Soft.
It was a word that could never be used to describe or define Malcom North. Or that is what she would have believed . . . before now. Those harsh features, typically set in an unforgiving mask, were devoid of their usual tension. When he worked, he creased his brow; four little lines furrowed there, in a way that made him . . . approachable and real.
And she found herself preferring this side of him. This real, unguarded version of Malcom North.
He stiffened, and it was the moment she knew he’d felt her presence there.
Malcom looked up, and then hurriedly slammed his book closed. “Verity,” he greeted crisply.
Entering, she drew the door closed behind her, and joined him at the desk. She set her satchel down. “Malcom,” she returned, loosening the strings of her bonnet. Suddenly not so very much in a rush to leave this place and seek out their first jaunt as a happily married couple.
“You didn’t knock.”
“Devoted husbands and wives don’t have barriers between them.”
“And you know so much about devoted husbands and wives?” he jeered.
He hated her. Her chest squeezed tight at the palpable loathing that rolled off him. Though in fairness, he hadn’t even really liked her. It didn’t matter what Bram wanted or thought was there. This was real. They’d merely been a pair united by danger in the streets that he’d provided Verity a safe haven from. And you betrayed that by exposing his private life . . .
“I don’t,” she acknowledged, removing her bonnet by its broad brim. She set the woven article down upon her lap. “Not firsthand, that is,” she corrected. “I’ve written of . . . happy”—and unhappy—“spouses.”
“Your gossip column.” Derision continued to drip from his words.
Ignoring that bait, Verity caught the underside of her chair and dragged it closer to his desk. She studied the stacks of leather books lined up. What was he doing? Much like the ledgers that had filled his East London residence, here, too, there were neat stacks. Without thinking, Verity reached for one of them.
“What are you doing?”
Her hand hovered over the stack. “I’m sorry. I was . . .” Her lips pulled, and she shook her head.
Malcom rested his elbows on the edge of his desk and leaned forward. “Let us be clear, madam, as long as you are here—”
“Until the end of next Season.”
“Until the end of next Season.” He clipped out that echo. “You are not to avail yourself of anything unless I allow it. And you’re certainly not to go through my belongings. While we are living together, as long as we are alone, we aren’t going to put up some damned charade of a devoted, loving couple. We act the part when there are people about, but that is it.”
Aye, he hated her, all right. With her newspaper article she had, without any input from the gentleman himself, opened Malcom in ways he hadn’t wished to be before the world. As such, he was entitled to that rage, and she was deserving of that sentiment. Even knowing all that, she still had this urge to cry. Verity drew in a slow breath. “I know you don’t like me.”
He snorted.
“Hate me, even,” she allowed, her heart pulling. How ironic that she’d made the decision she had as a matter of survival, and in the end, she’d earned his antipathy and hadn’t even retained a job for that betrayal. “But servants are the eyes of a household, and if we’re going to live together, with you hating me, no one will ever dare believe that charade. If the world is to believe our marriage was a love match, we have to play the part.”
Malcom steepled long fingers, resting the bridge they formed upon his book, and smiled coldly. “And just what makes you think that ours need be passed off as a love match?”
Verity opened her mouth. No words came out. She tried again. “I . . . just assumed that would be easiest, to explain our hasty union.”
“It doesn’t matter what they believe or don’t believe. Mayhap I wanted an heir. Mayhap I wanted a wife to oversee my properties when I go live my life. Perhaps we’ve had a falling-out.”
Verity was already shaking her head. “The papers have already written of your rescue. They’re going to be looking for signs of fissures. Of deception. They’ll expect it of us.” Certainly with Verity’s origins . . .
“Us?”
Even as she’d built her life off words, the ease with which he wrapped a whole host of hatred and mockery around that one syllable still managed to stun her.
“You were . . . raised on the streets,” she said needlessly. “I . . .” I’m a bastard. Her tongue grew thick in her mouth. It was only a matter of time before her own identity came to light. She’d long ago come to terms with who she was . . . what she was. But that had been different. That had been when she lived on the fringe of Polite Society, dipping her toes into their existence, solely for the purpose of earning a living. This? This would be different.
She was . . . what? This woman who’d deceived him, whom he’d entered into an agreement with, clung to her secrets with a greater tenacity than even Malcom himself.
She didn’t want to share her history. And mayhap that was why he wished to know.
Liar. He’d been as eager for Verity Lovelace’s secrets as she’d been for his. Only his motives had never been driven by anything but a need to know about her.
Which is what grates so much . . . , that voice jeered.
“And what of you, Verity?” Either way, turnabout was fair play.
“Me?” Her shoulders came up in a little shrug that another, less astute person might have taken for nonchalant. “What of me?” She was hedging. Searching for time, and her mind, for answers that would satisfy his curiosity.
Curiosity? He balked. It was more a need to know what there was about the woman he’d entered into a pretend lifelong arrangement with. Malcom brought his arms up and clasped them behind his head. “You expect me to lay myself out for you, then I should know something of the woman I’m married to.”
She plucked at her skirts. Several moments passed before it became clear—she had no intention of saying anything else on the matter. In fact . . . saying nothing on the matter.
Malcom stood and circled the desk.
There was a mystery to the woman before him. And he yearned to draw forth the hidden details that made Verity Lovelace the woman she was. Malcom stopped behind her chair, and Verity stiffened. Lowering his head, he positioned his mouth close to the shell of her ear. She did not pull away. Her body only curved closer. “How . . . very interesting,” he murmured. “Surely the woman determined to have me spill every part of my life that I’ve no wish to share would at the very least be equally forthright?”
An entrancing blush spilled over her décolletage and climbed to the long, graceful column of her neck. That damnable desire pulsed all the stronger. “It is . . . not at all the same.”
Reaching around the back of her chair, Malcom rested his palms along its arms, and framed her. “Oh?” he whispered, so close that as he spoke, his lips brushed the curve of her ear in a fleeting kiss. One made all the more arousing for its evanescence. “And how is it different, Verity?”
Her breath caught. Or was that his? In this moment, it was all jumbled. “You never expressed a desire to know anything about me, Malcom. For you, my purpose being here, the role I serve . . . is singular. To fool. To deceive.”