Page 4 of In Bed with the Earl

Gathering up his pole, Malcom resumed his march through the tunnel, scanning the brick walls as he cut a path through the water. Walls which had been a home, a place to hide from bastards bent on buggering a terrified street lad alone in the world. A haven from the constables who’d rid Polite Society of the guttersnipes sullying the air with their mere presence. And a place to hide from the gang leaders who’d built their empires on the backs of boys and girls.

Malcom stopped; his gaze zeroed in on a brick that jutted out, the difference between it and the others so slight it might have been an optical illusion. And yet there were no illusions in these parts. Just harsh realities.

Unsheathing the crude dagger he’d found in another tunnel when he’d first begun as a tosher, he did a sweep of the darkened space and then started forward, lifting his legs and lengthening his strides to minimize the echo left by his splash.

Sticking the weapon between his teeth, Malcom pressed his back against the wall so he could search for the foes who lurked everywhere.

Because for all the uncertainty that met a man in East London daily, there was only one fact which held true: there was always someone waiting in the hopes of usurping from a person his power.

Malcom always remained one step ahead of those trying to take his territory. It was why he was here even now.

Reaching behind him, his fingers immediately found the brick jutting out no more than a quarter of an inch. When he was a boy, digging in these spots had proven a simple, effortless task.

The brick immediately slipped into his hand. Setting it aside, Malcom probed the surrounding stones. He immediately loosed four bricks until a two-foot-wide opening gaped in the sewer wall. Angling sideways so he could both maintain a watch on the tunnels and assess that opening, Malcom stretched a hand inside ... and immediately found it.

His fingers collided with a familiar, heavily patched burlap sack. Malcom yanked it out and fished around.

Empty.

The bloody bastard.

Swallowing a curse, Malcom pushed the bricks back in, and shoving his hat back into place, he rested a shoulder against the wall.

And waited. Waited with anticipation singing in his veins until he heard sloppy footfalls draw closer.

The figure, several inches smaller and two stones heavier, came crashing through the opening of the tunnel and then stopped. His gaze landed on Malcom North, and a burlap sack slipped from the other man’s fingers. It fell with a noisy splash and then disappeared under the grimy water. “North?” the man croaked.

“Alders,” Malcom called out, almost pleasantly. Cheerful, even. So jaunty that one who didn’t know him might have taken it for a pleasant greeting.

“W-wasn’t expecting you.”

No, he hadn’t been. Fury whipped through Malcom, but he’d become a master of reining in his emotions.

“N-not what it l-looks loike, N-North,” the man stammered.

Malcom took a perverse glee in the way the trembling bastard’s eyes bulged as they landed on the weapon he held. “Oh.” He stretched that syllable out slowly, layering it with a silken steel warning. “And how is that?” He dusted the tip of the blade back and forth over his callused palm.

Even with the dark set to the tunnels, Malcom caught—and relished—the paling of the other man’s skin. “W-wasn’t ... w-wasn’t ...” Alders’s voice emerged garbled as he choked on that guttural Cockney, unable to bring forth the lie he no doubt sought. “These tunnels, th-they’ve been empty. Fair game, they w—”

Malcom stopped that deliberate glide of his dagger upon his palm. He took a slow step forward.

Whimpering, the other man hunched, covering his head protectively.

“Oh, come, Alders,” Malcom murmured, continuing his path toward the quaking man. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Alders peeked out from between his arms. Fear spilled from his bloodshot eyes. “Y-ya ain’t?”

“It is not as though you are stealing from someone you shouldn’t be ... You know the rules of this place.” Every tosher grew up with them ingrained in his soul.

“Don’t t-touch another man’s t-tunnels,” Alders stammered.

Aye, they all knew the rules. Except all rules were forgotten when toshers grew desperate and started to poach the lesser-used areas—territories belonging to older, less adroit toshers.

“Does the name Fowler mean anything to you?” Malcom murmured.

If it was possible, the bastard’s skin paled all the more at the mention of one of the ancient toshers who searched these sewers.

“Ah, I see that it does. You don’t happen to know anything about the latest men who’ve come after him, do you?” Malcom dangled the question as a threat and a lure.

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