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With hands that shook, Verity hurried into the dress and drew it overhead. It clung slightly to her bosom, but as she slid the garment into place, it proved an otherwise remarkable fit that one might have believed had been designed specifically for her.

If gowns were designed for her.

Which they had been ... once upon a lifetime ago, when she’d been the cherished daughter of a lord, who’d lavished her with fancy ribbons and fineries. And slippers. Her eyes went to that luxury. She lunged for them, ignoring the pain that shot along her scraped feet, and scrambled into the delicate scraps. Her eyes slid closed at the bliss of the satin cushioning within.

A quiet knock sounded at the door, and Verity jumped. “J-just a moment.” She made her legs move to the oak panel, and against all better judgment, she turned the lock to let the stranger ... North ... into his rooms.

Framed in the doorway, he made no immediate move to enter. Rather, he eyed her through thick, dark lashes that obscured his gaze, and yet somehow she still managed to be seared by the directness of it. “May I?” It was a slightly mocking request, one that sought to illustrate the ridiculousness in him asking permission to enter his own chambers.

And yet, they were his chambers, the place he slept. With an enormous bed situated in the center of the room. Verity’s fingers clenched and unclenched on the panel.

Reluctantly, she stepped aside.

Mr. North swept in. His keen eyes missed nothing. He touched that assessing gaze on every part of the room. As though he searched for a hint that his kingdom had been somehow set askew. And then he focused on her.

Verity felt the blush stealing up her chest and neck, and then setting her face awash in color. “Thank you for the garments,” she said lamely. “I’m ready to take my leave.”

“Close the door, Miss Lovelace,” he said flatly.

All the moisture evaporated from her mouth, leaving her tongue heavy, and as she spoke, her words came out slightly garbled. “Am I a prisoner?”

“Trust me, had I wished to hurt you, it would have happened in the sewers, where I’d have left you, and none would have been any the wiser that we’d met.”

Verity didn’t know whether to be terrified or reassured by that blunt admission. Pushing the door shut, she leaned against the panel and eyed him warily. After all, it hadn’t escaped her notice that he’d not answered her earlier question. Therefore, there was only one conclusion: she was his prisoner.

As he wandered to the opposite end of the room, Verity silently gave thanks for that space between her and her captor. The immediate threat that had her pleading for his help had since eased.

Since they’d arrived and he had deposited her in his room, he’d also gone and washed the filth from his person. And without the murky darkness that had served as the setting for their first meeting, Verity studied the broad back of the man who went by no other name than North.

He reached the windows and drew the curtains back a fraction to peer out.

Nervously twisting the fabric of her borrowed skirts, Verity made herself stop. “I didn’t thank you for your ... assistance earlier,” she said into the quiet.

North continued perusing the streets, only pausing to briefly look back at her. “Is that what you think? That my efforts tonight have all been to help you?”

She dampened her lips. “W-were they not?” He was a glorious specimen, and yet his features were slightlytoopronounced to ever be lauded as handsome by society’s standards. He had slashing, bronzed cheekbones. A hard set to a square jaw, slightly too heavy. Prominent scars that stood out starkly. And perhaps she’d the same ill judgment her late mother had shown toward the wholly unsuitable, for her belly danced with her awareness of him as a man.

“Don’t make more of my actions than they were,” he said bluntly, and resumed his inspection of the outside scenery. He released his hold on the gold velvet curtain, letting it slide back into place before he turned around once more. “The only thing I seek is answers.”

“I don’t have any to give you.”

His lips quirked up in a detached half grin. “I didn’t even ask you a question.”Yet.It hung there clearer than had he spoken.

“Fair point,” she allowed. Verity found herself gripping her black skirts once more. That smile, however, softened him. It marked him more man than the beast she’d first taken him as and worse ...fearedhim to be.

And yet, he’d also brought her here, saving her from that fiend in the street.

“Who was the man on the street? Is he why you were hiding in the sewers?”

Why she’d been hiding? Her brow furrowed, and then she realized the conclusion he’d drawn. He expected she’d been in the sewers not in search of something, but because she’d been in hiding. Over the years, such similar assumptions had been made. People of all genders made determinations about her presence and her role in life for no other reason than because she was a woman. Those erroneous conclusions had proven a valuable tool that had allowed her to collect information from the unsuspecting. As such, Verity weighed her next words carefully. “I don’t know who he was. Only that he wished me ill.”

“And what was your first clue? The fact that he had a gun pointed at your chest?”

“Actually, yes. That and ...” She felt herself blushing. “You were being sarcastic.”

“I was,” he said drolly.

“Oh.” Verity sighed. “As I said, the man was ...isa stranger to me.” Which was, in fact, the complete truth. She could venture and speculate any number of potential enemies, but the list would be long, and the ranks of those foes great.