Though something told him that Verity Lovelace, who took down grown men in the street and didn’t so much as flinch at a bloodied nose, wasn’t ever one to be bullied.
Cradling her still-full snifter in her palms, she paused periodically to examine various pieces he’d fished from the tunnels. Ones he’d not brought himself to sell for reasons he didn’t understand and had never cared enough to examine.
Verity stopped, and with almost mechanical movements, she set her drink down.
And Malcom knew the very moment she’d forgotten his presence and become wholly engrossed in the crude painting in an ornate, gilded frame that juxtaposed with the unsophisticated rendering on the canvas.
Angling her head, Verity stepped closer, contemplating the small beggar girl crouched on a corner stoop. In that small child, the artist had perfectly captured the wariness, exhaustion, and absolute lack of hope that came from living here.
Verity raised her fingertips close to the basket of ribbons the tiny peddler hawked.
“You like it?” he asked gruffly, not knowing where the question came from. Only knowing he himself hadn’t ever been able to sort out why he’d kept this particular piece.
“I . . . There is a realness to it,” she said softly. “I was her.”
That admission came so faint he barely heard it. Or mayhap it was the first straightforward admission, voluntarily given, that took Malcom aback.
He moved closer, stopping just beyond her shoulder, and examined that piece with new eyes.
“I had a ribbon collection, until I didn’t. I placed each one in a basket and sold them at a corner until they were gone.”
That clue into her roots and background should be nothing more than a detail he locked away. Yet the image she’d painted of herself as she’d been—a struggling girl—was more vivid than the portrait before them. The desperation she spoke of was one he could understand. One that, despite all he’d amassed, the fortune he’d attained, stayed with him still. But then that was what set people in East London apart from the elevated members of the peerage, the strife that could never truly be forgotten. Not even when one rose up and freed oneself from the struggles of surviving.
Verity continued on to the next frame. He stood so close that her shoulder brushed his chest as she walked.
“Are you familiar with that, Verity?” he murmured. The young woman gave no indication of affront at his laying claim to her name. “Have you been that child?” Too.
Malcom had.
Bone weary with exhaustion as he’d regaled passersby with Scottish jigs for any coins they might toss his way.
Verity shook her head slowly. “No,” she murmured. “I was spared that.”
Aye, but wasn’t that the way of East London? One was spared one injustice but was the victim of ten more.
“Were . . . you?” she ventured, casting that always assessing glance over her dainty shoulder, and leveling him with it. “That child?”
Malcom set his mouth, and ended the exchange that had become entirely too intimate. Abandoning Verity to her examination of his things, he returned to the window to search out the man who’d been looking for them.
“Is he still out there?”
He peered out at the darkened streets. The lone figure out there, a small lad, darted along the cobblestones. No doubt on his way to streets that were filled with potential pockets to pick. “I don’t see him.” That should be sufficient enough to send her on her way. So why didn’t he?
Verity gave her head a slight, almost clearing, shake. “Do you believe he’s gone?”
It didn’t matter. She needed to leave. That was the only answer that made sense. So why couldn’t he bring himself to get those words out?
For some inexplicable reason, he settled for vagueness. “I’m not certain.”
She sighed, and with a restless energy resumed her circle about his private rooms.
Making a show of watching the streets, he alternated his study of the outside view and the woman reflected back in the slightly smudged lead panels. Her steps were gliding ones. More in line with the men and women he’d spied at a frost fair years ago, skating on silver blades over the frozen Thames, than with a woman walking on her own two feet. Her hair hung loose down her back; the dark curls glistened in the candle’s glow. There was something compelling about her.
“It’s a stunning set.”
He started. His neck went hot at being caught woolgathering. “Beg pardon?” he asked gruffly.
Verity motioned before her, and he followed her vague gesturing to the burled-wood chess table and the embroidered chess set that rested atop it.
Malcom grunted. “Never played it.”
“Oh, you should learn,” she said almost cheerfully. One might forget what had brought them together this night and that she even now hid from those wishing her harm. “It’s been years since I’ve played.” There was a wistful quality to that admission. “We could always . . .”
“What?” he asked tightly.
She lifted one shoulder. “It’s just, while we wait to be sure he’s gone, we might . . .” She nodded at him as if he were supposed to understand what she was suggesting. Which would be bloody nigh impossible with this one. Every last word out of her mouth left him spun around, and upside down.
“What are you saying?” His question emerged sharper than he intended.
Either way, she gave no indication that she’d detected the crisp edge.
“That we might play chess, of course. I could teach you.”
“You, teach me?”
“Chess,” she reiterated. Pulling out a chair, she sat, and urged him over.
Good God, the minx was mad. Of course, he’d had confirmation of as much when he’d stumbled upon her. This was just a needless reminder. “I didn’t invite you for tea and biscuits,” he said flatly. Dismissing her outright, he tugged the curtains back for another sweep of the streets.
“No,” she murmured. “I know that. It just seemed a way for us to keep busy.”
Keep busy. He scoffed. What a rubbish phrase. The whole of his existence was devoted to his work and scouring the sewers. There was no need to “keep busy.” He was busy.
Or perhaps he was the mad one, for Malcom found himself abandoning his place at the window, and joining her at the other end of that table. He yanked out the chair and seated himself.
Verity beamed, her full cheeks dimpling and her soft violet eyes aglow.
He’d never known a person could smile like that. All honest and real and luminous.
And then, as if she feared revealing her joy might make him quit the table, her smile slipped, and he lamented the loss of that earlier lightness. “Now,” she began, all matter-of-fact business that strangely proved as endearing as her earlier joy. “The chessboard is always arranged the same way. The second row”—she pointed to the area in question—“is filled with pawns. The rooks”—she gestured to those pieces—“they go in the corners, and the knights are next to them.” She held one of her two knights aloft. “Then there’re the bishops, and lastly the queen, who always goes on her own matching color, and the king on the remaining square.” Verity briefly paused in her telling to look up. “Have you gathered all that?”