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THE LONDONER

Is Lord Maxwell a man ... or a monster? Conflicting reports have been provided. The world, however, waits to decide for itself the answer to that question ...

M. Fairpoint

“Well?”

Verity hadn’t even closed the door behind her when that question greeted her.

Bertha stood in wait, wringing her hands.

Verity glanced off to the bedroom she shared with her sister.

“She tried staying awake but fell asleep about an hour past.”

“Good,” Verity muttered, rubbing at her sore right shoulder.

“Where’ve you been, gel?”

“Walking,” Verity said quietly, and balancing herself on one foot, she tugged off first one slipper, and then the next. Letting the pair fall, she wiggled her toes in a bid to bring blood back to the digits, numb from the hours of walking she’d done.

“Walking?”

Think.

There had to be something ...

Verity rested her forehead against the lead windowpane warmed from the sun.

“There has to be a way,” she murmured. There always was.

“I have it,” she whispered.

“I hope it doesn’t involve that damned tosher,” Bertha muttered, mopping the perspiration from her damp brow. “That one isn’t about to help anyone but himself. Can’t even share the damned sewers. As if he owns them,” she mumbled under her breath.

And for the first time since she’d quit Malcom’s residence and grappled with the uncertainty of her fate, Verity smiled. “Actually ... it does have to do with Lord Maxwell.”

“Mark my word, gel: he isn’t one for you to rely on.”

No truer words than those had ever been spoken. The help she’d have from Malcom North, the Earl of Maxwell, however, was one she’d herself take. “It involves his residence,” Verity said quietly.

The other woman shook her head. “I don’t follow you, Verity.”

Racing over to the valise where her notes and notepads were tucked, she sifted through.Where is it? Where is it?

“I just organized all that for you,” the other woman lamented.

Verity continued her search. “Here,” she murmured, drawing forth the list. Rising in a whir of the same black skirts he’d gifted her, she held the page over to her nursemaid.

“What is this?” the other woman said, briefly scanning the perfunctory list.

“These are his properties.” Three in total, uninhabited, vacant residences without so much as a servant seeing to their care. One in the heart of London. Her heart raced. Only, for the first time since she’d walked out of his apartments in the rookeries with her head up, it wasn’t panic accounting for the erratic beat. “He has three of them.”

“I see that. And you be thinking he’s going to give any of them to you?” Bertha eyed her like she’d gone mad.

And mayhap Verity had because all this didn’t seem like such a very bad idea, after all. “No.” She smiled slowly. “I’m going to take it.”

The other woman’s eyes slowly widened into circles. “You’re off your head.” She made to hand the sheet over.