Page 17 of In Bed with the Earl

No, they didn’t. Just Verity did. To protect Livvie as best she could.

“He sacked ya, didn’t he?” Bertha emerged from the kitchens. “Foolish ya were, thinking ya could ever make a serious go at that work. Men’s work it be,” she said with a faint pitying in her eyes and words.

Verity glared at the older, gap-toothed woman. “Hush, Bertha. That’s not true.”

The heavyset woman sailed over. “And filling this one’s head with hopes that women aren’t afforded the luxury of.”

Yes, because the options that the world had for all women existed of two fates: a respectable path of marriage ... or the path of shame and finding oneself in some man’s bed, as had been the case for Verity’s mother.

As Bertha set out to school Livvie on the ways of the world, Verity walked in her drenched stockings over to the door and pushed it closed. Then, drawing in a slow breath, she glanced between them. “When we left Epsom, we knew that it would not be easy, and yet we survived.”

“Because your da set you up with work,” Bertha said with her usual bluntness.

When Livvie went to speak, Verity put a hand on her sister’s arm, staying her words and ending her inevitable defense. “I’ve not been sacked.” That statement chased away the worry from her sister’s eyes. “I’ve been given another opportunity—”

Bertha snorted. “To find that bloody duke.”

“He’s an earl,” Verity muttered, struggling with the clasp at her throat. “But yes. He is the reason.”

Livvie moved aside Verity’s fingers, and swiftly saw to the task herself. Taking the garment, she draped it over one of the two chairs in their apartments. “You’ve searched for him. You can’t find him. Why can’t you simply make it up?”

“I cannot make it up, Livvie,” she said gently. She’d dealt before in fabricated truths. Her entire existence on the outskirts of London had been one.

Bertha thumped the table twice. “The girl is right. You make it up.”

Verity hugged her arms around her middle. Of course they’d be of a like opinion. But then, desperation compelled people to make any manner of decisions they’d not otherwise make. For them—for herself—she wished to do it. “I cannot,” she said tiredly. Not if she wanted to live with herself in good conscience.

“’Course you can,” Bertha cried out.

Livvie tugged Verity by the hand and led her to the small kitchen table, forcing her into a seat. “I don’t see why not,” she said softly. “The gent doesn’t wish to be found. He’s not coming out.”

“And better off for not finding him, I say. Any man who prefers living in the sewers to being a fancy duke is madder than the late King George,” Bertha mumbled before quitting the kitchen and heading for her rooms.

After she’d gone, Livvie waited several moments, then sank to a knee beside Verity. “The people want a story,” she said. “They don’t care about what was real and what is false ... A story is what sells.”

“The girl is right.” Bertha’s voice came muffled from the other side of the panel.

They looked toward the older woman’s room and then back at one another, sharing a smile. It appeared Verity had found the one topic that had managed to unite the pair that so often failed to see eye to eye.

Verity’s smile was quick to fade. “I’m not fabricating a story.”

“But—”

“Please, don’t ask me to do that. For when the lie came to light”—which it invariably would—“we’d be precisely where we are now.” Only with no chance of keeping her post, and a reputation ruined. “I’ll not lie to sell a story.” And certainly not a lie about a person’s past.

“Lying’s a good deal safer than starving,” her sister said.

Verity flinched. “I’m going to find him.”

“And how do you intend to do that?”

Seated at the table, staring into the lone flame dancing, Verity found she rather didn’t know. But she would find him. There was no other choice. Someone in East London must know of—

Her lips parted.

“What is it?” Livvie asked, concern in her voice.

Ignoring that question, Verity fixed on not what her sister was saying but earlier words uttered by another. Verity froze. After all, known as Garrulous Bertha by all those in their corner of East London, the older woman tended to easily spew words, as she was wont to do. Still ... Verity jumped up, and with Livvie calling after her, she bolted to Bertha’s rooms. She didn’t bother with a knock.

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