Page 111 of In Bed with the Earl

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 going 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.”

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