“I didn’t romanticize them, Malcom. I wrote one article,” she said tersely. “One piece that conveyed the truth of how you treated me that night.” She smiled sadly. “You might take offense to my having written about you, but the facts remain: You did save me. You did provide me new slippers and a dress, and you did see me safely home.”
He stiffened.
“Yes, I knew that,” she said quietly, holding his gaze with her own.
She’d known that he’d followed her to see no harm befell her on her return journey through St. Giles, and yet she’d not printed that in her damned gossip column. Why?
“Everything I wrote about our first meeting was all true. The fanciful musings my sister has of what we . . . are . . . or shared . . . are ones that she created in her own mind.”
Just as Polite Society had. For the world saw that which it wished, because they all wished to read a story of make-believe rather than see the rot that truly clung to a person’s soul.
“I . . . suppose you wonder how I’ve come to be here,” she murmured, bringing him back to the moment. Verity stared down at her endearing pink toes. “In your household,” she added as if any clarification were needed.
“No,” he said flatly. He didn’t want to know those details, the ones that undoubtedly bespoke desperation and threatened his resolve. Nor did he want any further stories about her sister. He also knew that Bram and Fowler were responsible for allowing her entry. The damned traitors. “I don’t wonder anything about you.”
She elucidated anyway. “I happened to see your address and knew that you’d sacked your servants, and trusted the residence was empty. What harm would there be in staying, then?”
And as she spoke, it didn’t escape his notice that she never mentioned Fowler or Bram. And resentment for the woman aside, he admired that loyalty. She didn’t explicitly or implicitly state that the old codgers had let her in and given her shelter. A fact he’d confirmed the moment he arrived . . . to a pair of toshers who’d been wholly unapologetic and put out with Malcom. With Malcom.
“Except you didn’t sack them, though.” Her eyes softened, and she drifted closer. “You care about them, after all.”
Oh, good God. He resisted the urge to yank at his collar. “No, Verity,” he repeated. “I don’t care why you’ve come to be here. I don’t care about the servants, or anyone.”
“I . . . see.”
How was it possible for her two words to make a liar of him?
“There is, however, one question I do have . . .” Malcom caught his chin in his hand. “What to do with you?” He resumed another circle . . . only this one about the minx who’d single-handedly slayed his previously safe existence. “What to do with you?” he repeated.
Verity stiffened and notched her chin up a defiant fraction.
Did she believe he taunted her?
Ironically, eyeing the young woman, this proved a time when Malcom hadn’t a bloody clue what he intended to do with her.
The immediate and obvious answer should be to turn her over to the constables. Let the law deal with her and be done with the termagant who continually popped up in search of his secrets.
Only he couldn’t. To admit as much, though, would mark him continually weak where Verity Lovelace and all her antics were concerned. For some unexplainable reason, even if it would mean he was done with her and her interfering, he could not have that freedom attained with her at the end of a hangman’s noose. And those reasons extended far beyond the doe-eyed sister who’d be left to fend on her own in these savage streets.
Malcom abruptly stopped and faced Verity.
Bloody hell. He hadn’t a damned clue.
Verity lifted her right hand and waggled her fingers slowly, like an eager student currying favor with the instructor. “If I may?” she ventured. “You could provide me with the story I seek?”
A sharp bark of laughter burst from him. “God, you’re mad.”
“Then I’d be gone.” She snapped her fingers. “On my way.” When he remained motionless, she frowned and let her arm fall to her side. “It was an idea.”
Aye, it was one at that. A bloody rotted one. “Tell me, what would I get out of that deal, hmm?” Nothing, was the immediate and correct answer. No good could come from revealing any part of how he’d lived these years. All that information would invariably trickle down from the ton to the dregs of East London, who’d in turn use that knowledge against him. Or they would try to anyway. “You’d have your story.” He caught her damp plait between his fingers, and rubbed those silken strands. “And I . . .” His was a bid to taunt her, and yet once again, he only proved tempted by the siren. Her hair contained the richest shades of auburn and chestnut and chocolate. “And I . . .” Once again he became entranced by those silken strands, tresses that were kissed by every blend of brown.
“Th-there can be some good in that,” she murmured, her usual singsong voice husky . . . Good in what? What was she saying? It was all mixed up in his mind. “Sometimes,” she went on, “there is good in confronting one’s past, Malcom.”
And then it hit him, exactly what she was saying. What she even now suggested. By God, did she take him for a fool? That pull was shattered. He released her. “And how do you figure that, Verity?” At best all he possessed were distant memories so murky they may as well have belonged to another.
“Because it might prove healing.”
“Do not make this about me, Miss Lovelace.” He hissed out her name.
She recoiled but did not back down.
“Do not pretend that you in any way care about my past or any part of me beyond how it serves you. If I let you write your column, the ton would continue to eat up the shite drivel that makes them feel better about a man who’s inherited a title in their ranks. I’ll end up with another stream of desperate ladies and their equally desperate fathers, who’d sell me their offspring as easily as a whore sells herself in St. Giles.” In that there was no disparity between the elite and the people under them. The parade of visitors he’d received since Verity had outed his whereabouts was proof enough of that. That reminder lit the wick of his fury once more. “No, there is nothing you can do for—”
Except . . .
“What is it?” she asked quietly.
Ignoring her, Malcom turned his back and let the idea fully flesh itself out in his mind.
She sought her position with The Londoner.
He wanted nothing more than to be left alone by the peers seeking him out as a potential match to their bankrupt families.
It was madness, and yet . . . Verity Lovelace, the woman who’d made him a mark amongst the peerage, ironically represented his path to freedom. Malcom turned back to face her. “I’ll agree to your story.”
Her eyes glowed, radiating a hope and brightness so mesmerizing he briefly looked away, steeling himself against its power. As soon as he returned his gaze to hers, a prudent degree of wariness had replaced that earlier light. “You wouldn’t simply do this from the goodness of your heart.”
“Nay.” Darkness or goodness was neither here nor there. He’d no heart. He never had. “I wouldn’t, Verity,” he murmured, stalking a circle around her nearly naked frame.