In fact, he wanted to be here even less than he’d wanted to be on display before the ton. Nor did his apprehension have anything to do with the woman standing across from him, and everything to do with what she sought.
Buying time for himself, steeling himself against the slew of questions she’d ask, Malcom closed the door behind her sister, shutting him and Verity away. Alone.
I don’t want to do this . . .
Moisture slicked his palms and dampened the bronze handle.
Stop. You’ve faced head-on the threat of death and danger since you were a boy on your own . . . How difficult can an interview with Verity Lovelace be?
Why did it merely feel as if he sought to reassure himself?
To give his fingers something to do, he loosened the buttons of his jacket, and turned to face Verity. The slightly mocking words he intended were interrupted, but not with a question.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
Thank you? He furrowed his brow.
“For being patient with Livvie,” she clarified.
“Did you think I should be a monster to a young woman?” he asked without malice. It wasn’t the first time she’d insinuated as much.
Then again, neither of them had the greatest opinion of the other.
Verity colored. “I . . . no. I . . . I simply know that you don’t like being asked questions about yourself, and Livvie’s quite garrulous.”
Aye, the girl was a talker. Like Verity. There’d been something oddly heartening in the banter between the sisters. Bickering, and teasing; there was a closeness to that bond that should have made him uncomfortable, but had only intrigued him.
Or mayhap it was Verity’s magic once more. Everything about her fascinated him.
Verity sank into the folds of the leather button sofa overflowing with papers and notepads. Hurriedly, she went about tidying that makeshift workspace. “Would you care to sit?”
Waving off that invitation, Malcom shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it over the back of a mahogany library chair. As she organized her things, Malcom picked up a creased newspaper lying on the walnut rolling table.
He scanned the front page.
The elusive Earl and Countess of Maxwell have been spied amongst Polite Society. Witnesses say there were many stretches of silence between them. All the ton is then left to wonder at the circumstances surrounding Lord Maxwell’s marriage to the mystery woman. Extortion? Bribery? Worse?
“Perhaps there was something to your suggestion of an amiable match,” he muttered.
“Well, there’s nothing Polite Society despises more than happy marriages,” she explained, not lifting her head from her task. “There’s some irony in it, however.” Verity briefly paused. “Over the years, with the exception of my work, they’ve dabbled in half-truths and peddled nearly entirely in complete fabrications. How ironic that the closest they’ve ever danced to real truth should have been in the story they’ve written about us,” she said dryly.
The irony rested in the fact that he was the only one in their party guilty of extorting her, coercing her into cooperation. In exchange for the story she’d write about him. Guilt stabbed at a conscience he hadn’t even realized existed until this moment. He tossed the paper back down, and it landed with a loud thwack. “Why do you wish to work for a paper that doesn’t have integrity?”
“Because I believe in what newspapers represent, and what they do,” she said, looking up from the stack of notepads in her hands. “Because I believe with the right opportunity, I can make it better.” She patted the empty space she’d cleared beside her.
Malcom hesitated, and then sat beside her. “Have you even tried?”
Her mouth pursed, that plump lower lip jutting out with her annoyance. “I’ve written pieces aside from gossip columns, if that is what you’re asking. Of course, neither of them have been published.”
“Of course?”
Verity set her notepads down. “As you pointed out, I write for a gossip column. There’ve been times I’ve written alternative pieces. More fact-based or moral-centered ones.” She drew her knees up and wrapped her arms about them.
“And they were quashed?” he ventured.
“They were.” Verity pressed her thumb and forefinger together. “Both of them.”
Both of them? Which implied . . . two. “That’s it?” he asked bluntly.
She frowned. “I don’t . . .”
“As I see it”—he stretched his legs out and crossed them at the ankles—“you’ve hunted me in the sewers, and invaded my private residence in East London not once, not twice, but three times.”
“It was two,” she defended. “You brought me back the first time.”
“Aye.” Against all better judgment that had screamed to be wary and to keep his guard up. She’d slipped past, and upended his life since. “I’ll allow that. Two times, then, you’ve come to me. And invaded my townhouse. Yet you’ve only made a handful of attempts to push for a story other than the rot they required of you?”
Verity frowned. “I don’t have the luxury to write anything else, Malcom.” She delivered those words not with any self-pity, but with pure pragmatism. “The only luxury permitted me is survival, and as such I wrote the stories expected of me.”
“Gossip.”
Where in the past she’d bristled at his description of her work, now she sighed. “Aye. Gossip.”
He lightly dusted his fingers over her chin, bringing her gaze to his. “And that is what I am to”—you—“the world? Gossip?”
Her gaze held his, so piercing, so intent as if she sought to crawl inside him and pull forth those secrets he was so determined to keep. “I don’t believe that,” she said quietly. “Society might initially see that for what it is. But once written, it is my hope that they find there is true substance to it, Malcom. It is a story of injustice and wrongs and . . . strife.”
And with that, it made sense.
He made to release her; as he unfurled his fingers and loosed his hold, that was his intention. Only, of their own volition, Malcom’s knuckles did a slow, gradual upsweep of her jawline. A back-and-forth caress and re-exploration of skin soft as satin. Her thick, sooty lashes fluttered down, as if she herself was as entranced by that lightest of touches. “You felt the story was something more than it is,” he murmured. “That’s why you’ve been so determined to conduct your interview.” It wasn’t a question, and yet, as she forcibly opened her eyes and met his, she answered him anyway. “You see this as the ability to make the changes you wanted in the papers.”
She nodded. “In part. There are those who believe ‘the world doesn’t want information. They want . . .’”—she pitched her voice to a high, nasally whine—“‘the right information.’”
“Your employer?”
“My previous employer,” Verity clarified. “He’s since ceded the business over to his son. He’ll allow any lie to be printed and any story to be stolen.” Her gaze darkened. “Fairpoint,” she muttered to herself.
She doesn’t matter. Her plight doesn’t matter. The work she did, and the people she was employed by . . . “Who is this Fairpoint?” Would Malcom have to break the cur’s neck?