Bertha hesitated, then caught the sides of the grate. Panic swelled as the older woman slid the covering back into place.
Oh, God.
There was a sharp clatter that echoed with an eerie finality, as with its closure the fragile glow cast by the moon was stolen, and Verity was plunged into complete darkness.
Her breathing increased, growing more ragged, the sharp sound of it echoing around the tunnel.
Verity briefly closed her eyes.
You’ve done far worse . . . You’ve . . .
Only, had she? Had she truly?
She’d had rocks tossed at her by village children who didn’t want to keep company with a whore’s daughter. Been hungry from an empty belly. Cold in the harshest of winters. But had she truly known the full extent of life’s ugliness and depravity? An ugliness and depravity she continued to learn the endless bounds of. Plunging herself underground, locked away from the world, trapped.
Her breath rasped loud in her ears.
“Enough,” she whispered, needing to hear her voice. Verity forced her legs to move, and focusing on the simple command of placing one foot in front of the other, she wandered deeper into the tunnel.
Tunnel.
There, that was a better way of thinking of it . . . tunnel, and not sewer. Sewers were dark. Dank. Dangerous. Tunnels, were . . . well, similar, but—
Verity shivered and huddled deeper into her wool cloak.
Drip. Drip. Drip-drip. Drip. Drip. Drip-drip.
As she walked, she scoured the narrow pathway, lined with increasingly deepening water. “Bloody hell.” She sighed at her slippers, the silliest of shoes to ever go traipsing through London—let alone the sewers of London—in. And now hopelessly ruined. They’d take days to dry, and even when they did, the leather would be threadbare.
Verity reached the end of the tunnel and stopped abruptly, the grimy, stone-slicked path sending her foot sliding forward. Gasping, she shot her palms out and braced herself against the uneven bricks. Catching herself.
Verity looked beyond . . . at a network of tunnels. That led off in both directions. She squinted in an attempt to better see how far down the current path led.
It was an infernal maze that a person could simply get themselves turned around in and wade through waste until he—or, in her case, she—drew their last noxious breath.
And all the questions raised about the Earl of Maxwell’s sanity whispered forward, for no sane man should choose . . . this . . . over a life of untold comforts. Verity held her sleeve against her nose in a bid to mute the stinging odor permeating the air. “You had better be here,” she muttered, conflicted even with that utterance as to whether she wanted to run face-first into a man who preferred to call this place home over his Grosvenor Square residence.
Verity hefted her skirts around her waist and continued forward.
She waded through the deepening water. Her submerged skin quickly went numb from the frigid cold.
“Where are you?” she whispered.
And when you find him . . . then what?
“Then you convince him,” she assured herself in the eerie silence, her own echo oddly terrifying. And she’d certainly convinced any number of men—more than she could count or remember, men of all stations—to share their secrets.
It had been the blessing and curse of her thirty years of existence.
This earl would be no different. This earl, who’d identified as a commoner for more years than he’d ever lived his comfortable existence as a peer.
A faint rumble went up, ominous, cutting across her musings.
It froze Verity in her tracks.
Squeak. Squeak.
She cried out as a flurry of rats bolted toward her, and she raced out of their path, hugging the brick wall.
Just as several loose stones overhead gave way, toppling into a heap, the clatter of those rocks crushing the rats who’d found themselves in the place where she’d just been.
Breathless from relief and terror, those competing emotions twining in her chest, Verity struggled to get air into her lungs. Leaning against the wall, she took support from the dank bricks.
“Everything about this damned place is dank,” she whispered, needing to hear herself talk in this underground crypt. Fearing the drip-drip, drip-drip pattern of sewer water plinking would drive her mad. “The air, the walls, the ground . . .” She froze. “The ground,” she echoed. No. With dread slipping through her, Verity lifted her left foot from the water.
She groaned. “Noooo.” Her heart plummeted to the sole of her now naked foot.
She’d lost one, which may as well have been a pair of shoes. And what was worse . . . it wasn’t Verity’s, but Livvie’s.
Closing her eyes once more, she knocked her head lightly against the brick.
Damn all men.
The one who’d loved her mother, but not enough, and for it, had left Verity a bastard with few supports in place when he’d died.
Lowery and his damned son with his ill opinion of women and their capabilities.
And Fairpoint. Hatred sizzled through her veins, crackling and lifelike.
She forced her eyes open.
And damn the gentleman busy playing at street rat for the perverse devil he was. Her fury compelled her away from the wall, and she found solace . . . nay, strength in it. It enlivened her and gave her a focus that would keep her from surrendering to the panic of her circumstances.
Gathering up her wet skirts, she trudged through the water, scraping her toes along bricks slicked with grime.
She flinched. “What in God’s name is that?” she whispered. As soon as she gave the question life, she shook her head hard. No. Don’t think about it. “Think about the fact that you’re scurrying around the gutters like a rodent.” And all because a man who had a fortune and future awaiting him was more content to dwell here? “Lunacy.” She exhaled a hiss of anger. Sheer lunacy was all that accounted for it.
Verity toed the floor.
How far could the damned scrap have gone?
And then her foot caught a patch of grime, and she cried out as her leg came out from under her and she tumbled onto her buttocks, landing with a sharp splash.
Freezing water immediately soaked her skirts, the sting of cold as biting as the pain that throbbed up her spine from where she’d fallen. There, braced on her elbows, up to them in grime, she didn’t want to consider, until she was out of this hell, bathed, and the gowns she now wore properly laundered, just what she was drenched in. Every part of her, from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes, was soaked.
Her toes.
My toes.
She froze, and with a sickening dread winding through her once more, Verity slowly lifted first one bare foot from the water—and then the other.
Two slippers, gone.
Something built in her chest; a half groan, half sob rumbled up and then exploded from her lips. Verity hugged her arms around her middle and laughed.
It could not possibly get worse than this.
With that empty assurance rolling around her mind, she struggled to her feet and set to searching for two missing slippers.
Chapter 4
THE LONDONER
At last, the world has the name they’ve been searching for. Questions have swirled, cloaking society in the same fog that rolls over the darkened streets inhabited by the man whose identity everyone longs to know.
V. Lovelace
Every muscle in Malcom’s arms ached. His biceps and triceps bulged and screamed in protest.
Sweat dripping from his brow, he shoved himself up another fraction, using the wood bars to lever himself higher. And then he held himself there, suspended.
And even that torturous exertion was preferable to the man droning on behind him. Or attempting to. Since he’d let the fancily clad old man in nearly thirty minutes ago, the servant had done more stammering than speaking.
“My lord.” Sanders, the aging man-of-affairs Malcom had inherited s
ome several months back, sifted through yet another stack of papers. “I—”
“I told you not to call me that,” he said coolly as a bead of sweat slipped down his forehead and hit his eye.
“But you are the Earl—”
Malcom silenced the rest of that protestation with a look.
Even if Steele had laid a paper trail that could stretch the length of London with proof of Malcom’s claim to the Maxwell title, Malcom wanted nothing to do with the earldom. With any of it. It might be his past, but that was precisely what it was . . . his past. At that, one he didn’t have a single recollection of. “It’s enough that I’ve accepted my rightful claim to the damned title.”
He blinked back another bead of sweat from his eye, the sting of discomfort transmuted by the strain he put his body through. God, how he despised the blighter. The reason—and the only reason—Malcom forced himself through the old man’s company was to spare himself from having to oversee the mess he’d inherited. “I also advised at our last meeting—of which there had already been too many—that we were done,” he gritted out through the strain of his efforts, fixing his gaze over the top of the older man’s head. Everything Malcom had gleaned about his new circumstances changed nothing. Or he’d been determined that would be the case.
“That is also true,” Sanders said with more aplomb than he’d shown since he’d entered. “However, my . . . Mr. North,” he amended, and then grimaced as though the reduction in title, even in speech, were physically painful to concede. “I also informed you that there would be matters that came up.”
“Matters came up when Steele came to me,” he muttered, inching his frame along the parallel bars.
“Yes.”
“And the following week after that.”
“Yes, but given the extreme nature of the circumstances, it was to be expected that—”
“And then when you came to me, each week thereafter.” Malcom may have dwelled outside the world of Polite Society, but he knew enough what the servant had done—he had set himself up weekly appointments with the intention of tricking Malcom into taking a role in his newly inherited business.
Footsteps sounded from the hall. A moment later, the door opened, and Giles let himself in. The only person in London who’d dare that insolence, and yet, here they were.
Sanders paused midsentence, his gaze lingering on the empty place the larger man’s left hand should be.
Catching that horrified focus, Giles raised the empty nub to his forehead in mock salute.
Sanders’s skin was leached of color, his throat moving frantically before he shifted his focus back over to Malcom.
“You were saying?” Malcom asked coolly.
His man-of-affairs swallowed loudly. “I—I understand your concerns—”
“If you understood them, then you’d not be wasting my time now.”
“However,” the older man went on with a tenacity that even Malcom was hard-pressed not to admire, “there are certain responsibilities that come with your new station that cannot simply be left undecided, my lord.”
Shoving himself up with one arm, Malcom looped himself around, facing the opposite direction, giving both men his back. “And why not?”
That question was met with a shock of silence. And he could all but see the gears of the old servant’s mind as they came to a grinding halt. “Because . . . well . . . because you are the—”
Malcom swung himself around and leveled Sanders with a single dark look that brought him to silence once more.
Sanders set his folder down and stood. “Because you are the earl, Lord Maxwell. Whether you wish it or not . . .”
Not. He wished not, because in short . . . he wasn’t. He didn’t give a fucking damn what some detective with the same rotten birthright as himself had to say. He didn’t give a shite what the world wanted to believe—a story they craved as a diversion from their own miserable lives. The ton, bored with their tedious fucking lives. And the people here, dreaming of a way out. And then there was Malcom, who didn’t give a rot either way, because his life was his and he was content with it.
Malcom let himself drop; his feet hit the floor, and every muscle in his arms rejoiced at the cessation of his earlier efforts. “You indicated that you would see to everything.” When Sanders remained tight-lipped, only a guilty flush suffusing his cheeks, Malcom arched a brow. “Did you not?”
“Yes, and I’m quite capable of seeing after your affairs,” Sanders said stiffly. “All the ones that I am able. And yet, I’ve not the ability to make decisions for you. Now . . .” The stubborn servant picked up that stack of belongings he’d come in with and held them aloft. His arm wavered, and he let it drop to his side. “Unless you . . . cannot? In which case I’d be—”
Cursing, Malcom stomped over. He yanked the leather folio from his fingers.
Sanders hurriedly backed away.
Flipping open the file, he raked his gaze over the words there. A name jumped out, familiar. “Who the hell is Bolingbroke?” he snapped. Good God, what had become of his existence? His hours and days now spent sifting through details and information about some fancy lords.
“Bolingbroke . . . was in possession of your title before you were . . . found.”
“Found,” he muttered.
“Per your advice, I enacted the paperwork to begin securing all debts accrued while he’d been in possession, along with interest on items he purchased in your absence.”
He read through the neatly written notes about the gent. “And?” he prodded, increasingly impatient.
“And he’s recently married. As such, I expect we might collect sooner than anticipated. In which case, I require guidance on what you’d have me do with the collected funds.”
He caught the glint in the servant’s eyes and could almost pity Maxwell or Bolingbroke, or whatever the hell his name was, for having failed to see the ruthlessness that had been greater than any loyalty possessed by his servant. Trust was something Malcom would never give this man . . . or anyone. But the plan Sanders had hatched for collecting interest on top of everything else Bolingbroke had been required to turn over was a plan that made sense. If another tosher had come onto his territory and stolen from him, he’d do the same—take the stolen goods and then some for good measure. Taking in order to build a fortune and security was something he understood . . . and respected. And in short, it was why Malcom suffered through the servant’s company. He’d resumed reading when his gaze snagged on the lines in the middle of the page.
Country manor . . . Kent estate . . .
A throbbing pulsed at his temples.
Another echo.
Laughter. Whispering in his mind. Haunting.
“My . . . lord?” Sanders ventured, jarring Malcom to the present.
He snapped the file shut and tossed it to the servant, who caught the packet with a surprising alacrity. “Do you have the funds?”
“Do . . . I?”
Malcom swiped his hands down his face. Good God, the man was a damned parrot. Returning to the wood parallel bars, Malcom drew himself up and swung his legs forward. “Do. You. Have. The Funds. From Bolingbroke?” he added.
Understanding dawned in the older man’s eyes. “No. Not yet.”
“Then see me when you do, and I’ll determine what to do with them then. In the meantime, get the hell out.”
Scrambling, Sanders hastily gathered up his things and beat a retreat from the room.
As soon as he’d gone, Giles chuckled. Laughter. It was foreign in the Dials, and yet somehow the other man had retained the ability to do so. Unlike Malcom. The sound of mirth grated and marked a weakness in a person. “You’re fucking mad,” the other man called as Malcom brought his body in line with the parallel bars. Every muscle in his body quivered and screamed at the strain. “Do you know that?”
Given Malcom’s partner well knew the rules on interrupting his sessions, the charge could have been easily flipped. As it was, after ten years of working alo
ngside one another, Giles had granted himself far greater familiarity and freedoms than any person unfortunate enough to have dealings with Malcom.
Maintaining his posture, Malcom kept his gaze fixated on the circular window that overlooked the streets of the Dials. Alas, he didn’t want that fortune Steele had come in here and dangled. He was content enough and didn’t need a single bit of what Connor Steele had said awaited him: not the land, not the fancy Mayfair townhouse.
His life was his own.
Resting a shoulder against the wall, the bastard watched on with entirely too much amusement in his eyes. “You’re the only bloody person in the whole of England to be sitting on a damned fortune and content to let it languish.”
“You know the rules on interrupting me.”
“Aye.” Giles flashed a wide grin. “And you know I don’t care.”
No, he didn’t.
It was an insolence Malcom didn’t tolerate in anyone else. Likely because there was an obstinacy to the other man he could relate to, and had since he’d come upon him nearly dead in the sewers of London.
“Answer me this . . . ,” the other man said, dropping into a chair and kicking his legs out.
“No.” He didn’t answer questions about himself. And not simply because there was no need for a person to know anything about him, which did hold true as well . . . Rather, it was because much of Malcom’s life was a mystery . . . even to him, and he preferred it that way.
“If you’ve no interest in that title or that life, why’ve you gone and hired yourself that bootlicker to see to those riches? To take more from the blighter who’s now out a title?”
Riches.
It was the correct word to describe the several hundred thousand pounds he’d inherited. And the countless pounds more sitting there in properties . . . properties all over England. Places he’d never been . . . and more . . . places he had no desire to be . . . Please, don’t. God, don’t . . . His own cries of long ago ricocheted in his mind until vomit churned in his belly. “What do you want?” he asked impatiently. “Don’t you have a sewer to see to?”
“I found information, information you should be aware of . . . Someone is coming for you . . .” Giles’s words droned on as a memory trickled in.
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