Giles jumped, and then muttering to himself, he leaned down, fished around in his bag, and drew out a stack of papers. Malcom was already crossing the room. “Here.” He tossed the newspapers.
Malcom caught them to his chest.
“Front page. Of every newspaper.”
He’d been on the damned front pages of every last gossip column for the first months of the discovery of his existence. When he’d eluded all their damned reporters, he’d been relegated to the safer middle and back pages.
Malcom’s gaze collided with the headline across the front.
A UNION MADE IN . . . THE DIALS
All of London is abuzz with talk of the Earl of Maxwell’s recent and unexpected marriage. The lady herself, as much a mystery as her husband, is known by Lady Verity, and was recently seen exiting the Grosvenor Square residence. Her past is as cloaked in secrets, with the exception of her romantic meeting and then whirlwind—
Courtship?
“Keep reading.”
He glanced over the top of the paper.
Giles gave a nudge, urging him to finish, confirming Malcom had spoken aloud.
Returning to the article, Malcom resumed scanning the main story there.
It is a marriage that has taken the ton by storm.
For a long moment, Malcom didn’t move. The page remained trapped in his fingers, his gaze riveted on the words before him. He’d read them, so he knew they were real. And yet . . . they couldn’t be. For nothing captured in the article was in any way . . . accurate. The damned minx, determined to have a story, had provided another one. A different one . . . a fictitious one that involved a fake marriage between them. At last it made sense why the desperate fortune-hunting fathers and their daughters had stopped darkening his doorstep. And here he’d been feeling guilty about the young woman’s state. He’d fought guilt—an unwanted emotion—at the thought of her alone. Hungry. Struggling to survive in the cold world they both had the misfortune of inhabiting. When all along, she’d been playing her usual games . . . all in the name of a damned story. God, there was no end to her ruthlessness.
“I trust you wished to keep it secret, then?”
“A secret?” What was the other man on about?
“Your . . . marriage?” Giles said, his words more a question than anything.
His fists curled into reflexive balls of rage, and he crushed the copy of The Londoner. Ignoring that question, he tossed aside the papers and grabbed for his lawn shirt. Pulling it over his head, he dragged on his boots and started for the door.
“Where are you going?” Giles called after him.
“I have a meeting,” he gritted out. “With my wife.”
God help her.
“I shall love you forever. You have changed me in every way. There is no one and nothing like you.” Verity’s impassioned vow was met with a loud giggle from her sister.
“You’re silly.” Seated on the wide four-poster bed with her knees drawn up, her form was dwarfed by the mattress and bedding, making the young woman appear impossibly small and girlish.
“Oh, hush. You are not showing proper appreciation.” Clutching the bar of shell-shaped soap, Verity held it to her chest and sighed.
“It’s soap.” Livvie giggled again. “We’ve had soap.”
“Not like this and you know it.”
Nay, the ones they’d had of the past were coarse against the skin. These were the comforts their father’s other family had enjoyed through the years. Verity had never resented their existence, as they were no more responsible for their luck in life than she was for her ill fortune. But this? The smooth, fragrant bars, soothing against one’s skin? She would have been hard-pressed to not find jealousy in them.
There was a light scratching, like the spare cat they’d taken in once to catch the rodents in their apartments. A moment later, the door was opened by a footman, and an army of servants came forward, bearing a porcelain tub and buckets of steaming water. Her cheeks heating with a blush, Verity hid the bar of soap behind her back.
Bertha came trailing in behind the small entourage with an all-too-familiar frown on her face.
“Thank you, Jemmy, Jeremy, Travis, and Miranda,” Verity said after they’d set up the bath.
“My lady,” they acknowledged with a series of matched sets of bows and curtsies before streaming from the room.
Miranda lingered in the doorway. “If there is anything else you req—”
Bertha closed the door in the young woman’s face, drowning out the remainder of that offer.
“That was rude,” Verity scolded.
“Schooling me on manners, are you? My, if you haven’t fallen right into the role of household mistress and proper lady,” Bertha drawled. “If you were a proper lady, you’d know that lords and ladies don’t thank the servants.”
Frowning, Verity returned the creamy bar of soap to the floral porcelain dish at her vanity. “That is preposterous and rude.”
“And it’s the way of their world. Or should I say your world?”
At that slight emphasis, Verity felt another wave of heat bathe her cheeks in a blush. She stole a peek over at her sister; however, Livvie gave no outward indication that she’d detected those subtle nuances of sarcasm.
“Verity was just vowing her love to her soap,” Livvie called over to Bertha.
“Was she?” Bertha asked, glancing to the younger Lovelace sister.
Livvie scooched herself to the end of the bed and swung her legs over the side of the mattress. “Oh, yes. Though I do say she’s shown far more devotion and regard for her soap than she has the earl.”
Oh, bloody hell. And with that, reality came ripping through yet another moment of pretend Verity had stolen for them. It wasn’t her fault that society had taken her appearance in the formal residence as something more. Or that they’d believed her to be the countess.
Bertha folded her arms. “And why is that? Hmm?”
Drat her old nursemaid. She’d been opposed to Verity’s plan since the start, and hadn’t let up on her steely resolve to see them flee the only luxuries they’d truly known in more years than she could remember.
“And when am I going to meet him?” Livvie asked, glancing between Verity and Bertha. “I expected he should have come to live with us by now. Given that it is a love match.” Her brow dipped, and she troubled her lower lip in a way so very similar to Verity’s telltale gesture of unease. “It is a love match, is it not?”
That was an assumption Livvie had formed on her own. One that had been lent credence by the damned gossip pages. One that Verity had known, at the first utterance of it, would one day have to be explained for the lie it was. Later. Eventually. When they were gone. And yet . . .
Feeling Bertha’s eyes on her, Verity joined her sister at the mahogany bed. Drawing herself up, she sat beside Livvie. “I . . . My arrangement with Malcom is more a matter of convenience.” There, that much was true. It was a matter of convenience . . . for Livvie anyway.
Her sister’s eyes were stricken. “You don’t love him, then?”
“I . . . We are”—mortal enemies—“friends.” Verity nearly strangled on that admission. Liar. He’d happily cut you down if you came around when he discovered the truth of your deception. Need he discover it, though? When he was so very determined to live a life of separate existence in the seediest streets in England?
Disappointment brimmed in Livvie’s bright eyes. “I still expected that I’d have met him by now.”
“Aye, me too,” Bertha drawled.
Verity shot her a sharp look before shifting her focus to her sister. “He . . . Malcom”—because even fictional husbands required a name—“is merely finalizing matters in East London, and when they are complete, he’ll join us.” At which point, she’d have to craft some also-fictional accident that left her widowed, and hope that her sister never again asked about the missing Lord Maxwell.
Her sister yawned.
“You should go rest, Livvie. I have to speak with B
ertha, and tomorrow we can talk more about Malcom.” They wouldn’t. Come the morn, she’d have altogether different reasons and distractions that precluded Verity from answering anything about her make-believe husband.
The moment Livvie had gone, Bertha faced her.
Her silence proved more damning than any words she might utter.
“What?” Verity groused.
“Oh, you tell me, gel. You’re the one who has us living here with you as a pretend countess.”
“I didn’t make up that lie,” she said defensively. “Society did that all on their own.”
“I’m sure when His Lordship learns what you’ve been up to, he’ll see it that way, too.”
Aye, Verity had been besieged by those worries as well. That, however, had been before the comfortable beds. And the full bellies. And the untattered garments. And the soap and the lack of mice.
And by the fourth day, when servants had begun to flit around the household, removing the coverings from portraits and windows, and none had still yet called Verity and her family out for the lies they perpetuated, it had become increasingly harder to pack up, slip out, and simply move on to . . . Lord knew where. “He stated he had no intention to move to Grosvenor Square, and his . . . friends thought it was just fine that we remained.”
“Aye, and by your own words and that fine research, he’d no intention of keeping on staff, but here we are.”
“Shh,” Verity warned, stealing a frantic look at the front of the room. There’d been eager maids and footmen about, grateful for their posts and determined to please.
“This is madness, gel.”
“I know,” she muttered, struggling with the row of buttons along her borrowed dress. Another borrowed dress from the armoires of the former ladies who’d inhabited this household. This one was of fine silk, the hem several inches too long so that it dragged, and even so, the crystal beadwork along the hemline and neckline and the lace overlay skirt were finer than anything she’d worn now . . . or when her father had been living. “Will you help me?”
“No,” Bertha said bluntly.
Verity glanced over her shoulder.
“Fine,” the other woman muttered, and set to work on the row of buttons. “You’re playing with fire, gel. And because you’re playing with fire, I am, too. And if that doesn’t mean anything to you, then Livvie’s life and future should.”
Verity frowned. “Is that what you believe?” Was her opinion of Verity truly so low? That she somehow thought that this was a game and Verity merely sought to play at blue blood? “All of this is because of you and Livvie.”
Bertha grunted. “Is it, though?”
Wasn’t it? Even as Verity spent her days searching for work at other scandal sheets and newspapers, she returned in the early-afternoon hours with a greater relief than she’d ever known to have a safe, comfortable roof over her head. One that did not leak. “This is for all of us,” she finally said.
“We have to leave, Verity,” Bertha warned, helping slide the dress off; the fine French satin rippled over her skin, gloriously soft and smooth.
And the rub of it was . . . Verity knew as much. Even as Fowler and Bram had been gracious enough to give her and her family shelter, now that the papers had run free with the erroneous story about Verity’s actual place in this household, she was on borrowed time. She knew that she merely played make-believe and had stolen these moments of security, but they could only ever be temporary. Malcom wasn’t one who’d remain ignorant to the sham she’d perpetuated here in West London, and he was not one who’d turn a cheek to that affront.
Particularly not when the guilty party is you . . .
“Here, step into the water, gel,” her old nursemaid said gruffly, misinterpreting the reason for Verity’s shivering.
Verity tugged off her undergarments and dunked one foot into the steaming bath.
She sighed and sank under the scented depths until the bubbled water concealed her shoulders. “No one was supposed to be here,” she reminded Bertha.
“Aye, but they are. And we’ve worn out our welcome with the one who matters. It’s only a matter of time before he comes for you . . .” That ominous warning echoed in the air.
“We’ll leave.” All her stomach muscles contracted, and Verity closed her eyes. They’d perish. A sheltered Livvie, an older woman, and Verity, with her experience working at a newspaper, didn’t have the skills or references to do anything other than the career she’d come to love.
Bertha grunted. “That’s the wise choice. We’ve coin enough to find smaller apartments.”
Yes, but for how long? A week?
“Verity, if we stay here, we hang,” Bertha said quietly.
Oh, and Miss Lovelace? If you cross me again, I’ll ruin you . . .
Verity bit the inside of her cheek, scrabbling that flesh, welcoming the sting of discomfort over the fear that the mere echo of his warning instilled. She rested her head along the back of the porcelain tub and stared at the cheerful mural overhead. The recessed ceiling was intricately lined in gold with an oval carved at the center. Set within was a pale-blue, cloud-filled sky, that pretend window out to the world, as make-believe as the life Verity had stolen these past days as her own.
Except the faintest sheen of dust dulled the green inlay border, a taunting reminder that all this was a sham. All of it.
“Soon,” she allowed before her courage deserted her.
“It’s the right decision, gel.” And as if she worried Verity might change her mind and debate her on the point if she lingered, Bertha quit the rooms.
As soon as she’d gone, Verity slipped under the water, submerging her ears and tunneling out all sounds but for the muted beat of her heart. She hated that Bertha was right, just as she hated that there were no options for them now. But then, there’d never truly been options. Not for women born outside the peerage. For that was what Verity had been the moment her mother had given her heart and body to an earl unwilling to marry outside his station. And for it, the pair that had been Verity’s parents had doomed her and Livvie to their untenable fate.
Verity exploded from the water, gasping for a proper breath.
Damn them both.
She reached around for the cloth that had been draped somewhere along the side of the tub . . . when someone slipped that cloth into her hands.
Bertha. Verity set her teeth. She’d already secured Verity’s agreement. “I’ve already agreed with you. Tomorrow is the day. You needn’t worry that I’ve changed my mind.”
“And tell me, Verity, what might you have changed your mind about?” At that steely whisper, Verity went absolutely motionless. Blood whooshed in her ears, smothering that voice. Slowly, she wiped the cloth over her eyes, brushing away the moisture. And then she held that fabric there.
Because as long as she didn’t look at the owner of that low baritone, she needn’t confront him and his fury. A palpable, thrumming one that vibrated in that coolly asked question.
Except . . . she’d made many mistakes in her life, but there was one certainty: she was no coward.
Reluctantly, Verity lowered the cloth.
Malcom sat with a hip perched on the opposite end of the bath; his gaze trained on her face. “Hello, Verity.” That all-too-familiar, menacing grin that she’d come to recognize as patently false. “Or should I say . . . wife?”
Chapter 17
THE LONDON GAZETTE
THE HEART OF A GENTLEMAN . . .
So many have whispered with fear of the earl who will one day reclaim his rightful place amongst Polite Society. Now, however, with Lord Maxwell’s having saved a young woman from certain peril, there is no doubting that he is not the monster the ton initially expected he would be . . .
E. Daubin
Fury had driven Malcom to his Grosvenor Square properties. Just as that emotion had compelled him abovestairs to the fancy chambers in search of the bloody thief of his secrets and now his material possessions.
And yet,
all that safer fury had left him the moment he’d slipped inside the room and found the interloper, Verity Lovelace, naked and soaking in a bath with a light dusting of bubbles her only covering.
And damn him for his weakness as primal lust burnt more palpable than any of the anger he carried for this woman.
Seated on the edge of the bath, Malcom shifted in a bid to hide the telltale evidence of his desire. A mere physical reaction, and yet he’d be damned if he revealed any weakness to her.
“You’ve gone quiet, Verity,” he said silkily. “How unlike you.”
With a squeak, she slammed the small slip of fabric protectively against her breasts; that careless movement merely parted the water like a filmy curtain being drawn back to reveal the tantalizing display below. Unbidden, he devoured her with his eyes.
She squeaked again and sank lower so the sudsy bubbles touched her earlobes. “Stop looking at me.”
“Do you know, I rather think I won’t, Miss Lovelace.” Pushing to his feet, Malcom glided around the curved porcelain bath until he reached her shoulder. “Or do I have that incorrect? Perhaps I should call you Lady Maxwell? Or is it Countess?”
“Perhaps we can continue our discussion after.” She gave him a pointed look. “When I’m properly dressed.”
Any other sane woman would have been blubbering with fear at having been caught in the deception that this one now carried out.
He grinned. “Oh, no. I rather prefer you precisely as you are, dear wife.”
The minx drew her knees close, fanning those bubbles once more, the suds parting to reveal the thatch of dark curls between her legs. Aye, if he were an honorable man, he’d look away. Alas, none of either East or West London would dare confuse Malcom North with anything other than he was.
Gasping, she buried a palm over that erotic sight. “You, sir, are no gentleman.”
“Aye, at last you’ve come ’round to the way of it.” Only that taunting barb came out guttural, from a place of maddening hunger for the slip of a woman before him.
Verity lifted her chin, defiance in that slight uptilt. Gloriously breathtaking in her arrogance . . . and pride. And then, the young woman lowered her legs and returned to the casual repose she’d been in before he’d stormed her rooms.
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