Page 18 of In Bed with the Earl

When the door exploded open, the woman didn’t even look up from her knitting needles.

“How did you know that?” Verity demanded.

Bertha’s gnarled fingers continued darning away. “Huh?”

Verity sprinted across the room and plucked the needles from her hands. “You said something to the effect of a man who prefers to live in the sewers.” Words that had been too specific.

Bertha lifted her rounded shoulders in a lazy shrug. “That be the word on the streets.” She reached for her darning needles, but Verity held them out of reach.

“By whom?” she asked slowly, as if speaking to a child.

The older woman’s lips formed a wide, slightly gap-toothed smile. “My sweetheart.”

Her ...

Livvie’s giggle sounded from beyond Verity’s shoulder.

Bertha scowled. “Hush. You think it so shocking that I might have found myself a suitor?”

The girl’s laughter only deepened.

Verity gave her sister a look and, when she’d finally silenced her, returned all her focus to Bertha. She fell to a knee beside her fraying upholstered chair, one of the remaining pieces left from the lifetime of comfort they’d enjoyed while the earl had lived. “And ... who is this gent?”

“He’s a tosher.”

What ... ?Puzzling her brow, Verity glanced over at Livvie, but the younger girl merely stared back with wide eyes.

“What is a tosher?” Verity pressed Bertha.

“Pfft.One would think you were two fancy gels.” Instead of the by-blows they were. The implication hung there ... without inflection, and yet, still stinging as it always had ... being bastard born—even if it was to an earl.“Tosshher,”she repeated, as if adding an extra syllable and slight emphasis to the word might somehow make it mean something to Verity. “He’s a sewer hunter. Scavenges. Pans and retrieves tosh. Well, more thantoshbecause ‘tosh’ is copper,” she explained. “This fellow finds himself a whole lot of riches down in that waste-filled water.”

Livvie’s face pulled. “That is disgusting.”

“Be that as it may, the fellows doing it are better off than your sister here, trying to write a story for a gossip column.”

Her mind racing, Verity fell back on her heels. It made sense. All these months she’d been scouring London for anyone with a hint of the gentleman’s identity, she’d been searching the wrong places. Asking the wrong people. In short, the Earl of Maxwell didn’t walk amongst them. Rather, he’d been under her all the while.

There was a tug at Verity’s sleeve, and she glanced over.

“What are you thinking?” her sister asked.

And for the first time since she’d been handed the impossible assignment, Verity smiled. “I’m going toshing.”

“That isn’t a word,” Bertha corrected, much as she had when instructing Verity as a child.

Verity’s smile deepened. “It is now.”

Chapter 3

THE LONDONER

THE HUNT!

All of London is in search of the gentleman whose fortunes have been reversed. He remains a mystery to all ... There is only one certainty: the Lost Heir has no wish to be found!

M. Fairpoint

Verity had done next to everything in order to survive.

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