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Gentle fingers touched his sleeve.

Rasping, Malcom shot a hand out, capturing that wrist, squeezing.

“Malcom.” Verity’s pained whisper shattered the disjointed memory.

Verity.

A woman in the here and now.

Safe, and yet, dangerous for what she’d visited upon him, and what she continued to force upon him. But still far safer than the demons that lurked in his mind.

“Are you all right?” she whispered with such gentleness, he cringed.

Malcom abruptly released her, and his fingers clenched and unclenched into reflexive balls. Her astute gaze that missed nothing went to those shaking digits. He swiftly clasped them behind his back to hide that mark of his vulnerability. “Forgive me,” he said sharply, exhaustion having made a muddle of whatever they’d been discussing. He searched his dulled mind, struggling to bring clarity of thought through the pounding at his temples.

Think. Think.

What was she doing here? What washedoing here?

And then it all came rushing back in a whir, crashing through the noise of jumbled memories. “Because of you, I’m being hunted.”

Her high, noble brow creased. “Hunted by—”

“The peerage. Wastrels who’ve lost all at gaming tables and are in need of a fortune. They’re thrusting their daughters at me.” He lifted his chin in her direction. “All a credit to you, Verity.”

“Oh.” That single syllable emerged sheepish. “And so you wish to marry me so you needn’t deal with a proper wife.”

“It’s all really quite simple, you see. I’ve no wish for”—he tossed his arms wide—“any of this.”

Her eyes took in the expanse of the room.

“I want to live my life unfettered in East London.” Where it was safe and comfortable and a world which he knew. Or the way it had been before his identity had been discovered and his existence thrown off-kilter. “I don’t want to be bothered with title-seeking ladies and their fathers who would whore them out. I don’t want the servants and the fine things.” Malcom let his arms fall to his sides. “I don’t want any of it.”

Verity tugged her already impossibly tightly closed wrapper all the closer. “I’m afraid I do not follow, my—Malcom ...”

“I wish for a marriage as real as the one you’ve created for us,” he said flatly. “Temporarily. We present ourselves as the Earl and Countess of Maxwell.”

“What?” she squawked, loosing that grip she’d had on her night wrapper, and the fabric gaped slightly.

It took a forcible effort to tear his gaze from that hint of generous flesh exposed. He took a step toward her. “In this arrangement I’m prepared to give you everything you desire ... and more: your story.” As he was able to tell it. Which was largely not at all.

She gasped. “You’d do that?” Then suspicion immediately darkened her eyes.

“During the course of our arrangement, you’ll have the opportunity to live here with a roof over you and your sister’s head. Full bellies. Fine garments. Security.” He let that last word hang on the air as the gift it was.

He’d presented her with a mutually beneficial relationship that any struggling woman of their ranks would have leapt at.

She hugged her arms to her waist. “And then what happens afterward?” That question revealed Verity Lovelace to be a woman all too familiar with the precariousness of life.

His chest squeezed. Damn her for making him care.

“Why, we go our own ways as any proper lord and lady would. Society would expect nothing less of an earl and countess. My story, when sold, will bring you coin enough to keep you comfortable until you find yourself some other work, somewhere far away from”—me—“London.” Then he wouldn’t have to again think of all the ways in which he’d been played the fool by Verity Lovelace.

Her face fell. “I can’t leave London. All the major newspapers are here.”

Malcom dropped his hip on the back of the sofa. “Then it seems we are at an impasse, because the moment it was discovered the Countess of Maxwell was employed by some ragtag gossip column, questions would swirl. And then research would be conducted into our marriage. Whereas if it is understood you prefer the country, no one will give you”—and more importantly—“or me another thought.”

“You’ve thought of everything.”