In Bed with the Earl

by Caldwell, Christi

  “Yes,” he said automatically. Something slipped in and then tumbled from his lips before he could call it back. “‘Sweetheart, now they will cut off thy father’s head. Mark, child, what I say: they will cut off my head, and perhaps make thee a king. But mark what I say: you must not be a king, so long as your brothers Charles and James do live,’” he murmured.

  Sensing Verity’s eyes on him, he felt his cheeks flush with heat and color. “Or . . . I believe I recall he uttered something of that effect.”

  “That is precisely what he was quoted as saying to his son,” Verity marveled, inching closer. “You’ve . . . heard that, then, at some point. And remembered it.”

  Sitting up, Malcom tugged at the loose cravat he’d donned. He did know the history of Charles’s execution . . . but when . . . and where that knowledge had come from, he’d no recollection. Boys in the street weren’t schooled in fine studies, and yet at some point, his education had come . . . from somewhere. Whether it had been from his father or a tutor . . . “I . . . don’t recall anything more than that,” he conceded gruffly.

  “After Charles’s execution”—Cromwell—“Cromwell took over. He sought to quash all hint of joy and outlawed anything that might bring pleasure.” Verity settled back onto her seat, eyeing the pelicans nosing around their blanket.

  With her silence, she made clear . . . she’d said all she intended to say, and if he wished to know more, then she expected him to give some indication.

  Mama . . . where do the pelicans come from?

  That child’s voice he knew inherently was his own rang around the walls of his mind. Taunting him with echoes and shadows he couldn’t make sense of. Just as he knew he’d asked that question, he also intrinsically knew the woman he’d called “Mama” hadn’t had an answer.

  Malcom’s tongue felt heavy in his mouth. And yet . . . this . . . engaging with another on matters that had nothing to do with plundering the sewers of London, was as foreign as the languages one picked up in passing at the London wharves. “Why pelicans?” he made himself ask, his voice emerging harsh.

  It was all Verity required. “Well, Charles the Second had an inordinate fascination with fowl himself.” Her bonnet slipped once again, and she pushed the frilly article back. “Knowing that about the monarch, an ambassador to Russia presented the king with two grey pelicans.” As she spoke, bright color suffused her cheeks, and she gestured animatedly. Malcom stared on, riveted. It was an impossibility to not be further entranced by the young woman . . . and her telling. “The original pelicans, however, were never successfully bred, and still today, they periodically replenish the population.” She stared at him expectantly.

  Another smile twitched at his lips. “That is an impressive breadth of information on the pelicans in Hyde Park, my lady.”

  “I conducted a story on it,” she explained. The pelicans, having long tired of the lack of food and attention paid them, waddled off and set up in a new place upon an empty boulder. And she waited.

  She never compelled him to speak.

  She shared stories of herself so that he might see the reasons he denied his past. She let him understand just why he clung to the darkness.

  And mayhap, after all these years, that was what gave him the strength to talk—to her.

  “My parents brought me here. My father would ride.” Cupping a hand over his eyes, he scanned the grounds, ignoring the lords and ladies strolling past. A tall, bespectacled gentleman at some point had stopped and stared blatantly upon Malcom and Verity. This time, none of those gossips mattered. “There,” he murmured, pointing to a graveled path. “It was narrower. There was more brush and growth. My mother and I would sit on a blanket, feeding the pelicans.” The remembrances slipped forth. “And chasing them.” Just then, one of those enormous fowl waddled past, and then launched himself into the water. “I’d chase them about. My mother would pretend to scold me and come running after me, but then we were both chasing them together.” It was so real, so vivid in his mind.

  Her face.

  Their laughing faces together.

  A small hand slipped into Malcom’s. Verity wound her fingers through his.

  He didn’t move for a moment, and then slowly Malcom curved his hand around hers.

  Chapter 23

  THE LONDONER

  REVENGE

  All society is well aware of the Rightful Heir’s attempt to make a beggar of the previous Lord Maxwell, who’d stolen that respected title. All society is also left with one shared question: When will he have his final revenge on the man responsible for his miseries . . . ?

  M. Fairpoint

  Everything had changed.

  Some seismic shift had occurred at Hyde Park, and nothing for Verity could ever be the same again.

  But then—Verity studied her reflection in her vanity mirror—perhaps the shift hadn’t been so quick, after all. Perhaps it had been with each and every exchange, a gradual breakdown that had occurred of those impressive barriers Malcom had put up.

  And she should be thinking of her story and the interview she sought.

  But could only think of him. Of being with him . . .

  The following morning, Verity didn’t know how to be with Malcom.

  “Get that silly look off your face, gel.”

  She tensed.

  Bertha stomped out of the dressing room.

  “I don’t have a silly look.” Except . . . she stole a peek at herself in the cheval mirror, and blushed. Aye, there was a definite faraway wistfulness to her gaze, and glowing skin and—

  “I knew ya were going to make a mistake with that one,” Bertha snapped.

  She bristled. “I haven’t made a mistake.”

  “Do you think I don’t see how you’re moonstruck over the earl? All that sighing and long gazes.”

  She frowned. “I’m not some naive girl, Bertha. I’m a grown woman capable of protecting myself.” Except, was she? Was she truly safe from the power of Malcom’s charm?

  “Your mother thought the same.” There was a malice in that retort, the like of which Verity had never before heard from the other woman.

  “Either way, it’s not your place,” she said crisply.

  “Isn’t it? I was taking care of you when you were a babe. And then when Livvie was born all those years later, I cared for her while you—”

  “While I saw that we all survived,” she interrupted.

  “You’re becoming your mother.”

  Indignation swelled in her breast. “I am nothing like my mother,” she bit out. “My mother never put anyone before her love of my father. And—”

  “And you’re incapable of thinking about anything except your earl.”

  Her protestations faded away on the wings of fear and horror. Verity’s skin went clammy. Nay. It wasn’t possible. Her nursemaid was simply worried about the possibility of the past repeating itself. But Verity couldn’t. She wouldn’t . . . love a man who’d never belong to her. Want a future that would never be. Her heart hammered away. “You’re wrong.” She had to be.

  “Am I?” Bertha asked with a sad smile. “And this one a ruthless sewer dweller too selfish to share those tunnels with other toshers.”

  “He is nothing like that,” Verity snapped. “And you don’t know him at all.”

  Tension blanketed the room.

  Bertha dropped a small, mocking curtsy. “You should get on, my lady. I trust you have another meeting with the earl.”

  Refusing to allow the cynical nursemaid to ruin her outing for the morning, Verity grabbed her bonnet and quit the rooms.

  When she reached Malcom’s offices, she hovered outside.

  Surely Bertha was wrong.

  Verity appreciated Malcom. Admired him for looking after Fowler and Bram. She was grateful for the kindness he’d shown her and Livvie. It was nothing more than that . . .

  Why did it feel like she was the worst sort of liar to herself?

  “Are you going to lurk out there, or are you goi
ng to enter?”

  His deep voice carried through the panel, his booming tones muffled by the heavy oak. Verity jumped. She tried to make anything of them warm or teasing or soft. Anything that harkened back to the gentleness and intimacy they’d shared at Hyde Park. And found . . . none of it.

  Grabbing the handle, she pressed it and let herself inside. Moisture dampened her palms, and she resisted the urge to wipe them along the sides of her skirts. Be breezy. You’re a thirty-year-old woman. “How did you know I was there?”

  “Heightened senses are a product of life on the streets,” he explained almost disinterestedly, his gaze focused on his cluttered desk.

  Bonnet in hand, Verity joined him across the room and, not waiting for permission, seated herself. “What are you doing?” she asked, her curiosity getting the better of her and her nerves.

  “Inventorying.”

  “Inventorying?”

  “It is something that toshers do.” He inked several notes upon a meticulous column of words and numbers. “You can mention that in your article.”

  Her article? It took a moment for that word, and then suggestion, to compute.

  Malcom briefly lifted his head, and grinned at her. “Or rather, the good toshers do.”

  His smile proved contagious. Her lips turned up at the corners. Verity set aside the straw bonnet she’d grabbed from those left by the previous young lady who’d lived here. “May I?”

  He hesitated.

  He wanted to reject her request.

  She’d come to know him enough, however, that not relinquishing the books suggested he cared more than he did. A vulnerability he’d not allow himself.

  “Forgive me,” she murmured. “It’s not my place to pry into your important matters.”

  There was a wickedness in her that, in a bid to share his world, she’d turn that weakness against him. He grunted. “They aren’t important matters.” Malcom nudged his chin at her.

  More than half fearing he’d gather the ploy she’d used and take back that offer, Verity plucked the tome from a pile, opened it, and began to read. She paused. This is what he’d meant by inventorying. Column after column filled the pages, containing an enumeration of items and a value alongside it. Nay, not just any items . . . but rather, articles that belonged to him. She flipped through the accounting. When she reached the end, she looked over at Malcom. These weren’t items found in a sewer. “They are records of your estates and all your belongings.”

  “Aye.” Malcom shifted in his seat. “Some of them, at least.”

  Returning the ledger to his desk, Verity measured her words for several moments. “There is nothing . . . wrong in taking interest in that which you’ve a right to, Malcom,” she said gently.

  An endearing blush splotched his cheeks. “It is a force of habit. I collect items, record their value, and sell or save them.”

  He offered a rare unsolicited glimpse into how he’d lived his life these past years. Only it wasn’t her story that she thought of just then but instead him. She flipped through the pages, scanning as she went.

  Everything from gold timepieces to embroidered kerchiefs to . . . horses.

  “And is that what you intend? To . . . sell them?”

  “Yes.”

  Verity paused in her searching and briefly looked up. “To what end?” Verity pressed. “When you receive the monies from selling everything, what do you do?”

  “What do I do?”

  “Malcom.” Verity set the book down on her lap. “On this page alone there must be . . .” She glanced down and silently tabulated in her head, mouthing her count aloud. “One thousand pounds in material items.” She sharply turned the next page, and silently added the numbers there. “And . . . and . . .” Her eyes bulged. “This is another two thousand pounds.” Her voice climbed. “And that is just two pages.” My God, he must be worth . . . She frantically flipped through the book, and sat back, stunned. “You’re richer than Croesus.” And just off the funds he’d inherited. The riches before her had nothing to do with what he’d amassed as a tosher.

  “I should expect you’d understand the value in an accumulated fortune,” he said without malice. Then he reached dismissively for his pen, dipped it into the crystal inkwell, and resumed writing.

  That was it? That was all he’d say? “But—” He looked up suddenly, his unwavering stare commanding to silence her, and mayhap if she were a different woman with a greater modicum of fear and a desire for self-preservation, she’d have let the matter go . . . But she’d come to know that gruff as he may be, neither was Malcom North one who’d hurt her or anyone. She tried to reason with him. “Malcom,” she said gently, turning the ledger around, “this is so much money.” My God, she could provide for her and Livvie and Bertha for the remainder of their lives, and comfortably, on but one and a half of the items recorded here.

  “And you’d have me give it away?”

  “What is the point in keeping all of it?” she rebutted.

  “I’m not keeping it.”

  “Fine, then selling it,” she said, not missing a beat. Goodness, he was obstinate. “Why—”

  “Let it be,” he said sharply, a vein bulging at the corner of his temple. With that, he resumed his frantic writing, the staccato tap of the pen flying across the pages punctuating the quiet.

  As he worked on, Verity studied his bent head. The lone blond tress that had escaped his queue lent an almost . . . vulnerability . . . to the stoic figure he presented to the world.

  Malcom might not recall the specifics of what had happened to him in the earliest part of his life, but there was an inherent remembrance of having, and then . . . not. Her heart squeezed. If, however, he simply gave away these items, then he’d lose those pieces that linked him to the parents who’d died. The parents who’d undoubtedly loved him. With the losses of those items, so, too, went items that might jog any memory.

  And mayhap that is what he wishes for, too. Whether deliberate or inadvertent, perhaps he was doing all he could to shut out everything except for the hardships.

  As she exchanged the leather tome in one hand for another, he continued working, but she felt him tense. Saw his gaze creep briefly over to her hand as she gripped that book and pulled it to her.

  He’d not acknowledge her actions, but he was aware of her and what she did.

  More leisurely, Verity paged through the catalog. Unlike the previous volume of masculine possessions, these ones were—

  She slammed her finger down in the middle of the page.

  Ladies’ boots

  Gowns

  Day dresses

  Bonnets

  Aprons

  Pearl brooches

  Ruby tiaras

  Sevres box

  Ribbons

  Slippers

  Queen Ann wooden peg doll

  Verity didn’t move. Her heart pulled, and then splintered. “These belonged to a young woman,” she murmured. She recalled the story of Lord Bolingbroke and his siblings. “Three of them.”

  When he said nothing, she looked up.

  At some point, he’d ceased his writing and openly studied her.

  “These belong to them, do they not?” The earl . . . Except that wasn’t quite right. “Lord Bolingbroke’s three sisters?” She needed him to say it.

  “I suspect,” he said with a casual shrug.

  “What need have you of”—she glanced down at the three items which had ultimately given her pause—“worn slippers, ribbons, and a . . . wooden peg doll?”

  “I don’t.”

  “You don’t.”

  That was all he’d say? “But they did, Malcom.” Just as Verity had desperately needed the dresses and slippers and boots she’d been forced to sell at her father’s passing. But this time, for these women, it had been Malcom who had been the one to see all that taken.

  “Why don’t you say what it is you’re thinking?” he snapped.

  It was a challenge. If he expected her to back down, however
, he was to be disappointed. “Very well,” she said slowly, resting the book on her lap. “They are no more responsible for the decisions of their parents than you are responsible for what happened to you that night.” The night he didn’t speak of . . . or remember. The one shrouded in mystery.

  “You care so much for people you’ve never met?”

  Verity angrily flipped through the book and stopped at the back. “And you should hate—” She froze. Her gaze landed at the center of the page. Her mind slowed as she struggled through those annotations.

  “I did it because I hate them,” he said quickly. Too quickly. “Don’t make more of it than there is.”

  And yet . . . how could she not? Her eyes scoured the pages, making sense of the numbers and details written there. “You didn’t intend to simply take their belongings,” she said softly, stroking a finger over the words. Understanding at last dawned.

  “Don’t, Verity,” he snapped.

  “You were giving it all away.”

  A stiff silence met that revelation.

  Verity fell back in her seat. Here she’d been berating him. Believing the worst. Accusing him of wrongly directing his anger at the wrong people. When all along, he’d been diverting those resources to others. Ones who were deserving in an altogether different light. “Malcom,” she said softly.

  He wiped a hand down his face. “As I said, do not make more of it than there is.”

  Only, what else was there to make of it?

  Salvation Foundling Hospital

  Ladies of Hope

  London Hospital

  The list went on. He was so very determined that the world see him in the darkest possible light. He was content to be seen as ruthless, and yet at every moment, with every decision he made and every person he saved, he revealed himself to be one of great honor.

  Verity lifted her eyes from that evidence before her.

  He met her with nothing but a mutinous silence. Of course. Because he was determined that the world would despise him. He, in fact, made it easy for them to do so. “But you didn’t just take it, though, did you, Malcom?” She needed him to acknowledge that truth. Not for her. But for him. “You gave it to others.” Verity clicked the ledger shut, and set it down. “Just as you gave this townhouse to Fowler and Bram to retire. Because you knew.” She shifted to the edge of her seat. “You knew they were too proud to not contribute, but were also too old to continue on in their current role as toshers.”