verity’s eyes lit, transforming her from someone quite ordinary to someone . . . who enthralled. “I can stay?”
Unnerved by his appreciation of Miss Lovelace, Malcom crossed to the mahogany drink trolley and poured two glasses of brandy. “Don’t get any ideas that you’re moving in.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t. I’ve a place, a family,” she prattled, garrulous in ways that gave him a damned megrim, and yet also intrigued. “So you needn’t—” The young woman caught the look he leveled on her. “You were being facetious.”
“Aye.”
She wrinkled her pert nose. “Oh.”
Who was this woman with her absolute lack of artifice?
He held a brandy out. “Here.”
Verity hesitated, and then tiptoed over. Eyeing him with that same wariness she had in the sewers, she accepted that offering, and took a sip. She grimaced. “Good God, that’s vile!”
“Aye.” He’d always detested the stuff himself, and yet, there’d been a familiarity to the sight and smell of brandy that had proved oddly comforting. Those peculiar details he’d never before shared with anyone, and he didn’t intend to begin with a minx who cloaked herself in more secrets than Malcom himself.
Cradling her glass, she wandered about the chambers uninvited.
He stiffened.
This feeling of being exposed was an unfamiliar one. Largely because he’d never let anyone inside his rooms, and now because of whatever damned spell this spitfire possessed, he couldn’t bring himself to bully her into stopping.