Page 104 of In Bed with the Earl

Verity frowned. “I don’t have the luxury to write anything else, Malcom.” She delivered those words not with any self-pity, but with pure pragmatism. “The only luxury permitted me is survival, and as such I wrote the storiesexpectedof me.”

“Gossip.”

Where in the past she’d bristled at his description of her work, now she sighed. “Aye. Gossip.”

He lightly dusted his fingers over her chin, bringing her gaze to his. “And that is what I am to”—you—“the world? Gossip?”

Her gaze held his, so piercing, so intent as if she sought to crawl inside him and pull forth those secrets he was so determined to keep. “I don’t believe that,” she said quietly. “Society might initially see that for what it is. But once written, it is my hope that they find there is true substance to it, Malcom. It is a story of injustice and wrongs and ... strife.”

And with that, it made sense.

He made to release her; as he unfurled his fingers and loosed his hold, that was his intention. Only, of their own volition, Malcom’s knuckles did a slow, gradual upsweep of her jawline. A back-and-forth caress and re-exploration of skin soft as satin. Her thick, sooty lashes fluttered down, as if she herself was as entranced by that lightest of touches. “You felt the story was something more than it is,” he murmured. “That’s why you’ve been so determined to conduct your interview.” It wasn’t a question, and yet, as she forcibly opened her eyes and met his, she answered him anyway. “You see this as the ability to make the changes you wanted in the papers.”

She nodded. “In part. There are those who believe ‘the world doesn’t want information. They want ...’”—she pitched her voice to a high, nasally whine—“‘therightinformation.’”

“Your employer?”

“My previous employer,” Verity clarified. “He’s since ceded the business over to his son. He’ll allow any lie to be printed and any story to be stolen.” Her gaze darkened. “Fairpoint,” she muttered to herself.

She doesn’t matter. Her plight doesn’t matter.The work she did, and the people she was employed by ... “Who is this Fairpoint?” Would Malcom have to break the cur’s neck?

“A reporter who stole”—her cheeks pinkened—“my earliest story about you.” She cast a sheepish look in his direction. “Either way, newspapers are struggling. The taxes are crippling, and reporters are turning on one another, all to maintain their work. And the most recent head ofThe Londoner...”

And in the dog-eat-dog world, they’d devoured Verity. Aye, he’d happily off the pair of those fellows. “He’s proven more unbending than his father?”

“In the sense that he gave me an impossible task—” Her words immediately cut off. The color on Verity’s cheeks deepened.

He sent a single brow arching up. “Me?”

Abandoning her curled-up position on the sofa, Verity shifted so that her feet touched the floor. His ears tried to make out the grumblings she made under her breath. Something that sounded very much like“You are impossible.”

The right corner of his mouth pulled up in a half smile, one that didn’t stretch quite so uncomfortably as the grins before it.

She scooched over so their legs brushed. “It wasn’t simply that he assigned me the story of your whereabouts and past. It was that he did so anticipating that I’d fail so he would have sufficient reason to sack me without having to explain my severance to his father. He was always intending to sack me. One of those who doesn’t believe a woman has any place in reporting.” Impassioned, her eyes glittered with the depths of her outrage.

“He was a fool, thinking any man more competent than you in any task.”

Her eyes immediately softened, her lips parted, and a little sigh whispered out.

Where women were concerned, there’d been any number of reactions they’d greeted Malcom with over the years: Desire. Fury. Suspicion.

Never had a woman looked at Malcom as Verity did now. He didn’t know what to do with all that emotion. Any of it. He cleared his throat. “I’ll have you know ... my ... anger in the park. It wasn’t reserved for you. It was the discomfort of being there.” Her brows dipped. “Not with you,” he said on a rush. She was all that had kept him sane at that outing. Nay, she’d done more than that; she’d managed to make him smile, even. “It is my own”—insecurity—“dislike of Polite Society,” he settled for.

Her eyes softened. “Thank you.”

That was it:thank you.

He cleared his throat. “We should get on with it.”

“Get on with—”

“The interview.” The only reason they were together, and the reason they’d stay together until the end of the next Season.

The light went out of her pretty eyes. She blinked slowly, and then grimaced. “Forgive me. Of course you didn’t need to hear all that.”

Nay, he hadn’t needed to. But he’d wanted to. And it was that wanting that scared the hell out of him.

He got to the heart of it. “I don’t remember most.” He grimaced. “I don’t remember anything. The information you seek about my past?” About his parents and childhood before it had all been taken from him ... “I’ve nothing to contribute.” All he could offer was how he’d lived in the years after. Which was largely the whole of his life.

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