In Bed with the Earl

by Caldwell, Christi

  “Ain’t nothing wrong with a callus.” Fowler grunted.

  “There is when they break and then you get dirt in them, and well, it’s no different from getting dirt in an open wound.”

  Malcom lingered at the entrance.

  Mayhap it was relief so strong that managed to stir an even more unfamiliar sentiment—mirth.

  And he didn’t know whether to be relieved or irate with the young woman who’d sent him—

  Verity glanced over her shoulder. “Oh, hullo,” she greeted.

  And the floor fell out from under him.

  Since he’d taken his leave of her that morn, a round knot had formed at the right side of her forehead. A vicious knob, a product of a blow.

  The air hissed between his teeth.

  “Get out.”

  Stiffening, Verity shoved to her feet. “I’ll not.”

  “Not you, madam,” he ground out.

  Those enormous eyes blinked. “Oh, uh . . . well, because I was going to say I’ll not be ordered about.”

  Fowler and Bram exchanged a look, and then simultaneously jumped up. The pair of toshers shuffled guiltily over to the door and made their exit.

  Good. They should feel guilty, the blighters.

  Malcom fixed on that outrage to keep from descending into panic. She was all right. She was . . . sporting an enormous bruise, which according to her sister, was the product of an attack.

  And where was I? Diving into sewers, fishing out treasure I don’t need. Wealth that other people in the dire circumstances he’d once found himself in desperately needed.

  Malcom slammed the door shut, hard.

  “You needn’t do that,” she chided, tidying up the little workstation she’d arranged for herself between the chairs previously occupied by her patients.

  Her patients.

  When she was the one who should be lying down with a—

  “Doctor—” He already had the door opened and was thundering for a servant.

  Billy popped out of the shadows. “Ya called, sir,” she piped in.

  “The butler . . .” What in blazes was the man’s name? Why hadn’t he bothered to learn it? He’d be the one with those connections Malcom—and Verity—needed in this moment.

  “Coleman, my lord.”

  “Have Coleman fetch a doctor.”

  “Malcom, I don’t need a doctor.”

  The girl was already darting down the hall.

  “One has already come,” Verity called, sailing over to the door.

  “Then you’ll see a different one.” To be certain she wasn’t truly hurt. “You should be in bed,” he squeezed between clenched teeth as she took the panel in her fingers and ducked her head—her injured head—out.

  “I don’t need a doctor, Billy.”

  The little girl stopped.

  “Fetch the doctor.”

  Billy took a step forward. She wavered back and forth, her arms outstretched and a hopeless look etched in her small features.

  “You’re confusing the girl,” Verity chided. “Stop it.” Stepping out into the hall, she spoke in a gentle but insistent voice. “I don’t require another doctor at this time, Billy, but if I do, I’ll be certain to let you know.”

  And in an absolute display of which one of them held actual power in this household and over people, Billy dropped a curtsy. “As ya wish, moi lady.”

  It wasn’t enough.

  “You need to be checked again, Verity,” he said tightly as she closed the door.

  “I’ve been—eep.” Malcom swept her up, an arm under her knees, and cradling her against his chest, he carried her over to the bed. “I can walk, Malcom.”

  Had she been able to walk in the immediacy of the attack? Was she even now putting on a brave show through the pain? His chest tightened.

  “It doesn’t matter that you can. You’re not doing it.” He lay her down gently in the middle of the mattress. And hovered there, uncertain, when he’d always had answers. When he’d never feared anything. He feared for this woman. It was an enervating, crippling panic that chipped away at all coherent thought. Somewhere along the way, she’d come to mean more to him than anyone. “Do you have nothing to say to me?” he managed when he trusted himself to speak.

  “You heard about the attack.”

  “I heard about the attack,” he confirmed.

  “Oh.” She twisted her fingertips in the lace coverlet.

  How was she so calm? How, when a raw rage set every nerve to vibrating? When he wanted to hunt down and end the one who’d dared put his hands upon her?

  “Livvie?” she ventured.

  “Livvie.”

  “Livvie,” she muttered under her breath.

  God love the girl. Had it not been for her, Malcom would still be waxing on in his mind about everything he felt—and feared feeling—for the woman before him.

  Verity abruptly stopped that distracted toying with her bedding. “I thought you’d be grateful for a reprieve?”

  His blond brows came together in a fierce line. By God, was she . . . ?

  “I take it you’re not amused?”

  “I’m not amused,” he whispered.

  Chapter 27

  THE LONDONER

  THE HUNTED BECOMES THE HUNTER . . .

  Our sources report upon learning of the assault on his wife, the Earl of Maxwell went half-mad . . . and he’s revealed the ruthlessness which he’s kept carefully concealed from Polite Society . . . until now.

  M. Fairpoint

  Over their course of knowing one another, Verity had encountered many shades of Malcom’s anger, and at any number of times.

  But never had she seen him like this. His sharp features tensed in lines of fury, veins bulging at his temple, his eye twitching. His self-control was thin, and she’d only ever seen him in command of it . . . and himself.

  And he should be upset . . . about her?

  Something in that evidence of his caring sent a warmth unfurling in her breast.

  On the heel of that was the call to reality. “I assure you, I’m quite well to continue on with our arrangement, Malcom.”

  He narrowed his eyes, and then dropping a knee on her bed, he climbed onto the mattress. “Is that what you believe?” he whispered. “That I’m concerned about the deal we’ve struck?”

  Something in his tone suggested she weigh her answer and provide the correct one. In the end, she offered him what he deserved—the truth. “I don’t know, Malcom.” She well knew how she felt about him. She knew that her heart was lighter whenever he was near. That he’d made her open her eyes to the stories she should have been fighting these years to tell. But she didn’t know what he felt or how he felt about her.

  He stopped his advance, kneeling beside her.

  With an infinite tenderness that sent warmth spiraling all the more, he brought his palm close to her cheek. It hovered there. This man, uncertain in ways that he’d only ever been fully in command of. Then ever so slightly, he touched his callused fingertips to the corner of her injury.

  She bit her lip.

  “Oh, V-Verity,” he said hoarsely. His voice cracking as he misunderstood her response for one of pain. And aye, her head throbbed still from the bashing it had taken, but the feel of him so close, and caring as he did, threatened to shatter her.

  “I’m fine,” she whispered, placing her palm over his.

  “What happened?”

  “Someone slammed my forehead into a bookcase.”

  His eyes slid closed. “I should have been there.”

  She’d wanted him to be there . . . but not out of any sense of obligation.

  “I fainted. When I came to, I was already in the carriage. A gentleman had helped carry me from the shop and sent us on our way.”

  The muscles of his throat moved rapidly.

  “A doctor was here most of the day. He insists it is a superficial wound.”

  Malcom gently framed her face between his long fingers; the tenderness of that caress brought he
r eyes closed.

  “Verity, are you attempting to reassure me?”

  She sat up. “Is it working?”

  “Not at all. Who?”

  It had been inevitable. That particular question that could never end well . . . not for Malcom. It would lead to scandal and controversy and conflict he didn’t need. Not with what his life had been. “They were strangers,” she hedged. “Two of them.”

  “What did they want?”

  He’d never be content in believing it was a random attack at a London bookshop.

  He sat back; his keen gaze worked her face. “You’re not telling me for a reason.”

  Blast him for being so astute. “Someone who wants me to keep your story silent.”

  Malcom fell back on his haunches. “Bolingbroke.”

  “I don’t know that,” she said quickly, even as he confirmed her initial supposition at Hatchards. “And you don’t know that, either.” No good could come from Malcom entering into a battle with a peer of the realm, one whose family had already proven ruthless.

  Frost glazed his eyes. “I’ll kill him.”

  And despite knowing Malcom as she did, Verity found herself shivering at the dark threat blazing from those golden depths.

  Verity came up on her knees before him and took his face between her palms. “You won’t, because you’re not one to simply charge after someone without knowing facts.”

  “You don’t know—”

  “I do know that about you.”

  The muscles under her palms jumped and moved. He was a volatile ball of thrumming nerves and energy. Verity worked her eyes over him. “Malcom, I don’t want you to run off and fight battles for me. I’ve been alone for eighteen years, and when I leave this place at the end of next year’s Season, I’ll be fighting them on my own. While you, you’ll be living with and amongst these people.”

  “I don’t care about any of them. Any of this.” Emotion hoarsened his voice. “I care about you.”

  Her heart jumped several beats.

  “And I want to fight this battle for you.”

  She stroked the back of her knuckles along his jaw. “Oh, Malcom. You don’t get to decide that. I do.”

  “You are maddening, Verity Lovelace,” he whispered.

  “Aye.” Verity smiled softly. And yet, when had anyone truly looked after her? Oh, there’d been Bertha and her mother and, periodically, her father about. But even in those earliest days when life had been easiest, Verity’s well-being and happiness had fallen second to her emotional, brokenhearted mother. Too often Verity had been focused on seeing that her mother smiled, as had Bertha, but no one had been there for Verity. Not truly. Going up on her knees, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his.

  He froze, and then kissed her back with a desperation that matched hers.

  Malcom broke the embrace as quick as it started. “Why . . . ?”

  “Because I want to,” she said simply. “Because I want to be in your arms.” Because I love you. And when they parted ways, she’d live on as a spinster, and when she did, she’d have this moment, with this man, there as part of her memories. This time when she kissed him, there was a desperation to their embrace.

  She came alive all at once.

  They came alive together.

  He groaned and caught her around the waist, drawing her closer as if he needed to feel her against him. And she luxuriated in that evidence of his desire. She herself needing to feel him in every way. “You’ve thrown my existence off-center, Verity.”

  Aye, as he’d done to hers. And she’d never recover. “Then we’re even, Malcom North,” she panted out between each lash of his lips on hers. God help her, she didn’t want to recover from this upside-down world.

  And there would be time enough to panic about her need for this man. But for now, there was only them. For now, she wanted it to be only them.

  Verity parted her lips, and he slipped his tongue inside to taste her as he’d done twice before. “I’ve dreamed of doing this every moment since our last kiss.”

  “Then our dreams are aligned, tooooo.” The remainder of that broke down into a moan as he nipped and teased the corner of her mouth.

  “You taste of chocolate and mint and honey.”

  They dueled with their tongues.

  “Is that a g-good thing?” she asked when he moved his lips down the curve of her neck.

  The depth of desire in his eyes touched her to the quick, hot, like a physical caress. “Aye. It’s an all-intoxicating sweetness I’ve never known in any way, Verity Lovelace.”

  Verity Lovelace.

  I want to be joined with him. In every way.

  Thrusting aside those regretful musings, not allowing this moment to descend into what she truly longed for and what would never be, she kissed him again. Their tongues lashed against one another, an erotic dance with no predefined rules or movements.

  And then he broke away from her.

  Verity cried out. “What? Why . . . ? Why did you stop?”

  He wanted her. He wanted her as he’d never hungered for another. And yet he could not simply take the gift she held out. Even as he yearned to. Even as he resented this belated discovery that she’d, in fact, been correct; there was a shred of honor that lived within his worthless soul, after all. Panting, Malcom pulled away, a concerted effort that took every bit of self-control he’d fought to master through the years.

  Her lashes, thick and heavy, fluttered up, revealing the question in her eyes a moment before it spilled from her lips in a single hoarse utterance: “Why?”

  “I don’t want this as payment.” He managed to force that admission between sharp gasps for breath.

  Some of the desire receded from her eyes, and she leaned up, straightening from her haunches. “Is that why you believe I’m doing this? To pay you for the gifts you’ve given me?”

  He winced. “No. Aye.” Malcom dragged a hand through his hair, unloosening his queue. Everything was upside down. “I don’t know,” he confessed. He knew only that he wanted her. That he wanted her to want him. But that never would he have her in any way but one that was of her own choosing, one that came from a place of only desire—for him.

  “Oh, Malcom,” she whispered, and then leaning up once more, she touched her lips to the corner of his—first one and then the other. A butterfly-soft caress that weighted his eyes shut. “This is me making love with you because I want to, Malcom.” The lilting timbre of her voice emerged like a seductive song, and it sent a fresh wave of desire thrumming through his veins. “I’m a woman and I know what I want.” Desire darkened her eyes. “I want you.”

  And with that, he was lost.

  Or mayhap, he’d been found.

  Mayhap he’d truly been found the day he’d discovered her in the sewers of London . . . and his life would never be the same.

  Groaning, Malcom worked his lips down her neck. He flicked his tongue out, teasing the flesh, until breathless moans spilled from her; his shaft went impossibly hard at the unrestrained evidence of her desire. “You are so beautiful, Verity,” he said between each kiss on her satiny-soft skin.

  “You. Are. Too.” She gasped those three words out, wringing a smile from him. He brought his hands up between them, cupping her supple breasts. “Y-you are.” She panted, her head falling back, allowing him better access. “I th-thought it the first . . . mmm”—her speech dissolved into an incoherent, keening cry as he lowered her neckline and swooped down to worship the creamy swells of her breasts—“time I saw you,” she said, her words running together on a rush. As if she’d never draw proper breath to speak a proper sentence, but needed him to know those truths.

  He was on fire, set ablaze by her yearning. Sweat beaded along his brow; it trickled down his cheek, and Verity lifted fingers that shook to brush that perspiration away.

  Their gazes held; in her violet depths was reflected back all the desire singing through him. Not breaking contact with her gaze, Malcom undid the handful of buttons on
his jacket, and shrugged out of it. He reached for his shirttails the same moment Verity did. Together, they divested him of the lawn article.

  Her lips, swollen and damp from his ministrations, parted as she eyed him.

  He stiffened, seeing the same scarred canvas littered with the marks left by daggers and injuries he’d sustained dwelling underground in London.

  Verity stroked her fingertips over the jagged scar alongside his navel. He tensed, but then she bent down and touched her lips to him.

  “So beautiful,” she whispered between each caress of her mouth on him.

  Malcom released a hiss through tightly clenched teeth, fisting his hands at his sides.

  It had never been like this with a woman. Tender and slow, and yet also burning and frantic. Sex had been nothing more than a physical act, a satiation of his lust that brought an all-too-brief, mindless release from the hell that was life.

  With Verity, it was . . . more.

  Because she was more than he’d ever dared believe himself worthy of.

  She drifted her trail of kisses lower, grazing the top of the waistline of his trousers, where a scar started.

  It was too much.

  He groaned, low, deep, and guttural, the sound lodging in his throat.

  Drawing her up, Malcom took her mouth under his once more, and set to work on the tiny buttons down the length of her dress. In between each frantic meeting of their lips, he spoke. “Why are there so many damned buttons?”

  “I like them,” she said breathlessly, her voice ragged like the night of their first meeting, when she’d run, frantic, through London at his side. “Th-they’re v-very delicate.”

  He wrenched at the buttons down the front of her dress, and the fastenings gave with a pop. And then pinged and hopped along the floor, bouncing on the table, all around them. The gaping fabric revealed her chemise underneath. Malcom and Verity ceased moving; their chests rose and fell hard and fast in a matched rhythm. “I’ll buy you more.”

  “You needn’t—”

  He swallowed those protestations with another kiss and then guided her back down.