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“For?” he purred, stalking a circle around the minx. “Hmm?Going through my possessions?” She remained silent, her gaze suitably wary, following the path he walked about her.

“I wasn’t going through anything.” She scrunched her face up. “Not intentionally anyway. I was searching for a pencil.”

“A pencil,” he repeated flatly.

“Exactly,” she said with an enthusiastic nod that sent drops of water flinging from her wet hair. Dark tresses with a thousand shades of brown to them. “How else was I to write down the remedies for Mr. Bram?”

The remedies? ... Mr. Bram?

As a boy avoiding street lords determined to make him part of their gang, and escaping the cold, he’d taken to hiding inside various Covent Garden theatres. A number of kindly actresses and actors had taken mercy on him and let him hide above the rafters, high above the stage and the audience, watching from afar. This moment, with Verity Lovelace, felt a good deal like one of the many farces that had played out before him.

Malcom jammed his fingertips hard against his temple. What in God’s name was happening here?

“I understand why you’re angry,” the young woman murmured in soothing tones better fit for a child. “You’re upset I was snooping, and I’d have you not take it out on Mr. Bram.”

Malcom’s self-control broke. “His name is not ‘Mr. Bram,’” he bellowed. The lady jumped several inches off the floor. “His name is Bram. Just ‘Bram.’”

She paled. Her body trembled. She did not, however, back down. “You needn’t be so angry about it, my lord,” she shot back, her breathless timbre ruining whatever courage she otherwise displayed.

My lord.

There it was again.

Malcom sneered. “You’ve made the mistake of confusing me with someone who is safe. And why is that,hmm?” He caught the ends of several dark strands that hung, twisted and tangled, down her back. Twining the curls about his fingers, he held her effectively trapped. “Because you take me for an earl?”

The blood slipped from her cheeks, leaving them an ashen hue. “Release me,” she whispered, resistant through and through.

He didn’t relent. “Because you, like all the world, believe those men are fine and good and no harm can befall you as long as you’re with one of those vaunted lords?” Malcom twisted the lock once more. “You believe the title ‘earl’ affixed to a man’s name somehow erases who he is.”Who I am.Malcom lowered his head until their brows touched and their eyes were aligned. “What he is.” He placed his mouth close to hers; their breath mingled and danced. “Well, if that is the case, you’re about to be disappointed, Verity.”

They remained locked in silence, warring with one another.

Malcom’s gaze dipped to her mouth. To those provocative lips that existed in a perpetual pout and, because of it, flayed his logic. Desire took on a lifelike energy, crackling and hissing like ten thousand embers that burnt in a hearth.

Then she darted the pink tip of her tongue out, hers a siren’s temptation. “Are you the Earl of Maxwell?” she repeated.

“And if I am?” he countered, unable to look away.

“Then I’ve been searching for you.” There was a lilting quality to her words as she spoke, a lyrical singsong, pure and unsullied by the dirt-clogged streets, and it heightened the reminder of all the ways in which this woman, thisstranger, was different. And it was because of that maddening pull she had over him that it took a moment for him to hear that admission.

“You’vebeen searching for me?” All his defenses went up, swiftly dousing the maddening haze of lust that had clogged his damned senses.

She gave a hesitant nod.

Oh, the bloody fucking irony! He tossed his head back and erupted into a harsh, guttural laugh. He’d stumbled upon one of those bastards seeking him and his story. At numerous points, he could have been on his way and free of her. But not once but twice, he’d gone back to the blasted termagant’s side, and then brought her into his residence.

And at last, the minx edged away from him, displaying a belated but justified fear.

“What do you want?” he asked flatly, unfurling so that he towered over her more diminutive frame.

She backed up another several steps.

Did fear send her retreating? Or the need to look him directly in the eyes? He’d known the minx for barely four hours, and he’d wager the life he’d built as a tosher that it was, in fact, the latter.

“My name is Verity Lovelace,” she began.

“You said as much,” he said icily. “What were you in search of? Handouts?”

She sputtered, “Of course I didn’t come looking for charity. I work forThe Londoner.”