As if he felt her stare, Malcom looked to Verity.
She pressed her fingertips to her heart, and then motioned to her husband.
“I love you,” he mouthed.
“I love you, too,” she said softly, her voice lost to the buzz still echoing around the hall.
And a moment later, Malcom stepped out, ushering in a blanket of silence so thick and pronounced that the gentleman’s footfalls could be heard as he took his place at the dais.
“’e ’ates this,” Bram bemoaned, wringing his hands together.
Verity, Livvie, and Billy spoke simultaneously.
“’e’s foine.”
“He’s going to be fine.”
“He is fine.”
As Malcom walked, he glanced throughout the room. The muscles of his jaw rippled in the faintest hint of his unease.
Verity curled her palms into tight fists. She hated this moment, not because of any fear that he’d make a misstep but because she knew how he despised this. Knew how desperately he sought privacy in his life and of his past, and yet he’d open himself to the world. Was it possible to love him any more than she did? She willed his eyes to hers.
And then he found her.
Again, Verity pressed a palm to her heart. “I love you,” she mouthed once more.
His throat moved, and he gave a slight nod, and then spoke. “Many of you know me as Percival Northrop, the Earl of Maxwell. And some twenty years ago, that is who I was. I was kidnapped. I lost the home I once knew. I lost the family I had still remaining.” His deep baritone carried throughout the hall; his words, coupled with the somberness of his tone, commanded silence and brought people to the edge of their chairs. “And I lived in the darkest side of England. I was an orphan on the streets.” A little sob filtered into his speech—some lady in the audience who stifled that response. “But this day,” Malcom went on, “is not one of sadness. I was one of the lucky ones. I survived. I found a family.” He looked to the front row.
Tears filled Verity’s eyes, blurring his beloved visage.
“And I’ve reconnected with the family I did have,” Malcom said quietly.
And gasps went up as Lord Bolingbroke stepped from the corridor and made the short walk, joining Malcom atop the dais.
“You see,” Malcom went on, his voice growing increasingly powerful as he spoke, “it is so very easy to give in to hatred. To carry resentment for wrongs committed. And yet those sentiments, they will only destroy a person. Which is why Lord Bolingbroke and I have come together to lay to rest the painfulness of the past, and to anoint a new beginning.”
The baron stepped forward. “We are here today to announce the construction of three foundling hospitals. These, however, will be more than the orphanages that the most unfortunate children of society call home.” He turned to Malcom.
“Together, we’ve committed funds to building places throughout England, where boys and girls might learn and laugh and have greater hopes for their future, and where they might also know”—Malcom’s gaze locked with Verity’s—“family.”
And as Malcom continued on with his appeal to society’s most powerful and influential members, tears slipped down her cheeks. She glanced down the row at Bram and Fowler, both wiping furiously at their eyes. And Billy burying her own reddened ones behind her palms. All while Livvie smiled softly on.
And when Verity looked back once more, her and Malcom’s gazes locked.
“Our family,” she whispered.
This was their family.