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THE LONDONER

SAVED!

RESCUED BY A HERO IN THESEWERSTUNNELS OF THE SEVEN DIALS!

The world has long wondered about the Earl of Maxwell. At last, he has been found. By me ... I am a woman who was rescued by him. I learned firsthand that despite what he’s endured in his time outside of the peerage, Lord Maxwell is first and foremost ... a gentleman.

V. Lovelace

A fortnight later

Verity had managed that which no one else in London, of any station, had accomplished—she’d not only located the Earl of Maxwell but also brought forth the story that the world craved.

The story that had all London abuzz, talking about it.

The one people had pored over as they read their papers on the streets of the city, devouring each word.

She’d given them the tale of the Lost Earl. She’d done it, when no one else had managed anything more than his birth name. She’d uncovered his whereabouts, a general description of the man himself ... and a glimmer of how he’d spent his years exiled from the nobility.

And never had she felt more horrible for it. Betraying the stranger who’d saved her.

Perhaps that was why she was being so richly punished, just then.

Mayhap she’d not heard her employer correctly. That was all that made sense. The only way to explain ...

“I am sorry, Mr. Lowery,” she began slowly. “I’m afraid I did not hear you correctly.”

“You heard me,” he said flatly. Holding a quizzing glass to his eye, he scanned the inked pages in Fairpoint’s sloppy hand. “I was clear in what was expected of you. You had an assignment, and you failed, Miss Lovelace.” He briefly deigned to look at her. “Now, if you’ll excuse me. I need to see to these edits so they might go to the presses.”

If you’ll excuse me.It wasn’t a question but a command, as men were wont to do.

And it also served to confirm that there was no misunderstanding. Even so, it bore repeating. “You are sacking me?”

There, she’d said it. She’d said it, and hadn’t shattered under the weight of her dread.

“If you prefer to think of it as parting ways, that is fine, Miss Lovelace,” he said impatiently as he set aside one page for another. “Either way, you’re done here.”

Verity stared blankly down at the top of his head bent over those papers. “You cannot do this ...” She could not squeeze out another word behind those. All this had become too real, in ways that didn’t allow for coherent thought or well-articulated arguments.

“I can.” He flipped to another page. “And I did.”

This could not be it. Verity slid onto the edge of the lone seat opposite Lowery.

He briefly lifted his gaze, and catching sight of her sitting, he frowned. “I don’t have time, Miss—”

“You don’t have time?” she asked, and the frenzied quality to that query silenced the remainder of that coldhearted pronouncement. “You don’t have time?” For the love of God, she’d climbed into the sewers and nearly been mauled by rats for her efforts. “I have given almost twenty years of my life toThe Londoner, Mr. Lowery.” All while he’d been traveling the damned Continent, living high off the earnings of his family’s business, taking no role in the overall upkeep of the operations, Verity had been here and devoted. Tempering her voice, she attempted reasoning with him. “I’ve worked harder than every man who has ever sat at any desk. I’ve stayed longer, well past when they go home for the day. All the while earning less.” For no other reason than because of her gender, and with all her dedication to her role, she’d simply be turned out?

Color splotched his cheeks. “Please, Miss Lovelace.” He tugged at his collar. “It’s crass for a young woman to speak about money.”

“But it’s not too crass for you to pocket the small fortune you made off my story,” she shot back, and then thumped a fist to her breast. “My story.I brought you the tale of Lord Maxwell,” she said, hating the shrill quality to her tone. Lowery expected her to be emotional. Verity exhaled slowly through tight lips. “I brought you exactly what you sought,” she said again, this time more measured in that deliverance.

“You brought meastory,” he clarified, at last setting down those damned pages. “A story. Not what I requested, but rather an exaggerated romantic tale.”

“It was not ... romantic,” she sputtered; her indignation flared, far more comfortable than the earlier panic lashing at her. He’d paint her column as something romantic for no other reason than that she was a woman. There’d been no mention of the toe-tingling kiss that still haunted her memories and robbed her of sleep. More than half-fearing Lowery could see those scandalous thoughts parading through her mind, she brought her shoulders back. “It was—”

“A romantic story about the earl,” he said flatly. “And it was fine for the purpose it served. It briefly assuaged the desire for any information, but this ...” He fished around his cluttered desk, and then lifted the first-ever front-page story she’d managed. “This was never the story I or the world sought, and you know it. You merely gave them something they didn’t know they wanted.”

“Isn’t that the whole point of writing?” she cried.