Page 23 of Her Beast

“Oh, aye, it might be the one area they see eye-to-eye. But, er, she wasn’t seeing eye-to-eye with only his lordship, beggin’ your pardon.”

Malcolm sighed. “In plain language, Joe.”

“Er, Miss Harlow was caught in bed with the family tutor.” He cleared his throat. “Before that—although her father and stepmother aren’t aware—she gave her maidenhood to a footman named Matthew Miller. Miller told me he thought there might be others but had no names.”

Something hot, fierce, and possessive pooled in Malcolm’s belly.

Christ! Was he …jealousof a footman? Over a woman he’d never even met?

That’s what it feels like to me,his dead wife piped up, her laughter echoing inside his head.

You’re wrong, Sukey. If I wasn’t jealous about you fucking other men, then I’m not likely to be feeling it now, am I?

But his wife was gone.

Long gone.

“Sir?”

Malcolm looked up to find Joe giving him a quizzical look.

“Go on,” he said.

“The next photograph is of Mr. and Mrs. Harlow was taken about five years ago.”

Malcolm recognized Tommy even though he’d not seen him in ages—not since he’d been fucking his brother.

He’d grown portly and his hair had thinned, making him look far older than his age.

Malcolm couldn’t help wondering if Brian had aged as badly.

Brian Harlow had been one of the vainest people Malcolm had ever met and would hate losing his looks and getting old. He was the sort of bloke who couldn’t bear anything that was ugly or broken or imperfect—hence the reason he’d scarpered to Paris so quickly after seeing Malcolm’s badly burned face all those years ago.

Malcolm still felt a twinge of anger and betrayal when he remembered Brian’s look of horror the few times his lover had visited him after the fire. He’d been hurt—but not surprised—when Brian had run away and left him lying in a hospital bed, but mostly, Malcolm had felt relieved. The last thing he’d wanted was to force anyone to stay with him. Especially somebody who openly loathed him.

Malcolm shook himself, pulling his thoughts from his old lover and looking at the photograph in front of him.

The sour-looking, bone-thin woman beside Tommy was a stranger to him.

“I’ve never met Harlow’s wife—at least not this one,” Malcolm said. “Back when I knew him, he was married to Jenny McQueen.”

“Aye, sir, that was Miss Julia’s mother. She died when the girl wasn’t quite five and Harlow married Nadine Sheehan three months after.”

Which meant they’d been married when he’d been living with Bri and Sukey—sometime around the time of the fire, in fact.

“Didn’t let his first wife’s bones grow cold, did he?” Malcolm muttered, staring at the photo. “Where is she from?”

“Mrs. Harlow likes to put it about that she’s genteel, but she grew up in Whitechapel with her brother and was raised by her widowed mother and aunt—the same one who is now her maid.”

Malcolm barked a laugh. “There’s thanks for you.” He turned to the next picture, this one from a newspaper. It was the big bastard who’d been with Julia Harlow.

“That’s Mrs. Harlow’s brother Carl Sheehan. He’s in town to look after Julia Harlow, along with the old woman.”

Sheehan and his sister shared a similar bone structure although Nadine was as skinny and hard as a rail while her brother was well-padded.

“Tell me about Sheehan.”

“I couldn’t find much about him as he just got back from New York City.”

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