Page 132 of In Bed with the Earl

“Florence, is there a problem?”

In the end, it wasn’t a stone-cold Baron Bolingbroke who cut through the butler’s resolve but a slender young lady with a mass of black curls and an even greater amount of curiosity brimming in her eyes.

“Just someone who’s arrived without a meeting, my lady. And His Lordship is not taking visitors.”

The young lady stayed the butler with a hand, and then crooked her fingers, motioning Malcom to enter. “I am the Baroness Bolingbroke,” she said softly, confirming her identity. “My husband is otherwise engaged at this hour. Might I be of any assistance in the interim?”

As he’d been visited by Sanders, and given the permission and then directives to make Bolingbroke pay and then pay even more in interest, Malcom hadn’t thought of the wife. Or the sisters.

And yet even as there was a shred of humanity within him still that regretted in this moment that this woman found herself an unwitting player upon a chessboard designed long ago by different players, there was another woman who mattered far more than her. Another woman who mattered more than anyone else. And Malcom would sell his soul ten times over to protect her from harm. “My name is ...” She stared patiently back. “I am the Earl of Maxwell.” And he didn’t break with that admission of his rightful title.

She went absolutely still ... and then that earlier veneer of warmth was doused by a blanket of ice. “I see, my lord. My husband isn’t accepting—”

“I’m not leaving until I see him.”

The young woman hesitated, and he felt the desperate look the butler shot her way. And the battle she fought with herself.

“Very well,” she said stiffly. “If you’ll follow me?” And whipping about, she started down the hall.

As Malcom fell into step alongside her, the butler followed their strides. And then the moment they disappeared around the next corridor, loyal footmen followed in the shadows. Malcom felt them there, too. Lurking in loyal wait.

Aye, but wasn’t that the way ...

No one saw themselves or their people as the monsters. It’s always the other who’s in the wrong.

“I’ve oft wondered if you’d call, my lord.” The lady kept her eyes trained forward as she walked at a brisk clip his longer legs easily kept stride with. “Or whether you were content to lurk in the wings, waiting like a bogeyman, delighting in the power you wielded.”

How ironic that she should speak of his influence. “How unfortunate ...”

The young woman fought a futile battle with herself. “What is?” she snapped.

Malcom flashed a cool smile. “Thatsix monthsof your husband’s past twenty years has proven so unpleasant. For him.” When the reverse had held true for Malcom’s own existence. When Malcom had been beaten and robbed, and stabbed and spit on.

The young lady missed a step, her gaze stricken.

Aye, so the young lady was clever enough to hear that unspoken gibe.

She didn’t say another word the remainder of their long march through the sparse townhouse. Where Malcom’s inherited properties dripped wealth and extravagance, Bolingbroke’s new homes reflected the sorry state of his affairs.

Lady Bolingbroke slowed her step, and planting her hands on her hips, she lifted her gaze to his. “You don’t know my husband. You only know”—what I endured—“what was done to you.” She entreated him with her eyes. “But those actions, they were never Tristan’s. He was a boy at the time those wrongs were committed. And you were both victims.” She grimaced. “Albeit in ... very different ways,” she finished lamely, at least sounding properly sheepish with that ludicrous charge that Malcom and Bolingbroke had ever been alike in their sufferings. The baroness ventured forward.

“Hullo, love, I thought you were never going to join me.”

Malcom followed that booming greeting across the ballroom ... and found him.

His foe.

Or ... his cousin. Odd, he’d never thought of the other man in that light. The distant relative whose parents had sought to off Malcom and had succeeded in erasing him from the world.

Malcom had to remind himself the proper pattern to breathe: In and out. Easy. Measured cadence.

“Tristan,” the young lady greeted, hurrying across marble flooring haphazardly covered in paint-covered sheets. Worktables littered the room with sculptures and clumps of stones set out.

What in God’s name ...

Malcom took it all in.

Either the man was mad or ... Nay, there was nothing for it. The man was mad. He hurled blue and green paints at a wall already sloppy with color.

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