The old woman jerked like she’d been slapped. “I did this for you.”
“You didn’t do this for me. You did it for you. Get out,” she said tiredly, and for the first time in her life, she turned and presented the former nursemaid with her back.
“After all the years we’ve been together, you should doubt me?” Bertha whispered.
Verity stiffened as her nursemaid came around and faced her, with a hand outstretched.
Wordlessly, Verity took the page, and read it.
Two hundred pounds paid out by Mr. Fairpoint.
I’m going to be ill . . . “You worked with him?” Verity cried.
“He gave me coin here and there to tell him little things. Things that didn’t matter.”
Verity felt the blood leave her face.
“What?” Bertha said defensively. “I used that coin to help pay our rent and put food upon our table.”
“What things did you tell him?” she asked, her voice pitched.
Bertha frowned. “Where you were going to conduct your research. When you’d be working on cases. And for that he gave us a sizable coin for a story you wouldn’t have made half for, had your name been put to it. He was always going to see you sacked, Verity.” The old woman shrugged. “I just managed to secure us funds before he did.”
Verity’s knees weakened. “Oh, my God,” she breathed.
The threat at Hatchards. Her stomach revolved. Why, even the night she’d been followed. Fairpoint had been attempting to scare her out of doing her work in order to secure his own position. And Verity’s loyal nursemaid had gone and thrown all her support to one such as him. Verity made to tear up the note, but crying out, Bertha surged forward.
Verity froze. For all that had come to pass, Bertha had still spent the whole of her life with Verity and Livvie. Wrinkling the note into a ball, she tossed it at the other woman. “Get out. I never want to see you again.”
“Verity.” The old woman shook her head, disbelief stamped on her features. “This is me. You don’t mean that.”
“I’ve never meant anything more, Bertha.”
Tears glassed the nursemaid’s eyes. A moment later, she turned . . . and was gone.
Verity didn’t move for several moments, and then all the life drained from her legs and she sank onto the edge of the nearest seat.
The rapid clip of determined steps carried from the corridor.
Her heart squeezed. She wasn’t ready to face him. Not yet. Feeling like one facing her executioner, Verity climbed to her feet.
Only, two figures filled the doorway. Neither of whom was Malcom. The butler and a stranger who was . . . not a stranger. Bespectacled, tall, the gentleman was since sporting a bruise from their last encounter. “You,” she blurted. The man she’d come across at various outings. But who yesterday at Hatchards had attempted to come to her rescue.
The butler cleared his throat. “The Earl of Wakefield to see you.”
The Earl . . .
She whipped shocked eyes up to his.
The young man doffed his hat and dropped it awkwardly to his side. “Hello,” he said quietly. “Please, if you’d call me Benedict.”
And Verity found herself struck dumb for a second time that day.
He was her half brother.
Chapter 29
THE LONDONER
TREACHERY!
Is it any wonder with her bastardy, Miss Verity Lovelace committed the ultimate deception against Polite Society? It is a wonder, however, that her half brother, the Earl of Wakefield, paid her a call. What was discussed at that reunion . . . ?
M. Fairpoint
“Where in hell have you been?” was the snarled curse Malcom found himself greeted with upon his return six hours later.
With one hand, Malcom tugged off his hat while loosening the clasp of his cloak with the other. “I had business to see to,” he said, tossing those articles to a waiting footman.
“All this time later?” Fowler snapped. “There was trouble while you were gone.”
Malcom came up short. “Verity,” he rasped, reaching for Bram.
“Aye. Slow there, lad,” Bram barked, catching Malcom by the back of his jacket. “The girl is fine. Sad. But fine.” The old tosher yanked a folded newspaper from inside his jacket front and slammed it into Malcom’s chest.
“What is this?” he asked, alternating between the silent pair.
“Ya haven’t heard about that yet?”
Heard about . . . ? Following his meeting with Bolingbroke, Malcom had taken care of two important matters, the most pressing of which was seeking out Steele’s services and putting him on the task of determining . . . His gaze scanned the front page of the gossip column. He cursed. “Where is she?”
“In her rooms . . .” The words hadn’t even left Fowler’s mouth before Malcom was off and running, and once more, as he reached her rooms and let himself in, he hadn’t been sure what he’d expected . . . but this was certainly not it.
“Hullo, Malcom.” She spoke quietly, standing alongside a tattered trunk and valise.
Malcom entered slowly. “Verity.” He clicked the door shut behind them. All the while, his pulse knocked away, skittering out of control. She intended to leave. Or does she think you intend to send her away?
Her gaze took in the scandal sheets clutched tight in his fist. “I trust you’ve seen the newspaper,” she murmured. It wasn’t a question, and yet, as he didn’t have any coherent reply in this instance, he nodded and answered anyway.
“Aye.” He relaxed his grip, and then dropped the hated pages on a nearby table.
“It was Bertha, you know.”
He froze.
Verity’s throat moved quickly, and she looked past his shoulders at the door panel behind him. “She resented you. She had a sweetheart. A tosher. A man named Alders.”
Christ. Malcom dragged an unsteady hand through his hair. “He robbed Fowler. Beat him . . .”
Verity waved a hand, dismissing that defense for what he’d done. “She believed I was repeating the sins of my mother, and that you were the one responsible for taking me down that path, and she wanted us out of here.” Her voice broke. “Away from you and the arrangement we’d struck.” At last, she looked at him squarely. “She sold the story to Fairpoint, the man whom I was competing with for work. He’s been the one attempting to silence me, and Bertha helped him.” Her voice dissolved on an agonized whisper as she hugged herself.
Malcom took another step closer, wanting to take her in his arms, but she retreated, and that slight distance hit like a physical kick to the gut. Another time, rage would have clouded all reason. Now what radiated strongly first was the need to comfort. To take her close . . . even as she didn’t want that offering in this instance.
All along, the woman Verity had seen as family, one whom she’d protected and cared for. And in the end, Bertha had delivered the ultimate betrayal . . . Knowing Verity as he did, she’d be ravaged inside. “She wasn’t entirely wrong.”
That brought Verity’s gaze whipping over. “What?”
He took a slow, careful step closer. Wanting to be near her. Wanting to keep her close and never let her go. “I’m the one who forced you to come here. I dangled a threat over your head.”