In Bed with the Earl

by Caldwell, Christi

  “Bah,” Bertha spat, spittle forming at the corners of her tense mouth. “You’d hold him up on a pedestal for what he’s done for others. Tell me this, Verity: What has he done for you? He’s trapped you, that’s what. He’s used you.” Her voice pitched around the room. “He’s bedded you. And in the end, he’d turn you out.”

  “They were my decisions,” she cried out, shaking. “All of them. Everything I did was because I wanted to.”

  “You’re just like your mother.”

  Once that would have struck like the insult it was surely intended as. Verity lifted her chin a notch. “At least she was capable of love. Your heart is only full of hate.”

  The old woman jerked like she’d been slapped. “I did this for you.”

  “You didn’t do this for me. You did it for you. Get out,” she said tiredly, and for the first time in her life, she turned and presented the former nursemaid with her back.

  “After all the years we’ve been together, you should doubt me?” Bertha whispered.

  Verity stiffened as her nursemaid came around and faced her, with a hand outstretched.

  Wordlessly, Verity took the page, and read it.

  Two hundred pounds paid out by Mr. Fairpoint.

  I’m going to be ill . . . “You worked with him?” Verity cried.

  “He gave me coin here and there to tell him little things. Things that didn’t matter.”

  Verity felt the blood leave her face.

  “What?” Bertha said defensively. “I used that coin to help pay our rent and put food upon our table.”

  “What things did you tell him?” she asked, her voice pitched.

  Bertha frowned. “Where you were going to conduct your research. When you’d be working on cases. And for that he gave us a sizable coin for a story you wouldn’t have made half for, had your name been put to it. He was always going to see you sacked, Verity.” The old woman shrugged. “I just managed to secure us funds before he did.”

  Verity’s knees weakened. “Oh, my God,” she breathed.

  The threat at Hatchards. Her stomach revolved. Why, even the night she’d been followed. Fairpoint had been attempting to scare her out of doing her work in order to secure his own position. And Verity’s loyal nursemaid had gone and thrown all her support to one such as him. Verity made to tear up the note, but crying out, Bertha surged forward.

  Verity froze. For all that had come to pass, Bertha had still spent the whole of her life with Verity and Livvie. Wrinkling the note into a ball, she tossed it at the other woman. “Get out. I never want to see you again.”

  “Verity.” The old woman shook her head, disbelief stamped on her features. “This is me. You don’t mean that.”

  “I’ve never meant anything more, Bertha.”

  Tears glassed the nursemaid’s eyes. A moment later, she turned . . . and was gone.

  Verity didn’t move for several moments, and then all the life drained from her legs and she sank onto the edge of the nearest seat.

  The rapid clip of determined steps carried from the corridor.

  Her heart squeezed. She wasn’t ready to face him. Not yet. Feeling like one facing her executioner, Verity climbed to her feet.

  Only, two figures filled the doorway. Neither of whom was Malcom. The butler and a stranger who was . . . not a stranger. Bespectacled, tall, the gentleman was since sporting a bruise from their last encounter. “You,” she blurted. The man she’d come across at various outings. But who yesterday at Hatchards had attempted to come to her rescue.

  The butler cleared his throat. “The Earl of Wakefield to see you.”

  The Earl . . .

  She whipped shocked eyes up to his.

  The young man doffed his hat and dropped it awkwardly to his side. “Hello,” he said quietly. “Please, if you’d call me Benedict.”

  And Verity found herself struck dumb for a second time that day.

  He was her half brother.

  Chapter 29

  THE LONDONER

  TREACHERY!

  Is it any wonder with her bastardy, Miss Verity Lovelace committed the ultimate deception against Polite Society? It is a wonder, however, that her half brother, the Earl of Wakefield, paid her a call. What was discussed at that reunion . . . ?

  M. Fairpoint

  “Where in hell have you been?” was the snarled curse Malcom found himself greeted with upon his return six hours later.

  With one hand, Malcom tugged off his hat while loosening the clasp of his cloak with the other. “I had business to see to,” he said, tossing those articles to a waiting footman.

  “All this time later?” Fowler snapped. “There was trouble while you were gone.”

  Malcom came up short. “Verity,” he rasped, reaching for Bram.

  “Aye. Slow there, lad,” Bram barked, catching Malcom by the back of his jacket. “The girl is fine. Sad. But fine.” The old tosher yanked a folded newspaper from inside his jacket front and slammed it into Malcom’s chest.

  “What is this?” he asked, alternating between the silent pair.

  “Ya haven’t heard about that yet?”

  Heard about . . . ? Following his meeting with Bolingbroke, Malcom had taken care of two important matters, the most pressing of which was seeking out Steele’s services and putting him on the task of determining . . . His gaze scanned the front page of the gossip column. He cursed. “Where is she?”

  “In her rooms . . .” The words hadn’t even left Fowler’s mouth before Malcom was off and running, and once more, as he reached her rooms and let himself in, he hadn’t been sure what he’d expected . . . but this was certainly not it.

  “Hullo, Malcom.” She spoke quietly, standing alongside a tattered trunk and valise.

  Malcom entered slowly. “Verity.” He clicked the door shut behind them. All the while, his pulse knocked away, skittering out of control. She intended to leave. Or does she think you intend to send her away?

  Her gaze took in the scandal sheets clutched tight in his fist. “I trust you’ve seen the newspaper,” she murmured. It wasn’t a question, and yet, as he didn’t have any coherent reply in this instance, he nodded and answered anyway.

  “Aye.” He relaxed his grip, and then dropped the hated pages on a nearby table.

  “It was Bertha, you know.”

  He froze.

  Verity’s throat moved quickly, and she looked past his shoulders at the door panel behind him. “She resented you. She had a sweetheart. A tosher. A man named Alders.”

  Christ. Malcom dragged an unsteady hand through his hair. “He robbed Fowler. Beat him . . .”

  Verity waved a hand, dismissing that defense for what he’d done. “She believed I was repeating the sins of my mother, and that you were the one responsible for taking me down that path, and she wanted us out of here.” Her voice broke. “Away from you and the arrangement we’d struck.” At last, she looked at him squarely. “She sold the story to Fairpoint, the man whom I was competing with for work. He’s been the one attempting to silence me, and Bertha helped him.” Her voice dissolved on an agonized whisper as she hugged herself.

  Malcom took another step closer, wanting to take her in his arms, but she retreated, and that slight distance hit like a physical kick to the gut. Another time, rage would have clouded all reason. Now what radiated strongly first was the need to comfort. To take her close . . . even as she didn’t want that offering in this instance.

  All along, the woman Verity had seen as family, one whom she’d protected and cared for. And in the end, Bertha had delivered the ultimate betrayal . . . Knowing Verity as he did, she’d be ravaged inside. “She wasn’t entirely wrong.”

  That brought Verity’s gaze whipping over. “What?”

  He took a slow, careful step closer. Wanting to be near her. Wanting to keep her close and never let her go. “I’m the one who forced you to come here. I dangled a threat over your head.”

  She scoffed, and it was the first hint of her in-command self. “M
alcom, I came here of my own volition, just as I searched you out each time. You didn’t make me live with you and take part in your plan. I did that all on my own.”

  Aye, not even the Good Lord himself could bend Verity ’round to his thinking if Verity were of a different opinion. That conviction was just one of the reasons he’d fallen so hopelessly for her. God, how he loved her . . . and if she left, he’d never recover from the loss of her. He wanted her in his life forever. If she would have him in all his imperfection. His hands went damp. And never before had he wished he was one of those urbane gentlemen with all the right words so that this moment would be the one she deserved. “Verity, there is something I would—”

  “My brother came.”

  He cocked his head at that interruption.

  She turned her palms up. “My half brother. The Earl of Wakefield. He . . . learned about Livvie and me, and he’s been searching me out. I saw him at the bookstore that morn. I didn’t know who he was. He tried to stop it . . .” She ceased her ramblings.

  “And . . . what did he want?” he asked slowly, trying to slog through anything that made sense. Anything past the black dress she now wore. The one he’d given her at their first meeting. Not the pieces she’d adopted since she’d come here. His heart slipped another fraction at the implications of that, and of the articles at her feet.

  Verity drew in an uneven breath and ran her hands over her skirts. “My father was useless when it came to finances. My half brother, he’s been working to repair the family fortunes. He’s offered a little cottage to Livvie and me. A place to live, with a small stipend on which to survive.”

  The earth swayed under him. “That was a generous offer,” he said, his voice muffled in his ears. The earl had also offered that which Malcom should have unconditionally put forward for Verity. “And what did you say?”

  “I thanked him. I appreciated that he cared and sought to make our lives better, but said that I’d different hopes for my future.”

  The Londoner.

  His throat bobbed.

  Verity drifted ever closer. “I told him that I’d fallen in love.” His heart jumped. “That I’d fallen in love with you.” She slowed to a stop before him. “That I wanted to marry you.” Laying her palms on his chest, she leaned back so she could hold his gaze. “If you—”

  Malcom swallowed the remainder of that question with a kiss. His body shook from the force of the laughter and light moving through him. “Good God, Verity Lovelace,” he strangled out through the joy. Cupping her face, he rested his forehead against hers. “You’re the only woman who would beat me to a proposal.”

  Her eyes formed perfect circles. “Were you—” She gasped as he fell to a knee.

  “I’d come here intending to ask you to marry me. To spend your life letting me work to be the man you deserve. Loving you.”

  A sob burst from Verity’s lips. “Yes,” she cried out, her arms coming up—

  But he stopped her. “And then I’d also intended to offer you . . . your freedom, if you so choose.” He withdrew the notes from inside his jacket.

  Her lips parted, Verity took them and quickly worked through them. Another gasp escaped her.

  “I was otherwise delayed today because I paid a visit to the owner of The Londoner. I purchased the papers, because what they do is rubbish and what you would do with them would transform the world.”

  Tears glazed her eyes. “Malcom,” she whispered, those crystalline drops winding down her cheeks.

  He brushed them back.

  “And as I wanted to beat your Fairpoint to a pulp, I thought it only appropriate to leave you the honors when you stepped into the office as the proprietress.”

  She threw her arms around his neck, toppling the both of them.

  Malcom came down hard on his back, grunting as she fell atop him. “By your response I trust you’ve accepted option two?”

  “I love you, you silly man,” she rasped. “I want a life with you at my side.” Verity claimed his mouth, and he angled his head to receive her kiss. And infused within was all the joy and love he felt for her, and he tasted it on her lips and in the whisper of her breath. And it made him whole in ways that he’d only ever been empty. Verity broke the kiss. “I accept both options, Malcom North,” she teased. “A future with you and one with The Londoner.” Her smile wavered. “Would you accept that? An unconventional wife who conducts actual work?”

  He brushed the strands that had come free from her chignon, tucking them behind her ear. “I wouldn’t have you any other way, Verity,” he said hoarsely. “I’d only ever have you as you are.”

  “And I you, Malcom North,” she whispered.

  And as Verity leaned down and kissed him once more, Malcom smiled.

  At last, he’d been found.

  Epilogue

  Two months later

  St. Giles

  Everyone was there.

  From the most revered members of the ton to the poorest of the toshers to the wealthiest of the merchant class, all had come out that morn.

  The eclectic gathering of people now sat in a crowded auditorium.

  As they spoke, their voices rolled together; coarsened Cockneys, blended with the crispest of the King’s English, echoed from the twenty-foot ceilings.

  People born of different stations, who rarely acknowledged the others’ existence, had been joined in an unexpected commonality: rabid curiosity. After all, it was the story everyone wanted. Or rather, the latest story everyone wished to hear. Someday there would be a fresher piece of gossip, or a newer story, that men and women would crave the details of.

  But for now, this was the one that consumed people.

  Once, Malcom would have only been riddled with rage at those interlopers scrounging for details about his life the way the poor begged for scraps in the streets. That anger had since left him.

  Because of her . . .

  As if she’d heard those unspoken thoughts, Verity slipped her fingers into his. She gave a light squeeze, and raised them to her lips for a gentle kiss. “You are going to be brilliant, Malcom,” she said softly.

  “Yes, but will I still be brilliant alone?” When the other key player was missing.

  Verity held his gaze. “You’re never alone, Malcom.”

  His throat worked. “No. No, you are right on that score, love.” His gaze traveled out, bypassing the strangers in the crowd and homing in on the first row . . . the front row of the auditorium occupied by Bram, Fowler, Giles, and Billy. The four of them sat, shoulder to shoulder, pride beaming in their eyes. Malcom wasn’t alone. In those he’d spent a lifetime with on the streets, he’d found family. And in Verity.

  And behind that family, there sat another.

  A row of ladies and gentlemen who were strangers, and yet connected to him by another.

  Together, they stood there, side by side, surveying the room as one.

  “Are you nervous?” Verity asked.

  He hesitated. “Yes,” he allowed, giving her that truth. For the first time in the whole of his life, there was no shame in that acknowledgment. Before Verity, he’d have seen the admission as a weakness he couldn’t dare own. Nor was it worry about appearing before that crowd. Rather, his unease came in appearing before them alone. Malcom reached inside his jacket and grabbed the folded paper there. “None of this makes sense if he doesn’t arrive.” As guests began claiming their seats, true panic began to set in. “I’ll have to rewrite it. Only . . .” He grimaced. “There’s not time to rewrite anything. I’ll have to reorder my thoughts.” Malcom cursed. “I should have prepared an alternate speech—”

  Verity pressed her fingertips lightly against his lips. “He will be here,” she said simply.

  “You’re so certain.”

  “He’ll be here,” she repeated.

  The “he” in question being none other than Baron Bolingbroke. Bolingbroke, who’d been due nearly ten minutes ago. Except, what if the other man had simply gotten what he needed from Malc
om . . .

  “And his coming, Malcom, will not be because you’ve forgiven the debt that once hung over him and Poppy,” Verity murmured with her usual uncanny ability to sort through the thoughts roiling in his head long before he was able to himself identify the source of his unease. “He’ll be here because he promised he would,” she said simply.

  “And if he isn’t?” he insisted, forcing a casualness he didn’t feel.

  “Then you will be fine without him.”

  “What faith you have in me, lady wife.”

  She bristled. “And how could I not? A man who’s accomplished all you have? The most successful tosher to ever—”

  Malcom claimed her lips in a sweet, tender, too-brief kiss.

  He drew back, and Verity blinked slowly.

  “Thank you,” he said quietly.

  “For what?”

  For attempting to distract him from the words he’d soon deliver to the crowd beyond the corridor. “I wouldn’t have been here had it not been for you.” He’d not be moments away from entering that room before a sea of strangers and saying any words, let alone the ones he intended to speak: about his life and the lives of so many here in London.

  Giving his hands another squeeze, Verity drew them close to her chest and held them against the place her heart beat. “Yes, you would have, Malcom,” she said softly. “You would have found your way to this place whether or not I’d been part of your life.” Her eyes twinkled. “It would have just taken you far longer.”

  “Minx,” he growled, and took her in his arms, guiding her against the wall and making love to her mouth. In her arms, all was right. There were no fears. There was no anger. There was just an absolute rightness.

  An exaggerated cough brought them quickly apart, and they faced a tardy Baron and Baroness Bolingbroke. The young woman looked between Malcom and Verity. “Hello!” she greeted them with a smile.