From across the desk Miss Wright gave Verity another look; that taciturn show of support bolstered her. For this injustice, Verity’s fight for respect and a place in this office, was about even more than just her and her security. It was also about the other woman who’d been working here for five years now and who also was denied a meaningful role. And though she’d never appreciated it before now, as long as she held her post here, Verity served as a reminder that women could do and be more in these professions men were so very determined to keep them out of.
Rage darkened her vision, and, snarling, she swept his papers from his desk. “Bastard.”
Cries went up, the indignant shouts muffled by the whir of blood rushing in her ears.
“Miss Lovelace, that is enough.”
That voice managed to penetrate her rage, and all at once, Verity became aware of several things: the pall of silence amongst the all-male staff now staring on in horror. And the annoyed figure standing in the middle of the offices. A figure who rarely visited. A man who left the daily affairs to his staff and swept in to grace them with his presence only when he wished to play at being the proprietor.
And this would be the day he’d be here.
Her stomach turned over. “Mr. Lowery,” she said in belated greeting, her voice hoarse.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the smug stamp of Fairpoint’s features and curled her fingers into balls at her sides to stop from scraping her nails down the bastard’s face.
“I’d speak with you in my office.” Not bothering to see if she followed, he started across the rooms.
Verity scooped up her copy of The Londoner and her bag. She stomped around the desk and leaned close to Fairpoint. “We are not done here,” she whispered.
“No,” he agreed with a snide grin. “I’d venture only one of us is.”
Verity flared her eyes and made to lunge at the thief of her words and future.
“Miss Lovelace,” Lowery snapped, his voice carrying from his offices, “I don’t like to be kept waiting.”
“I suggest you be going, Miss Lovelace,” Mr. Fairpoint advised, setting the contents of his desk to rights. “I trust you’ve displeased Lowery enough this day.”
She fisted her hands so tightly her jagged nails dug sharply into her callused palms, the rough skin dulling any pain. Verity reached the offices and lingered outside. Always be composed. Always be in control. Never show emotion. These were the expectations for any woman who wished to be considered seriously in this—or any—profession. Women were not permitted furies, even when the greatest of injustices had been committed. Even as men could slap one another across the faces with gloves and fingers and then meet on a dueling field to fight for their honor, women were expected to pour tea and be meek.
Verity intended to fight for her job. Smoothing her features into a calm she didn’t feel, she clasped her hands before her so that her satchel swung as she moved. “Mr. Lowery,” she murmured, stepping inside.
He opened his mouth.
“I’d speak with you, please,” she continued before he could speak. Before he could sack her or call her out for her improper behavior on the floor. “Regarding my recent research and story on the Lost Earl.”
“‘Lost Heir.’ That is how it was recorded by Fairpoint.”
Verity set her jaw so hard her teeth ground audibly in the office and her temples throbbed. She forced her lips up into something that felt more grimace than smile. “Ah, yes.” She swept forward. “However, when I broke and wrote the story, I’d originally titled it as the Lost Earl because, well, the gentleman who’d been lost”—who still eluded the world—“was, in fact, an earl.”
“‘Lost Heir’ sounds better,” Lowery said impatiently. “It’s the titles of the articles that sell.”
Was it, though? She’d rather say it was the content . . . however, given the precariousness of her position and her future here, she’d not belabor the point. “May I?” she asked, gesturing to the chair across from him and claiming it before he could toss her out on her buttocks. “That story, as you know,” she began calmly, “was one you assigned to me.”
Removing a cheroot from his jacket, Mr. Lowery touched the tip to the candle at the corner of his desk. Ignoring the way her nose twitched at that pungent odor, Verity fixed on the head editor of The Londoner as he puffed away on the noxious scrap. “And?”
And? he asked.
Verity placed her bag on the floor. “And Mr. Fairpoint stole my story. He put his name on it and presented it to you.” She set the damnable pages on his desk.
Lowery didn’t so much as glance down. Taking another draw from his cheroot, he tipped the ashes into the silver tray on his desk. “Don’t care about some rivalry between you and Fairpoint.” A rivalry. That was how he saw it. And of course, Verity would be taken for some emotional female as opposed to the wronged party she, in fact, was. “What I cared about, Miss Lovelace,” he went on, dropping his elbows on his desk, “was the story.”
Her livelihood was crafted of words. As such, as Lowery raised his cheroot to his lips and took a slow, deliberate draw, her writer’s mind clung to two words: “cared” . . . and “was.” Both spoken in past tense. Panic sent her heart thudding in her chest. There’d be no righting the wrong done to her. Lowery, as he’d indicated, didn’t care. Only profit mattered.
And therefore, as Lowery exhaled that plume of smoke in an uneven circle, she shifted her focus to fighting not about her stolen story but rather her future here. “I’ve an idea for a story on the Lost Earl . . . Heir.” She forced that hideous title out.
That gave Lowery pause. “Oh?”
Now that the world had the name of the missing nobleman, everyone craved details about his life and his whereabouts with the same ferocity with which English people craved their tea.
She had his attention; now there was the matter of retaining it. “Everyone wants to know about him—”
“Stop wasting my time with theatrics, Miss Lovelace,” he snapped, exhaling another puff of smoke from the side of his mouth. “Do you have information on the gentleman or not?”
No. Not yet anyway. She sidestepped his question. “Each publication, we might put forward possibilities about where the gentleman has been—”
“Possibilities?” His brow puckered, those five creases conveying his disapproval.
Verity nodded enthusiastically. “Oh, yes.” There’d not been much Verity Lovelace hadn’t done in order to survive. “The possibilities. Can’t you just imagine them?”
“No,” he said flatly. “It’s your job to tell me precisely what they are.”
“Well.” Her mind raced as she searched around for the proper pitch. Bastard born, with a mum dead too soon, and left to navigate the world alone as a child, she’d learned right quick precisely what the world had in store for a young woman on her own. Though in fairness, with the passage of time, she’d come to witness firsthand that where women were concerned, the world didn’t discriminate by age. It was harsh, more often than not unfair, and ruthless to all women. As such, there was not much Verity wouldn’t do to hold on to her current post as a reporter with The Londoner. And that explained why, at that moment, she was making a desperate pitch of a nonstory.