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“Oh, go to hell, North. I didn’t say what I said to get under your skin.”

The other man’s words, however he’d intended them, had grated because of their unswerving accuracy.

For what Giles proposed ... it wasn’t just about Malcom leaving this world ... It was about entering a new one. One that he’d been born to, but didn’t truly belong to. Not because of what he’d done. But rather, because of who he’d been. The darkest parts of him were indelibly tied to who he would always be. “Like I said, I’ve got no place there,” he said with an underscore of finality. Even as he acknowledged as much aloud, memories slipped in: Verity with her palms over his eyes as they played word riddles. Verity stuffing a spoon of ice in his mouth.

Could he live that life away from this place ... and could he do it with her?

Sweat slicked his palms, and he adjusted his hold on his tosher pole.

“You’ve got someone who can help you figure out how to navigate there, too.”

It took a moment for both the statement and the meaning behind Giles’s suggestion to sink in.

Verity.

His neck heated. “You’re mad.”Except ... why is it such a mad idea?a voice whispered at the back of his brain.

“Because you don’t like the gel?”

Nay, Malcom liked her well enough. He winced. Nay, he liked her a good deal more than that. A good deal more than he’d liked anyone.

“Or is it the whole matter of her being with the newspaper and whatever deal you forced her to agree to?”

“That’s decidedly closer,” he mumbled, and started on. “We’re business partners, and nothing more.”

Giles snorted. “Aye, business partners. Though in fairness, we’re business partners, and I’ve never seen you eyeing me the way you eye that—” The remainder of that thought dissolved in laughter as Malcom splashed him.

“Can we get on with our work?” he groused, resuming his forward march through the tunnels. The bottom of his pole snagged something hard on the stone floor, and he shoved at it. He felt around the perimeter of the object, and then spearing it in the middle, he dragged the finding up along the wall. Wading through the water, Malcom removed the artifact from the end of his pole and studied it, turning the item over in his hands. An ornate gold-and-silver cuff bracelet.

It’d fetch a small fortune, and once would have elicited some greater sense of satisfaction.

These belong to them, do they not? Lord Bolingbroke’s three sisters? ... They are no more responsible for the decisions of their parents than you are responsible for what happened to you that night ...

A bitter-to-his-own-ears-sounding chuckle shook his frame as he eyed the piece.

Oh, the bloody humor of it all. Here was he, the most merciless tosher of the rookeries, fishing out treasure and feeling badly about three women whom he’d never met and would never meet ... women whose family had stolen all that had been slated in life for Malcom.

Good God, what madness had Verity Lovelace wrought upon both his sanity and his existence?

He tossed the bracelet back.

Whistling, Giles leapt forward with his arm outstretched, and caught the jewel before it struck the water, ringing it around his tosher pole. “I’ll take that.” Removing the bangle, he stuffed it into one of his many jacket pockets.

And as they continued their hunt, thankfully, the remainder in silence, Malcom couldn’t shake the thought his friend had put forward ... about a future with he and Verity in it, together.

Chapter 25

THE LONDONER

TROUBLE IN PARADISE?

Lady Maxwell has been spotted at Hatchards ... sans the Earl of Maxwell. Polite Society can only speculate as to whether there’s been a falling-out between the couple ...

M. Fairpoint

Forty-two.

That was officially the count of questions her sister had put to Verity since the carriage ride and now short walk along the pavement to 89–90 Piccadilly, London.