Everything was changing.
And he’d been so damned certain he didn’t want any of it to change.
He’d been content with his life as it was and hadn’t desired anything more.
At least, that was what he’d told himself. He’d told himself as much so many times, he’d actually believed it.
He scrubbed a hand over his face.
She’d been right about so much.
“You’re out of practice,” Giles said without inflection. And at any time before this moment, Malcom would have lashed out like a wounded beast at the insinuation. He’d have driven the other man into the pavement and asserted his place in these parts.
“Aye,” he said quietly, his voice softly echoing off the bricks.
“And . . . it’s all right if you are,” the other man—his friend—went on. “If you don’t want to spend your nights scrounging sewers, you could stop now.” Giles chuckled. “You could have stopped almost ten years ago, by my estimation.”
Malcom stared at the tosher pole in his fingers, the one Fowler had given him and commanded him to never let go of. And he hadn’t. “It’s all I’ve known.” It is all I want to know.
Isn’t that what he’d meant? Why hadn’t he said that?
“Aye.” They resumed their trek through the ankle-deep water, skimming their poles over the stone flooring as they went, dragging a small current in their wake, when Giles paused. “But do you know something?” The other man didn’t wait for an answer. “This.” He gestured with the place his left hand should be. “This is all I’ve known, too. But, North?” Giles held his gaze. “If someone came to me tomorrow and told me I was a damned baron, duke, or any other fancy lord, I wouldn’t spit in the face of the universe. I’d grab that chance to get out of these parts and never look back.” He jammed his tosher pole toward Malcom. “And none of us, not Bram, not Fowler, not me, nor anyone, would begrudge you leaving this shitehole.”
How easy Giles made it all sound. Only this wasn’t simply about living in the lap of luxury; it was where that lap was located. And all that went with it. And in Malcom’s case . . . all that had once gone with it, too.
“And don’t be a smug, all-knowing bastard.”
“I didn’t say anything,” he muttered.
“I know you well enough. You didn’t need to. You’re thinking you don’t belong there. Well, I’ve news for you, Lord Maxwell: you don’t belong here, either.”
That barb struck.
“Oh, go to hell, North. I didn’t say what I said to get under your skin.”
The other man’s words, however he’d intended them, had grated because of their unswerving accuracy.
For what Giles proposed . . . it wasn’t just about Malcom leaving this world . . . It was about entering a new one. One that he’d been born to, but didn’t truly belong to. Not because of what he’d done. But rather, because of who he’d been. The darkest parts of him were indelibly tied to who he would always be. “Like I said, I’ve got no place there,” he said with an underscore of finality. Even as he acknowledged as much aloud, memories slipped in: Verity with her palms over his eyes as they played word riddles. Verity stuffing a spoon of ice in his mouth.
Could he live that life away from this place . . . and could he do it with her?
Sweat slicked his palms, and he adjusted his hold on his tosher pole.
“You’ve got someone who can help you figure out how to navigate there, too.”
It took a moment for both the statement and the meaning behind Giles’s suggestion to sink in.
Verity.
His neck heated. “You’re mad.” Except . . . why is it such a mad idea? a voice whispered at the back of his brain.
“Because you don’t like the gel?”
Nay, Malcom liked her well enough. He winced. Nay, he liked her a good deal more than that. A good deal more than he’d liked anyone.
“Or is it the whole matter of her being with the newspaper and whatever deal you forced her to agree to?”
“That’s decidedly closer,” he mumbled, and started on. “We’re business partners, and nothing more.”
Giles snorted. “Aye, business partners. Though in fairness, we’re business partners, and I’ve never seen you eyeing me the way you eye that—” The remainder of that thought dissolved in laughter as Malcom splashed him.
“Can we get on with our work?” he groused, resuming his forward march through the tunnels. The bottom of his pole snagged something hard on the stone floor, and he shoved at it. He felt around the perimeter of the object, and then spearing it in the middle, he dragged the finding up along the wall. Wading through the water, Malcom removed the artifact from the end of his pole and studied it, turning the item over in his hands. An ornate gold-and-silver cuff bracelet.
It’d fetch a small fortune, and once would have elicited some greater sense of satisfaction.
These belong to them, do they not? Lord Bolingbroke’s three sisters? . . . They are no more responsible for the decisions of their parents than you are responsible for what happened to you that night . . .
A bitter-to-his-own-ears-sounding chuckle shook his frame as he eyed the piece.
Oh, the bloody humor of it all. Here was he, the most merciless tosher of the rookeries, fishing out treasure and feeling badly about three women whom he’d never met and would never meet . . . women whose family had stolen all that had been slated in life for Malcom.
Good God, what madness had Verity Lovelace wrought upon both his sanity and his existence?
He tossed the bracelet back.
Whistling, Giles leapt forward with his arm outstretched, and caught the jewel before it struck the water, ringing it around his tosher pole. “I’ll take that.” Removing the bangle, he stuffed it into one of his many jacket pockets.
And as they continued their hunt, thankfully, the remainder in silence, Malcom couldn’t shake the thought his friend had put forward . . . about a future with he and Verity in it, together.
Chapter 25
THE LONDONER
TROUBLE IN PARADISE?
Lady Maxwell has been spotted at Hatchards . . . sans the Earl of Maxwell. Polite Society can only speculate as to whether there’s been a falling-out between the couple . . .
M. Fairpoint
Forty-two.
That was officially the count of questions her sister had put to Verity since the carriage ride and now short walk along the pavement to 89–90 Piccadilly, London.
“How come Malcom didn’t join us?” Because he continued to push her away. Nay, because he wanted to keep her out. Alas, neither were suitable responses for her young sister. “Or is it you that he didn’t wish to be with?” Verity opened her mouth. “Or mayhap it makes more sense that it is because I was coming that he didn’t wish to join?”
Did those quickly strung-together questions count as three additional ones asked? Either way, Verity’s head throbbed from the incessant chatter, all about her marriage. Ultimately it was far easier to focus on her sister’s insecurity. “I assure you, his not accompanying us had nothing to do with you.”
It proved the wrong thing to say.
“So it was because of you,” Livvie said with her usual frankness.