A moment later, Bram ducked his head in.
“Oi’m sorry.” The old man twisted his hat in his hands. “’ad a hard time saying no to that one.”
As had been the case with any number of the desperate lords and their blushing, pale daughters Bram had shown in. Malcom had been tolerant, but now his patience snapped. “Not. One. More. Visitor.”
“She’ll be the last,” the tosher vowed before ducking from the room.
As soon as he’d gone, Giles shoved the door shut behind him and took up his place at the window. “You must admit, she was a lovely one.”
Giles merely sought to get a rise out of him. It had been the way of their relationship over the years. As such, with the latest fortune hunter now gone, and seated at his desk once more, compiling a list of his plans for the week, Malcom didn’t even deign to pick up his head. “If you’re interested in the lady, I suggest you summon her back and marry her yourself.”
The other man drew the curtain back and glanced down. “Ah, yes,” he drawled. “But I’m not the earl, am I? As such, I trust she wouldn’t be interested in one of my kind.”
One of his kind. It was a statement that set Malcom’s teeth on edge, that mistaken belief held by all that because of a sudden trick of fate Malcom should be elevated to a different level than the one he’d lived these past years.
“Nor do I believe the lady’s father, whomever the gent might be, would take to me approaching the pretty miss, let alone speaking with her,” Giles was saying. “I know you’re out of sorts with that, but it could be a great deal worse.”
He drew his brows together. “I hardly see how.”
“The newspaper columnist. You know . . . the one responsible for your never-ending parade of ladies . . . might resume writing about you,” Giles said, turning his attention to the window once more.
Malcom gave an angry flip of the page in his journal, and studied the map he’d constructed of the tunnels.
She’d duped him, and Malcom had been paying the price ever since.
His gaze landed on his rendering of the tunnels at Canal Place. With the pencil in his hand, he ran the tip of it over the spot he’d come upon her. And mayhap there’d been some otherworldly quality to her, after all. For how else to explain the lapse in his very judgment?
I’m only willing to share that which you are willing to share with me . . .
Share only what he was willing to allow, his arse.
She’d printed a delusional, fantastical story about him that the world had lapped up. Polite and impolite Society alike. The unsavory sort he shared these streets with salivated at the chink in his armor he’d revealed after all these years. The fancy lords had frothed at the mouth for altogether different reasons—a heroic earl with gobs of wealth could be forgiven nearly anything, including the stench of the sewers on his person.
Then there was the matter of her printing his bloody address. The minx had described the understated buildings he’d purchased, rented, and hidden within, outing his location to all.
She’d dragged him out into the open, there for the world to see. And the world had seen—his foes as well as the members of the peerage who’d become his foes.
The pencil snapped in his hand under the weight of the pressure. “Bloody fucking liar,” he muttered under his breath.
“What was that?”
“Nothing,” he ground out. Malcom tossed aside the scraps and reached for another pencil. “Nothing at all.” He attempted—and failed—to redirect his attention where it should be: on mapping out the schedule of the tunnels to be scoured that night.
For despite his earlier insistence, it was not nothing.
Not truly.
Malcom had allowed himself to be weak. He’d let his guard down, even as the incongruity of Verity Lovelace’s presence in the sewers—with all her fancy speech and damned innocence—had screamed “trap.” And he had stepped his foolish toes into it and had been paying the price for it ever since. Day after day, he was besieged by visitors: young women and their desperate, fortune-seeking fathers who’d believed the drivel Verity Lovelace had written upon the pages about him.
Painting him as some kind of hero.
A gentleman stalking the sewers and rescuing ladies.
And in sum, lying to the masses to sell her story.
And Malcom was the only one to pay the price.
“Though, I will say of all the women paraded before you, the golden-haired beauty is by far my top contender for the role of countess.”
“Fuck off.” Malcom stuck up his spare middle finger for emphasis, earning nothing more than a round of boisterous laughter for it. Abandoning his attempts at work, he tossed down his pencil and rubbed the stiff muscles along the back of his neck. “If you are unable to focus on our business together, you know I can simply replace you. There are a hundred other toshers who’d happily take your place.”
“I do know as much.” Giles widened his grin. “I also know that you won’t. For all your annoyance and talk of sole focus upon the business, you rather like me.”
“I don’t like anyone,” he muttered. “I tolerate you.” His associate, through the years, had preferred his secrets like most in the rookeries. He’d kept his life a mystery . . . a luxury Malcom had enjoyed until the bloody minx had stolen that coveted gift in these streets. A hot wave of fury whipped through him, as potent as the day Fowler had approached, gaze averted, head down, and dropped that damnable paper on his desk.
The one that had unhinged Malcom’s world.
Giles gave a tug at his lapels. “It certainly helps that the only one as capable in these sewers is me.”
Malcom grunted. “As close to capable.”
“I’ll take that as praise.”
“It wasn’t praise, either. I’m merely stating fact,” he said bluntly. “We’re associates because of what you contribute.” In fact, he tolerated more than he should where Giles was concerned. Theirs, however, was a mutually beneficial relationship, and it would be foolish for anyone to mistake the work they did with Malcom as kindness in any form.
“Ah, as we are speaking with blunt honesty, shall we discuss the tall, blonde-haired beaut—”
“No,” he said before the other man could even finish. Malcom set to work, dividing his paper into columns and assigning those underlings who served their work for that week. At last Giles fell silent so Malcom could finish divvying up the operations for the upcoming week.
The silence was short-lived.
Giles plucked the curtain back, and peered out. “Another’s arrived.”
Oh, bloody hell.
“Not your usual taste, either. Dark. Small.”
There’d been one young woman who’d been both dark and small, and who’d bewitched him. Malcom had learned his lesson, however. “She could be Athena, and I wouldn’t give a damn,” he muttered.
“Well, she’s not. Athena, that is,” Giles clarified, as though it mattered which hopeful lady or woman in search of a fortune sauntered up to his doorway. “Short. Almost childlike in size but not . . .”
Again, Verity Lovelace slipped into his thoughts. And he forcibly thrust back the unwanted memories of the shrew, just as he’d fought them each time: as she’d been that day, alternating between breathtaking courage and fear. With more displays of the former. And then there’d been her kiss.