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He whistled. “Daft.” The lady was daft. “I just called your writing shite.”

Miss Lovelace wagged a finger at him. “Ah, yes, but youhaveheard of me.”

He’d entered some manner of upside-down universe. There was no other way of accounting for the facts: one, that he’d left a woman alone in his rooms; and two, that when presented with evidence of his fury and outrage, the chit before him responded with nothing more than a too-pleased smile and an insolent lift of those remarkably long digits.

As if to confirm that very truth, the young woman stalked with purposeful steps over to his desk and—

His brows shot up. “What in blazes are you doing?”

Verity froze, with the lid lifted in her fingers. “Uh ... I require a pen. And you don’t use the designated tray for what it was intended.” Only a man who was deaf would have failed to note the subtle chastisement there ... and even had the man been deaf, he would have seen with his very eyes the censure in her smile that wasn’t quite a smile. As it was, Verity Lovelace proceeded to fish around the inside of his desk, muttering to herself.

Nay. Not daft.

Mad.The chit was madder than the late King George himself.

“Ah, here.” Sounding entirely too pleased, the termagant withdrew a pencil and then set to work searching for something else. “This will do.”

More than half-dazed, Malcom shook his head. “What in hell are you doing?”

“Looking for paper.” She directed that reply at the contents of his desk. She rustled through it a moment, and then paused briefly to glance up. “So that I might record your responses.” With that, she resumed her search.

Record his responses ...

She’d sought him out, and then invaded his belongings, all with the intention of sharing his story with the world. That was the price to be paid for his misstep ... and a reminder served to never again falter.

“The world knows you as Percival Northrop,” she was saying. “And yet you refer to yourself as North. How did you come by your new name, my lord? And do you have any intentions of adopting your rightful name?”

A growl started low in his belly. It made it no farther than his chest, trapped there. A rumble that managed to penetrate the harebrained minx’s efforts. Slowly, she picked her head up.

Her already impossibly round eyes formed a perfect circle as he stalked over.

Snatching the pencil from her long fingers, he snapped it in half, and let the scraps fall to the floor.

She scowled. God, he should have anticipated that insolence. “You’ve gone and ruined a perfectly good pen—” Her words withered.

“I don’t believe you’ve any idea of the peril you’re in, Miss Lovelace. No idea at all.”

Chapter 11

THE LONDONER

QUESTIONS ...

Questions remain surrounding the Earl of Maxwell’s past ... and present. But only one is begging to be asked: Whereishe?

V. Lovelace

Verity had a million and one questions for the man known as the Earl of Maxwell, but only one word surfaced through them all:

Flee.

That urging snaked around her mind.

She should leave.

In fact, the moment he’d stepped inside and caught her reading through his artifacts, she should have made a beeline for the door.

Even if she couldn’t have made it past his powerful frame.