the chessboard as if she re-created each of her previous steps.
His lips twitched. “You were done at the beginning. Not only did it take away your control of the center, it blocked the center square for the knight. It didn’t allow development of any pieces, and also it seriously weakens safety of your king. Hence . . .” He waved the captured piece. “Chess pieces are like people. They should all be working for you.” It was how he’d built his empire. “Even your queen, at the onset.”
Sputtering, Verity sat back in her seat. “Why . . . why . . . you’ve swindled me.”
“Nay. One has to be playing for something in order to be swindled out of it.”
“I don’t know if that’s true,” she groused.
“It is,” he said bluntly.
“But you said—”
“I didn’t say I couldn’t play, Verity. I said I hadn’t played this chessboard. You incorrectly assumed I hadn’t played with another.”
She peered at him. “Are you a barrister?”
“A . . . ?” And then that question fully registered. A laugh exploded from his chest, shaking his frame. Good God. Hers would be the first and last time that Malcom would ever find himself confused for a man on the right side of the law. “No.”
“You argue like one,” she mumbled.
A sharp knock at the door shattered their exchange, and with it ushered in reality.
Climbing to his feet, Malcom stalked over to the door and yanked it open. “What?” he snapped.
Bram peered boldly beyond his shoulder, over to where Verity remained seated, toying with a chess piece.
“I asked ‘what,’” Malcom repeated.
“Giles arrived. Wants to speak with you.”
“I’m not taking company.” He made to shut the panel, but Bram shoved an elbow in the doorway.
“Said it’s important.”
Giles wasn’t one to ask for help. Not even when Malcom had first come upon him, buried under bricks from a cave-in, and his hand severed. Instead, he’d lifted up the middle finger on his sole remaining hand to convey just how much “help” he wanted from the then-stranger. In short, it was the one reason he’d taken him on as one of his associates.
He let the old tosher in. “Keep Miss Lovelace . . . company, if you will?”
He’d hand it to the woman. Anyone else would have wilted or plain fainted dead away at the sight of the towering, burly Bram. She dropped her head in greeting and, with the exception of a slight tremble to her hands, revealed no outward display of her nervousness. “Hullo.”
More wary of strangers than even Malcom himself, which was saying much, the old man narrowed his eyes.
Before Malcom turned to go, Verity called out. “Has he located our whereabouts?” she asked quietly.
Our whereabouts.
It was a singularly odd pairing of words from one in the rookeries. Here, people knew better than to put the collective welfare before one’s own well-being. Unnerved, he ignored her question. “I’ll be back shortly.”
With that, he quit the rooms and found his way to the kitchens. Unable to make sense as he made the march through his household of the pull Verity Lovelace had that made him want to stay in his damned rooms, playing chess and baiting the spirited young woman.
He reached the kitchens.
Still attired in his heavily pocketed tosher trousers and jacket, Giles stood at the center of the kitchen, slopping water onto the floor. The moment he spied Malcom, he straightened. “There’s someone searching for you.”
Again.
Malcom tensed, as with that revelation, he at last managed to set aside thoughts of Verity Lovelace. Prior to that damned title being thrust upon him, Malcom had always faced threats from other men seeking to usurp him from his position of power in the sewers of London. Now, since Steele and the discovery of Malcom’s title, there’d been any number of others in pursuit of him, which had made it all the harder to discern who was the threat to be dealt with. “Who is he?”
Giles glanced over to Fowler and back to Malcom. “There’ve been several strangers looking for a ‘lost earl.’”
Oh, bloody hell. His stomach knotted.
“Who?” he asked impatiently.
“This time, they are reporters with newspapers.” Giles held his gaze. “And according to the people talking, they’ve begun searching the sewers for you.”
Damn it all to hell.
Chapter 9
THE LONDONER
ALONE!
Though there is no confirmation from sources, the safe conclusion has been drawn, he’s been a man alone. Otherwise, surely there would have been someone to share his whereabouts . . .
V. Lovelace
This evening, Verity had nearly been killed.
First by rats. Then by