A pair of maids were hurrying down the hall, and then stopped in their tracks the moment they spied her to dip matching curtsies. “My lady,” they said as one.
Verity glanced about for the “my lady” in question before registering that they spoke to her. It was a foreign state she’d never become accustomed to. And one, for the deal she’d struck with Malcom, she’d be required to. At that reminder of her husband, she cleared her throat. “Do either of you happen to know where I might find Ma . . . my husband?” she amended. Nay, it would never feel right, referring to him in that light.
“’e’s in his office, my lady.” The youngest girl, Billy, tacked a curtsy on to her pronouncement. Girls younger than Livvie, who now had employment once more because Malcom had reflected on his decision to sack them. And one who spoke in street-roughened tones. Malcom had not only rehired back the staff he’d sacked but also given opportunities to a girl who’d been without.
“My lady?” Deborah ventured hesitantly. “Is there anything else you require?”
Verity started. “No. No. Nothing else.” With a word of thanks, Verity wound her way through the halls, down the intricately woven Axminster carpets, the grandeur of the mosaic design so glorious in its detail and beauty, Verity found herself tiptoeing over the pale-pink and yellow floral pattern.
She reached the hall leading to Malcom’s office . . . and then stopped.
How was she going to go through with this? Unlike her mother, who’d managed to smile in front of the earl when her heart had been breaking at the life she’d never have, Verity hadn’t been one to dissemble. She’d been one to speak her mind and reveal precisely how she was feeling.
And then, to have to put on a show with Malcom.
Malcom, who now hated her.
If he’d ever even liked her.
Her heart pulled.
For there had been moments where he’d seemed to like her enough: when he’d scooped her up and dashed through London to keep them both safe. When he’d swindled her in a game of chess.
Except those moments didn’t mean that he cared about her. They’d merely been a window into the fact that he, for all his gruff and hard edges and contrary nature, was, deep down, genuinely an honorable man.
“Something wrong with yar legs now?”
Verity jumped, and spun to face Bram. She found her first smile that day. “Bram,” she greeted. The old tosher limped over, and she hurried the remainder of the way to save him walking the length of the long hall.
“Oi take it ya’re meeting with North?” he asked when she reached his side.
“Aye.” She slid a glance down the wide hall. “That is the plan.” This time, Verity couldn’t even manage a pretend smile. Aye, she was going to be rubbish at this arrangement, after all. “He’s angry with me. With, of course, good reason,” she said quickly. She was well deserving of his rage.
Bram lifted one large shoulder in a shrug. “’e lashes out to keep people out. Ya’re no different from the rest of us. But ’e cares.”
He cares.
Her heart did a funny jump in her chest. “Cares?”
Bram snorted. “About ya.”
That organ in her chest did several more wild somersaults, and then promptly deflated. “He doesn’t care about me. He hates me,” she said softly. When their deal was up, he’d banish her from London just so he didn’t have to share the same streets as her.
“He doesn’t ’ate you. ’e’s angry with ya. He’s angry at all of us.”
And guilt swarmed her. She’d come between Malcom and the small collection of people who mattered to him. “I’m so sorry if you’ve received his anger because of my actions.”
He waved a bearlike palm. “Oi’m the one who gave you shelter. Fowler, too. Would do it again, too.”
“Why?” she asked, unable to hold back the question she’d wanted to ask as to why he’d gone against his loyalty to Malcom and opened the townhouse to Verity and her family.
“Because Malcom brought you to his rooms that night, when he’s never brought any person there before.” It was the first time she’d ever heard anyone in Malcom’s circle use his given name. A teasing glimmer lit his eyes. “And mayhap a little because you cured my eyes, and I’d hoped you could do the same for my leg.” He winked. “Which ya did.”
Laughing softly, Verity nudged him lightly with her shoulder.
And a ruddy blush splotched the old tosher’s cheeks. “And mayhap also because ya didn’t treat me as though Oi or Fowler were monsters just because of how we looked and where we lived. Now ’old yar ’ead up.” Then the levity faded, and he was once more all seriousness. “Ya aren’t right in mostly ’e’s angry at himself because of all this.” He gestured around the opulent corridor with satin wallpaper and gilt frames worth more than every most wonderful item she’d possessed in even her most prosperous days.
Going up on tiptoe, she kissed the old tosher on the cheek. “Thank you.”
He swatted his palm about. “Get on with ya,” he muttered and, not waiting about to see if she heeded his directives, took off quickly down the opposite hall.
Verity watched after him until he’d gone. Perhaps Bram and Fowler were correct. She and Malcom needn’t be enemies. And more, mayhap they could even become . . . friends.
Friends, when he wouldn’t so much as acknowledge that was precisely what the toshers who lived with him, in fact, were. What if she could make him see . . . ?
Hope filled her chest, and she resumed the same march she had earlier, before Bram’s appearance.
When she reached Malcom’s offices, all her courage deserted her.
“You can do this,” she silently mouthed. Or . . . could she? This role she’d taken on, this agreement, was nothing but work. Of course, it was a different form of work than she’d been accustomed to over the years. Hers had been literary in nature; crafting words and shaping them into something people wished to read was what she knew. What she understood. Putting on a display of a besotted wife was a task better suited to a London stage actress.
Alas, she’d better perform this latest role. If she wished to stay living, and to see those she loved secure.
It was that reminder which gave her the courage to reach for the door handle.
Verity let herself inside. The well-oiled hinges of the door gave silently, and Verity remained unmoving at the entranceway of Malcom’s Grosvenor Square offices. Malcom was there . . . but Malcom as she’d never seen him.
Unlike the past, where he’d been so attuned to her every movement that so much as lifting her slipper had earned his sharpened gaze, now he remained so wholly engrossed in the task before him that he displayed not so much as a hint of awareness that she’d entered.
Four neat piles of ledgers had been stacked high, forming a formidable barrier of those books. Malcom’s head was bent over an opened one as his gaze scoured the pages, the speed with which he ran his eyes over the pages near superhuman in ability.
This side of him, with his guard down, was so unfamiliar. His unfashionably long hair had been drawn back in its familiar queue, and yet a lone strand fell over his brow. Periodically, he swatted at the piece, but remained riveted by whatever information was contained within that ledger. He’d the look of a child with a coveted book in hand, breathless with anticipation of what he’d find on the next pages.