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Malcom gently framed her face between his long fingers; the tenderness of that caress brought her eyes closed.

“Verity, are you attempting to reassure me?”

She sat up. “Is it working?”

“Not at all. Who?”

It had been inevitable. That particular question that could never end well ... not for Malcom. It would lead to scandal and controversy and conflict he didn’t need. Not with what his life had been. “They were strangers,” she hedged. “Two of them.”

“What did they want?”

He’d never be content in believing it was a random attack at a London bookshop.

He sat back; his keen gaze worked her face. “You’re not telling me for a reason.”

Blast him for being so astute. “Someone who wants me to keep your story silent.”

Malcom fell back on his haunches. “Bolingbroke.”

“I don’t know that,” she said quickly, even as he confirmed her initial supposition at Hatchards. “And you don’t know that, either.” No good could come from Malcom entering into a battle with a peer of the realm, one whose family had already proven ruthless.

Frost glazed his eyes. “I’ll kill him.”

And despite knowing Malcom as she did, Verity found herself shivering at the dark threat blazing from those golden depths.

Verity came up on her knees before him and took his face between her palms. “You won’t, because you’re not one to simply charge after someone without knowing facts.”

“You don’t know—”

“I do know that about you.”

The muscles under her palms jumped and moved. He was a volatile ball of thrumming nerves and energy. Verity worked her eyes over him. “Malcom, I don’t want you to run off and fight battles for me. I’ve been alone for eighteen years, and when I leave this place at the end of next year’s Season, I’ll be fighting them on my own. While you, you’ll be living with and amongst these people.”

“I don’t care about any of them. Any of this.” Emotion hoarsened his voice. “I care about you.”

Her heart jumped several beats.

“And I want to fight this battle for you.”

She stroked the back of her knuckles along his jaw. “Oh, Malcom. You don’t get to decide that. I do.”

“You are maddening, Verity Lovelace,” he whispered.

“Aye.” Verity smiled softly. And yet, when had anyone truly looked after her? Oh, there’d been Bertha and her mother and, periodically, her father about. But even in those earliest days when life had been easiest, Verity’s well-being and happiness had fallen second to her emotional, brokenhearted mother. Too often Verity had been focused on seeing that her mother smiled, as had Bertha, but no one had been there for Verity. Not truly. Going up on her knees, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his.

He froze, and then kissed her back with a desperation that matched hers.

Malcom broke the embrace as quick as it started. “Why ... ?”

“Because I want to,” she said simply. “Because I want to be in your arms.”Because I love you.And when they parted ways, she’d live on as a spinster, and when she did, she’d have this moment, with this man, there as part of her memories. This time when she kissed him, there was a desperation to their embrace.

She came alive all at once.

They came alive together.

He groaned and caught her around the waist, drawing her closer as if he needed to feel her against him. And she luxuriated in that evidence of his desire. She herself needing to feelhimin every way. “You’ve thrown my existence off-center, Verity.”

Aye, as he’d done to hers. And she’d never recover. “Then we’re even, Malcom North,” she panted out between each lash of his lips on hers. God help her, she didn’t want to recover from this upside-down world.