Page 45 of In Bed with the Earl

“I asked ‘what,’” Malcom repeated.

“Giles arrived. Wants to speak with you.”

“I’m not taking company.” He made to shut the panel, but Bram shoved an elbow in the doorway.

“Said it’s important.”

Giles wasn’t one to ask for help. Not even when Malcom had first come upon him, buried under bricks from a cave-in, and his hand severed. Instead, he’d lifted up the middle finger on his sole remaining hand to convey just how much “help” he wanted from the then-stranger. In short, it was the one reason he’d taken him on as one of his associates.

He let the old tosher in. “Keep Miss Lovelace ... company, if you will?”

He’d hand it to the woman. Anyone else would have wilted or plain fainted dead away at the sight of the towering, burly Bram. She dropped her head in greeting and, with the exception of a slight tremble to her hands, revealed no outward display of her nervousness. “Hullo.”

More wary of strangers than even Malcom himself, which was saying much, the old man narrowed his eyes.

Before Malcom turned to go, Verity called out. “Has he located our whereabouts?” she asked quietly.

Our whereabouts.

It was a singularly odd pairing of words from one in the rookeries. Here, people knew better than to put the collective welfare before one’s own well-being. Unnerved, he ignored her question. “I’ll be back shortly.”

With that, he quit the rooms and found his way to the kitchens. Unable to make sense as he made the march through his household of the pull Verity Lovelace had that made him want to stay in his damned rooms, playing chess and baiting the spirited young woman.

He reached the kitchens.

Still attired in his heavily pocketed tosher trousers and jacket, Giles stood at the center of the kitchen, slopping water onto the floor. The moment he spied Malcom, he straightened. “There’s someone searching for you.”

Again.

Malcom tensed, as with that revelation, he at last managed to set aside thoughts of Verity Lovelace. Prior to that damned title being thrust upon him, Malcom had always faced threats from other men seeking to usurp him from his position of power in the sewers of London. Now, since Steele and the discovery of Malcom’s title, there’d been any number of others in pursuit of him, which had made it all the harder to discern who was the threat to be dealt with. “Who is he?”

Giles glanced over to Fowler and back to Malcom. “There’ve been several strangers looking for a ‘lost earl.’”

Oh, bloody hell.His stomach knotted.

“Who?” he asked impatiently.

“This time, they are reporters with newspapers.” Giles held his gaze. “And according to the people talking, they’ve begun searching the sewers for you.”

Damn it all to hell.

Chapter 9

THE LONDONER

ALONE!

Though there is no confirmation from sources, the safe conclusion has been drawn, he’s been a man alone. Otherwise, surely there would have been someone to share his whereabouts ...

V. Lovelace

This evening, Verity had nearly been killed.

First by rats. Then by water. And then by a ruthless stranger on the street.

And now the latest threat: the old man who may as well have been carved of stone for as much as he’d moved since Mr. North had left Verity.

He was her guard.

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