Verity appreciated Malcom. Admired him for looking after Fowler and Bram. She was grateful for the kindness he’d shown her and Livvie. It was nothing more than that . . .
Why did it feel like she was the worst sort of liar to herself?
“Are you going to lurk out there, or are you going to enter?”
His deep voice carried through the panel, his booming tones muffled by the heavy oak. Verity jumped. She tried to make anything of them warm or teasing or soft. Anything that harkened back to the gentleness and intimacy they’d shared at Hyde Park. And found . . . none of it.
Grabbing the handle, she pressed it and let herself inside. Moisture dampened her palms, and she resisted the urge to wipe them along the sides of her skirts. Be breezy. You’re a thirty-year-old woman. “How did you know I was there?”
“Heightened senses are a product of life on the streets,” he explained almost disinterestedly, his gaze focused on his cluttered desk.
Bonnet in hand, Verity joined him across the room and, not waiting for permission, seated herself. “What are you doing?” she asked, her curiosity getting the better of her and her nerves.
“Inventorying.”
“Inventorying?”
“It is something that toshers do.” He inked several notes upon a meticulous column of words and numbers. “You can mention that in your article.”
Her article? It took a moment for that word, and then suggestion, to compute.
Malcom briefly lifted his head, and grinned at her. “Or rather, the good toshers do.”
His smile proved contagious. Her lips turned up at the corners. Verity set aside the straw bonnet she’d grabbed from those left by the previous young lady who’d lived here. “May I?”
He hesitated.
He wanted to reject her request.
She’d come to know him enough, however, that not relinquishing the books suggested he cared more than he did. A vulnerability he’d not allow himself.
“Forgive me,” she murmured. “It’s not my place to pry into your important matters.”
There was a wickedness in her that, in a bid to share his world, she’d turn that weakness against him. He grunted. “They aren’t important matters.” Malcom nudged his chin at her.
More than half fearing he’d gather the ploy she’d used and take back that offer, Verity plucked the tome from a pile, opened it, and began to read. She paused. This is what he’d meant by inventorying. Column after column filled the pages, containing an enumeration of items and a value alongside it. Nay, not just any items . . . but rather, articles that belonged to him. She flipped through the accounting. When she reached the end, she looked over at Malcom. These weren’t items found in a sewer. “They are records of your estates and all your belongings.”
“Aye.” Malcom shifted in his seat. “Some of them, at least.”
Returning the ledger to his desk, Verity measured her words for several moments. “There is nothing . . . wrong in taking interest in that which you’ve a right to, Malcom,” she said gently.
An endearing blush splotched his cheeks. “It is a force of habit. I collect items, record their value, and sell or save them.”
He offered a rare unsolicited glimpse into how he’d lived his life these past years. Only it wasn’t her story that she thought of just then but instead him. She flipped through the pages, scanning as she went.
Everything from gold timepieces to embroidered kerchiefs to . . . horses.
“And is that what you intend? To . . . sell them?”
“Yes.”
Verity paused in her searching and briefly looked up. “To what end?” Verity pressed. “When you receive the monies from selling everything, what do you do?”
“What do I do?”
“Malcom.” Verity set the book down on her lap. “On this page alone there must be . . .” She glanced down and silently tabulated in her head, mouthing her count aloud. “One thousand pounds in material items.” She sharply turned the next page, and silently added the numbers there. “And . . . and . . .” Her eyes bulged. “This is another two thousand pounds.” Her voice climbed. “And that is just two pages.” My God, he must be worth . . . She frantically flipped through the book, and sat back, stunned. “You’re richer than Croesus.” And just off the funds he’d inherited. The riches before her had nothing to do with what he’d amassed as a tosher.
“I should expect you’d understand the value in an accumulated fortune,” he said without malice. Then he reached dismissively for his pen, dipped it into the crystal inkwell, and resumed writing.
That was it? That was all he’d say? “But—” He looked up suddenly, his unwavering stare commanding to silence her, and mayhap if she were a different woman with a greater modicum of fear and a desire for self-preservation, she’d have let the matter go . . . But she’d come to know that gruff as he may be, neither was Malcom North one who’d hurt her or anyone. She tried to reason with him. “Malcom,” she said gently, turning the ledger around, “this is so much money.” My God, she could provide for her and Livvie and Bertha for the remainder of their lives, and comfortably, on but one and a half of the items recorded here.
“And you’d have me give it away?”
“What is the point in keeping all of it?” she rebutted.
“I’m not keeping it.”
“Fine, then selling it,” she said, not missing a beat. Goodness, he was obstinate. “Why—”
“Let it be,” he said sharply, a vein bulging at the corner of his temple. With that, he resumed his frantic writing, the staccato tap of the pen flying across the pages punctuating the quiet.
As he worked on, Verity studied his bent head. The lone blond tress that had escaped his queue lent an almost . . . vulnerability . . . to the stoic figure he presented to the world.
Malcom might not recall the specifics of what had happened to him in the earliest part of his life, but there was an inherent remembrance of having, and then . . . not. Her heart squeezed. If, however, he simply gave away these items, then he’d lose those pieces that linked him to the parents who’d died. The parents who’d undoubtedly loved him. With the losses of those items, so, too, went items that might jog any memory.
And mayhap that is what he wishes for, too. Whether deliberate or inadvertent, perhaps he was doing all he could to shut out everything except for the hardships.
As she exchanged the leather tome in one hand for another, he continued working, but she felt him tense. Saw his gaze creep briefly over to her hand as she gripped that book and pulled it to her.
He’d not acknowledge her actions, but he was aware of her and what she did.
More leisurely, Verity paged through the catalog. Unlike the previous volume of masculine possessions, these ones were—
She slammed her finger down in the middle of the page.
Ladies’ boots
Gowns
Day dresses
Bonnets
Aprons
Pearl brooches
Ruby tiaras
Sevres box
Ribbons
Slippers
Queen Ann wooden peg doll
Verity didn’t move. Her heart pulled, and then splintered. “These belonged to a young woman,” she murmured. She recalled the story of Lord Bolingbroke and his siblings. “Three of them.”