Thief of Shadows

Lady Margaret looked troubled. “Well—”



“The home has new social standing because of the Ladies’ Syndicate. He’ll be invited to all manner of genteel gatherings—gatherings in which his comportment will reflect on us as his patronesses. There will be teas, balls, possibly even musicales!”



Lady Penelope waved a dramatic hand, nearly clipping the nose of Miss Greaves, sitting next to her. Miss Greaves, a rather plain young woman who hardly spoke, started. Isabel privately suspected she’d been dozing while holding Lady Penelope’s silly little white dog in her lap.



“No,” Lady Penelope continued, “the man is impossibly gauche. Just three days ago he did not appear for a scheduled appointment with Lady Beckinhall at the new home and didn’t even send an apology. Can you imagine?”



Isabel swallowed, amused at the other woman’s theatrics. “To be strictly fair, there was a riot in St. Giles at the time.” And she’d been busy saving a mysterious, masked man whose athletic form haunted her dreams at night. Isabel hastily took a sip of tea.



“To not send word to a lady is the height of impoliteness, riot or no riot!”



Isabel shrugged and took another scone. Privately she considered a riot quite sufficient excuse—Mr. Makepeace had sent an apology ’round the next day—but she hadn’t the interest to argue with Lady Penelope. Mr. Makepeace might be a perfectly fine manager, but she had to agree that he would be a disaster in society.



“And with the new home’s grand opening, we have need of a much more refined manager,” Lady Penelope said. “Someone who can converse with a lady without offering insult. Someone who can rub shoulders with dukes and earls. Someone not the son of a beer brewer.” Her lip curled on the last two words as if beer brewer were a step below whoremonger.



The Ghost of St. Giles would probably be quite at home conversing with dukes and earls—whatever his social standing under that mask might be. Isabel pushed aside the thought to focus on the conversation. “Temperance Huntington is Mr. Makepeace’s sister and thus also the child of a brewer.”



“Yes.” Lady Penelope shuddered. “But at least she has married well.”



Lady Margaret pursed her lips. “Well, even if Mr. Makepeace cannot overcome his accident of birth, I do not see how we can take the home away from him. It was founded by his father—that same beer brewer.”



“He’s now the manager of a large, well-funded home. A home that will, no doubt, in the future expand in both size and prestige. A home with all our names attached to it. In less than a fortnight he will be obliged to attend the Duchess of Arlington’s grand ball. Can you imagine what will happen the first time the Duchess of Arlington asks Mr. Makepeace about the children in his home?” Lady Penelope arched a pointed eyebrow. “He’s likely to spit at her.”



“Well, not spit,” Isabel protested. Cut her dead, maybe…



Sadly, Lady Penelope had a point. Because they had all given money to the home, Mr. Makepeace, as the home’s manager, would now be an important figure in London society. He needed to be able to sail polite society’s sometimes dangerous waters with ease. To be the face of the home, to perhaps solicit more monies, influence, and prestige for it as the home grew. All of which Mr. Makepeace was completely unprepared for at the moment.



“I can teach him,” Lady Phoebe blurted out.



All heads swung toward the chit. She was a plump child of seventeen or eighteen with light brown hair and a sweet face. She should be in the midst of preparations for her first season—except Isabel suspected there wouldn’t be any season for the poor girl. She wore round spectacles, but her eyes squinted vaguely behind them. Lady Phoebe was nearly blind.



Still, she lifted her chin. “I can help Mr. Makepeace. I know I can.”



“I’m sure you could, dear,” Isabel said. “But it would be quite inappropriate for a bachelor gentleman such as Mr. Makepeace to be taught by a maiden.”



Lady Margaret had opened her mouth, but she closed it abruptly at Isabel’s last words. Lady Margaret wasn’t married either.



“The idea is a good one, though,” Lady Margaret rallied. “Mr. Makepeace is an intelligent man. If someone pointed out the advantages to him of learning society’s ways, I’m sure he would set himself to acquiring some sophistication.”



She glanced at Lady Penelope. That lady simply arched her eyebrows and sat back in her chair with a moue of distaste. Miss Greaves was staring fixedly at the little dog in her lap. As Lady Penelope’s companion, it would be suicide for her to voice dissent to the other lady’s opinion.



Lady Margaret’s gaze swung toward Isabel. Her lips curved into a mischievous smile. “What we need is a lady who is no longer a maiden. A lady with a full understanding of polite society and its intricacies. A lady with enough self-possession to polish Mr. Makepeace into the diamond we all know he is.”



Oh, dear.



THREE DAYS LATER, Winter Makepeace carefully descended the wide marble staircase of the Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children’s new residence. The staircase was a far cry from the rickety bare wood steps in their old home, but the slippery marble was also perilous to a man using a cane to support his still-healing right leg.



“Coo! Bet this banister would make a grand slide,” Joseph Tinbox said somewhat unwarily. He seemed to realize his mistake as soon as the words had left his lips. The boy turned an innocently earnest freckled face up toward Winter. “ ’Course, I’d never do such a thing.”



“No, that would be quite unwise.” Winter made a mental note to include a warning against banister riding in his next address to the children of the home.



“There you are, sir.” Nell Jones, the home’s right-hand woman, appeared at the bottom of the stairs, looking flustered. “You have a caller in the sitting room, and I don’t know that we have any muffins left. There’re a few sweet biscuits from the day afore yesterday, but I’m afraid they may be stale and Alice can’t find the sugar for tea.”



“Biscuits will be just fine, Nell,” Winter said soothingly. “And I don’t take sugar in my tea in any case.”



“Yes, but Lady Beckinhall may,” Nell pointed out as she blew a lock of blond hair out of her eyes.



Winter stilled on the landing, aware that his heartbeat had quickened. “Lady Beckinhall?”



“She’s in there with her lady’s maid,” Nell whispered as if the lady could hear her from down the hall and through the walls. “And she’s wearing jeweled buckles on her slippers—the maid, not the lady!”



Nell sounded awestruck.



Winter repressed a sigh even as his muscles tightened in anticipation. His body might be eager to see the lady again, but the reflex was involuntary. He did not need the complication of Lady Beckinhall and her overly inquisitive nature today.



“Send in the tea and whatever biscuits you have,” he told Nell.



“But the sugar—”



“I’ll handle it,” he said firmly, catching Nell’s frantic gaze. “Don’t worry so. She’s only one woman.”



“One woman with a fancy lady’s maid,” Nell muttered, turning toward the back of the house and the kitchen.



“And, Nell,” Winter called, remembering the matter that he’d originally come down for, “have the new girls arrived yet?”



“No, sir.”



“What?” He’d received word just this morning of two orphaned sisters, only five years of age, begging for scraps on Hog Lane not far from the home. Immediately he’d sent the home’s sole manservant, Tommy, to bring them in. “Why not?”



Nell shrugged. “Tommy said they weren’t there when he got to Hog Lane.”



Winter frowned, troubled by the news. Only last week he’d gone to pick up a little girl of seven or so who had been left at St. Giles-in-the-Fields Church. Yet when he’d arrived, the girl had inexplicably disappeared. The whoremongers of St. Giles were often on the lookout for girls, but these children had vanished within minutes of his receiving word that they were on the street. That was awfully swift even for the greediest of whoremongers. Why would—



Someone pulled on his coat, and Winter looked down into Joseph Tinbox’s brown eyes, grown wide with pleading. “Please, sir, can I go with you to see the lady and her maid? I ain’t never seen jeweled buckles afore.”



“Come.” They’d reached the lower floor by now, and Winter tucked his cane discreetly in a corner, then placed his palm on the boy’s shoulder. Hopefully this arrangement would be less conspicuous—the last thing he needed was Lady Beckinhall realizing that he was limping on the same leg that the Ghost had been wounded on. He smiled at Joseph. “You shall be my crutch.”



Joseph grinned up at him, his face suddenly quite angelic, and Winter felt a quite inappropriate warmth in his chest at the sight. As the manager of the home, he should have no favorites. He should view all eight and twenty children equally and impartially, a benevolent governor above and apart from them all. His father had been such a manager, able to be both kind and distant. But Winter had a near-daily struggle to follow his father’s example.



He squeezed the boy’s shoulder. “Best behavior, mind, Joseph Tinbox.”



“Yes, sir.” Joseph composed his face into what he no doubt thought a solemn expression, but to Winter’s mind it merely made him doubly mischievous-looking.



Winter squared his shoulders and let his weight settle equally on both legs, ignoring the pain that shot through his right thigh. He opened the sitting room door.



The sight of her was like a swift, cool wind through his frame, quickening his body, alerting all his senses, making him completely aware he was a male and she a female.



Lady Beckinhall turned as he entered. She was attired in a deep crimson gown, delicate layers of lace falling from the sleeves at her elbows. The lace was repeated in a thin line about her low, rounded bodice as if to frame her creamy bosom. More lace edged the frivolous scrap of beaded linen that served as a cap on her glossy mahogany hair.



“Mr. Makepeace.”



“My lady.” He crossed to her carefully, his palm still on Joseph’s shoulder.



She held out her hand, no doubt so that he could bend over it and kiss her fingers, but he would do no such thing.



Instead he took her hand, feeling the small shock of her slim fingers in his palm, and shook it before quickly letting go. “To what do we owe the honor of your visit?”



“Why, Mr. Makepeace, perhaps you’ve already forgotten your promise to show me about the new home?” She widened her eyes mockingly. “To make up for our appointment last week?”



He suppressed a sigh. Lady Beckinhall’s maid stood behind her, and Nell was quite correct: The girl was overdressed, her lace as dear if not dearer than her mistress’s. Joseph had his head tilted sideways and was leaning slightly away from Winter’s grip, presumably in an effort to catch a glimpse of the fabled jeweled buckles.



“I must apologize again for missing our meeting last week,” Winter said.



Lady Beckinhall inclined her head, making the teardrop pearls she wore swing from her earlobes. “I hear you were caught up in the mob.”



He started to reply, but before he could, Joseph cut in eagerly. “Mr. Makepeace was near crushed, he was. He’s spent almost the whole last week abed. Got up only when we moved to this here new home.”



Lady Beckinhall’s dark eyebrows arched in interest. “Indeed? I had no idea you were so gravely injured, Mr. Makepeace.”



He met her gaze, keeping his own complacent, though his pulse had quickened. She wasn’t a fool, this woman. “Joseph exaggerates.”



“But—” Joseph began, his voice injured.