glass of untouched ice. “If for no other reasons than because: one, you won’t have to talk to me, and two, our terseness might be passed off as your enjoyment of the sweet treat.” Her eyes twinkled. “And because you’re very close to ending up with sticky fingers.”
On perfect cue, a drop slipped down the rim of the clear glass, and landed on his knuckle.
Malcom cursed.
Leaning forward, she spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. “I told you.” She winked, and then tugging free the monogrammed kerchief from his jacket pocket, she proceeded to wipe off the melted ice.
With her head bent to that task, Malcom stared on, unable to look away from her . . . or the task she completed. When was the last time anyone had ever undertaken such a small but tender gesture where he was concerned? For that matter, when was the first time? Had there been a first time? People knew better than to approach him, let alone touch him. There’d been whores he’d bedded, but their every action had been purposeful, driven by sex and devoid of tenderness.
“There,” Verity said, and with a pleased little nod, she turned over his kerchief.
Reflexively, Malcom accepted back that scrap of cloth, and his gaze went to the gold letters embroidered upon the fabric. He ran the callused pad of his thumb over the TP EARL OF M emblazoned there.
Initials that belonged to another. The man who’d served in the role of earl for these past years. A man he’d never met, but who’d profited from Malcom’s absence these past years. And according to Steele, the loss of parents that Malcom had no recollection of. Unbidden, his gaze drifted over the heads of those nosy biddies to the front facade of 7–8 Berkeley Square.
“You remembered Gunter’s.”
“Hmm?” It took a moment for that question to penetrate that all-too-familiar haze.
Only it hadn’t been a question. Verity stared back with a solemnness to her eyes that revealed too much of her thoughts.
“Aye,” he said gruffly.
“Did you . . . come as a child?”
Several drops of orange ice splashed the top of his hand, the moisture cool. He stared blankly down at them, more coward than he’d ever credited before this, because he couldn’t meet Verity’s eyes. “I don’t know.”
There it was . . . the truth. At best what had come before his time as an orphaned child on the streets of East London were murky shadows, buried in darkness. At worst, there was an emptiness.
Had she pressed him, he would have kept silent. He would have cursed her for asking, and mayhap the young woman knew that. Mayhap the same lady who’d demonstrated an eerie intuitiveness to what he was thinking and feeling had gathered as much. “My recollections are few.” That allowance came grudgingly to his own ears.
Verity didn’t say anything for a long moment, and then slowly, she brought her parasol closed. “Whenever my father visited, he always came with ribbons and these little flat chocolate discs, covered in nonpareils.” She held her thumb and index finger in a tiny circle, demonstrating the size of that small treat. “After my mum died, he was forced to move us to a small apartment in London. He still visited. I never saw him smile much again after she died, but he’d visit,” she tacked on as if it were important that Malcom know that much about the shameful man who’d sired her. As if she sought to defend him.
He struggled to follow through her unexpected shift in discourse and telling him about her family.
“The good thing about being in London was we were close enough that he could frequently visit, but far enough to keep us out of the eyes of Polite Society. I always wondered, how did he travel with chocolates without them melting? But they didn’t.” A wistful smile danced on her lips. “I digress . . . just before Papa came to visit, he’d send a note alerting us, because he knew one of my favorite things in all the world was to wait at the bottom step and then race to greet his carriage. It was my favorite part of the day.” Her smile dimmed, and with it stole all the light. “Even when I was determined to hate him for having a legitimate family whom he needn’t keep secret, rushing to meet him was one of my most beloved times, because when he was with us, I could pretend we were his real family.” Her gaze