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Chapter 28

THE LONDONER

THE MEETING!

Lord Maxwell was seen breaking down the front door of the Baron Bolingbroke. Society was agog, and now salivating for details on the fight that undoubtedly erupted between the Lost Heir and his nemesis, Lord B.

M. Fairpoint

Over the course of his life, Malcom had sought—and attained—revenge on more enemies than he could remember or count.

Never, however, going into battle had he felt this. Bloodlust pumped through him, primal and raw. It heated his veins and coursed through him, spreading a venomous poison where only one word took shape:destroy. This upcoming meeting didn’t have to do with territory or right of ownership or the simple primitive need to exert control and display dominance.

This was about her—Verity, and what had almost befallen her.

Not bothering with a knocker like any civilized guest would, Malcom pounded hard at the modest panel. The heavy oak rattled, and he pounded all the harder.

But he wasn’t going anywhere. This meeting had been ordained following the attack on Verity at Hatchards. Nay, if he were being honest with himself, it had been ordained long before that. Back when he’d been a boy smuggled from his family’s Kent estate in a burlap sack, taken for dead, and passed off like trash.

And now he was back, reclaiming his past life.

That brought him up short with his knock, and he froze, his fist halfway to the oak panel.

Could he?

Forget moving amongst the world in daylight. Could Malcom move amongst thepeerage? Polite Society, which he still wanted no part of. He was a man trapped in an “in-between” in which he’d never truly belong. Neither the sewers nor the fanciest end of London.

But the possibility of a future he saw, it wasn’t a place.

It was with her ...

It was with Verity.

He wanted to be wherever she was. It’s why for the first time ever, he’d wanted not to be scouring for treasure but instead at Hatchards with her.

Home was wherever Verity was.

I love her ...

Malcom shot a hand out, catching the stair rail, managing to keep himself upright.Christ.It was a prayer from him, a man who’d never been religious, and yet that was all he was capable of. He loved her. He’d loved her since he’d stumbled upon her in his sewers, a tart-mouthed spitfire challenging him at every turn as if she’d forever dwelled in those tunnels and set herself up as queen.

With their every exchange, he’d lost more and more scraps of a heart he’d not known he possessed: Verity, as she’d doled out chess lessons. Verity, as she’d gone toe-to-toe with him to defend two old toshers. Just Verity. It would only ever be Verity.

And she was the reason he was here even now.

Steadied once more, Malcom let his fist fly with a thunderous boom that rose above the din of the early-morn Mayfair traffic.

And then the door was opened. Suddenly, by an ancient butler with white hair. “May I help you?”

But for his flawless English, the man might as well have been Fowler or Bram. A servant who, by his advanced years, should have retired some time ago but remained. For what reasons? A lack of pension? Loyalty? Surely it was not the latter. Not given Bolingbroke’s family history. That brought Malcom back to the task at hand, the whole reason for his visit. “Bolingbroke.”

The servant hesitated. “I’m afraid His Lordship is—”

Malcom shot an elbow up before the door could be closed in his face. “He’ll see me.” Or Malcom would tear down the bloody door with his damned hands, and then hunt the other man for the fiend he was.

“I said, he’s not receiving,” the butler said with an impressive resolve, and this time the old servant slid the door forward.

By God, he wouldn’t. He shot a hand up—