muttered. “I tolerate you.” His associate, through the years, had preferred his secrets like most in the rookeries. He’d kept his life a mystery . . . a luxury Malcom had enjoyed until the bloody minx had stolen that coveted gift in these streets. A hot wave of fury whipped through him, as potent as the day Fowler had approached, gaze averted, head down, and dropped that damnable paper on his desk.
The one that had unhinged Malcom’s world.
Giles gave a tug at his lapels. “It certainly helps that the only one as capable in these sewers is me.”
Malcom grunted. “As close to capable.”
“I’ll take that as praise.”
“It wasn’t praise, either. I’m merely stating fact,” he said bluntly. “We’re associates because of what you contribute.” In fact, he tolerated more than he should where Giles was concerned. Theirs, however, was a mutually beneficial relationship, and it would be foolish for anyone to mistake the work they did with Malcom as kindness in any form.
“Ah, as we are speaking with blunt honesty, shall we discuss the tall, blonde-haired beaut—”
“No,” he said before the other man could even finish. Malcom set to work, dividing his paper into columns and assigning those underlings who served their work for that week. At last Giles fell silent so Malcom could finish divvying up the operations for the upcoming week.
The silence was short-lived.
Giles plucked the curtain back, and peered out. “Another’s arrived.”
Oh, bloody hell.
“Not your usual taste, either. Dark. Small.”
There’d been one young woman who’d been both dark and small, and who’d bewitched him. Malcom had learned his lesson, however. “She could be Athena, and I wouldn’t give a damn,” he muttered.
“Well, she’s not. Athena, that is,” Giles clarified, as though it mattered which hopeful lady or woman in search of a fortune sauntered up to his doorway. “Short. Almost childlike in size but not . . .”
Again, Verity Lovelace slipped into his thoughts. And he forcibly thrust back the unwanted memories of the shrew, just as he’d fought them each time: as she’d been that day, alternating between breathtaking courage and fear. With more displays of the former. And then there’d been her kiss.
He swallowed a sound of disgust. Get ahold of yourself . . . “Childlike . . . you say?”
“But clearly not a child.” Giles pressed his forehead against the glass and peered out. “She’s still rounded in the right places.”
Lusting after the woman who’d ruined his existence was a new and entirely unfamiliar low. That reminder was sufficient enough to kill all thoughts of Verity Lovelace.
“I will say this one is a bit severe. More so than any of the other wide-eyed innocents to come your way.”
“I don’t need a damned cataloging,” he said tersely.
“Come, you catalog everything. Even those things you’ve had taken from the Maxwell earl before you.” Giles prattled on anyway. “With the way the lady’s drawn her hair back, she must be giving herself a deuced headache.”
Malcom continued writing. His pencil flew over the page.
“That is . . . odd, though.”
Unlike prior attempts at riling him, the genuine stupefaction stilled Malcom’s hand. “What is it?” After all, the only thing more perilous than incongruities were incongruities that went ignored.
“There’s no doting papa. No protective maid. This one has come alone.”
Alone . . .
“Completely alone,” Giles clarified. “She must be a different sort of desperate than the others.”
Plump and short? Severe hairstyle? A different sort of desperate . . . Nay. It was impossible. After all, there were any number of women to fit that physical description.
“And she’s a determined look to her.”
Malcom went absolutely still.
And that was when he knew . . .
Surging to his feet, he stormed over, pushing Giles out of the way so he could have unobstructed access to the window. He peered out the grimy pane, and damned the dirt.
And sure enough, there, attired in an all-too-familiar black muslin dress, she stood.
Nay, his mind merely played tricks on him. Malcom jammed the backs of his hands into his eyes and rubbed, and when he looked out once more, the sight remained. She remained.
“Impossible,” he whispered.
“I take it you know this one?”
He ignored Giles’s question, his gaze riveted on the minx thumping a fist away at his front door.
A door that Bram had been instructed not to open in greeting of anyone else that day . . . or any day until Malcom gave word—which he had no intention of giving.
KnockKnockKnock.
She paused midhammering, and let her arm fall. Verity backed away from the door.
Malcom narrowed his