Thief of Shadows
Winter raised his eyebrows. “Indeed? That was quite brave of Dodo. I didn’t know he was such a fighter.”
“She,” Joseph Tinbox said. “Dodo is a lady dog.”
“Is she?” Winter pulled apart his bread.
“Aye,” Joseph Tinbox said, “and she likes cheese ever so much.”
“Hmm.” Winter cast a stern eye on the boy. “Dogs often like cheese, but it doesn’t always like them. Besides, we don’t want to waste good cheese on a dog, do we?”
“Noooo.” Joseph drew out the negative as if uncertain that he agreed.
Winter decided to let it pass. “And how is Peach herself doing?”
“She’s sitting up.” Joseph Tinbox brightened. “An’ she can hug Dodo.”
“Ah. Has she said anything else?”
A line of worry drew itself between Joseph’s eyebrows. “No, not yet. Prolly she just has to get stronger, don’t you think, sir?”
Winter nodded absently as the boys turned the conversation to the best kind of sweet. Privately, he had reservations, though. The child didn’t seem to be intellectually deficient, and from the reports he’d been given by Nell and Mary Whitsun, Peach was improving physically. Yet she refused to speak to anyone but Joseph.
So at the end of the meal, Winter made sure the boys were safely on their way to their evening prayers and then he slipped into the kitchens.
Mistress Medina was supervising the scrubbing of the cooking pots, but she looked up at Winter’s entrance.
“Come to see ’ow I’m doin’, are you, Mr. Makepeace?”
“Not at all,” Winter said. “I’ve actually come to beg a favor, Mistress Medina.”
“An’ what’s that?”
“Have you any more of that excellent cheese you served at supper?”
“ ’Appens I do.” Mistress Medina bustled over to a cabinet and unlocked the upper door with a key hanging from her waist. “Didn’t get enough to eat at supper, then?”
“Actually, I ate quite well,” Winter murmured. “This is for… er… Peach.”
“Ah.” The cook nodded wisely as she cut a wedge of cheese and wrapped it in a cloth before giving it to Winter. “That mite needs a bit of extra, from what I ’ear.”
“Indeed she does,” Winter said gravely.
Mistress Medina gestured to a tray. “I made up a supper tray for ’er, but none of the maids ’ave ’ad a minute to bring it to ’er room, poor lass. Mind if I take it up with you?”
“Not at all,” Winter replied. Perhaps the presence of a motherly woman would help Peach with her speech. “That’s quite kind of you.”
“Ain’t nothing special,” Mistress Medina said gruffly. She seized the tray and together they mounted the stairs to the sickroom.
When he entered the room, Winter thought both girl and dog asleep in the narrow cot. Then Dodo raised her head and gave her customary halfhearted growl. When he looked at Peach’s face, he saw the girl’s eyes were wide open.
Mistress Medina grunted as she placed the tray on a table. “Scrappy is that one. Got into a fight with the tomcat in the kitchen this afternoon.”
“So I heard,” Winter said drily as he drew up a chair next to the bed. “Good evening, Peach.”
The child gave no sign that she’d heard, yet her large dark eyes were fixed on his face.
Winter nodded as if Peach had given a full rejoinder. “I don’t know if you remember me, but I was the one who found you in that alley.”
No response save the tightening of thin arms about the dog’s neck.
“Ah. I almost forgot.”
Winter took the wedge of cheese out of his pocket. Dodo craned her head forward, sniffing eagerly even before he had fully unwrapped the cheese. Joseph Tinbox had been quite correct: the dog did like cheese.
“Mistress Medina, our cook, has made you some supper. I can attest that it’s quite tasty.” He glanced back at Mistress Medina, who had taken up a silent position by the door.
Mistress Medina caught his eye and nodded soberly at him.
Winter looked back at the girl. “I brought a present for your dog, Dodo, as well. Would you like to give it to her?”
For a moment he was afraid his ruse wouldn’t work. Then Peach stretched out a hand.
Winter broke off a bit of cheese and placed it in her tiny palm.
“You must have been very scared and cold that night,” he said, watching as she gave the dog the cheese. He broke off another piece and held it out.
After a hesitation, that, too, was fed to the dog.
“I’ve been wondering where you might’ve come from.” Winter went on giving her bits of cheese. “It was quite cold that night, so I don’t think you’d been there very long. Did you live close? Or had you walked there, you and Dodo?”
Silence, broken only by the munching of the very happy dog.
The last of the cheese was gone, and Winter had the feeling that the girl wouldn’t eat her supper while he was still in the room.
He rose. “When you are able, I would very much like to hear your voice, Peach.”
Winter looked back. “I’m sorry?”
Winter blinked. “Peela?”
“Pilar,” Mistress Medina said suddenly. Winter saw she had a strange look on her face. She took a step toward the bed. “It’s Pilar, isn’t it?”
The child nodded once, jerkily, then shrunk into her covers.
The cook glanced at Winter and then left the room. He followed, closing the door softly behind him.
“How did you know her name?” Winter asked curiously. “Pilar is a Spanish name, isn’t it?”
Mistress Medina had her hand over her mouth and for a moment he thought he saw tears sparkling in her eyes.
Then she took her hand away and he saw her mouth was twisted with anger.
“Pilar’s also a Portuguese name.” She pronounced Portuguese with an accent that wasn’t English. “I know because she’s like me. She’s a daughter of Abraham.”
“I CANNOT WEAR this,” Winter Makepeace stated with maddening calm five days later.
Isabel prevented herself from rolling her eyes only by the greatest of willpower. “It is black and brown. Quite sedate.”
Mr. Makepeace looked at her dubiously, probably because while the breeches and coat of his new suit were indeed black and the waistcoat brown, the waistcoat could be called sedate only by the most outrageous stretch of imagination.
The coat and breeches were superbly cut of shimmering midnight silk, so black it had a bluish cast. Embossed silver buttons trimmed the pockets, sleeves, skirts, and front. And the waistcoat. Well, the waistcoat was a masterpiece. Isabel sighed as she looked at Mr. Makepeace’s fine torso. It really was a crime to call the waistcoat’s color “brown.” The waistcoat was the loveliest shade of tobacco, elegantly embroidered along the edges and pocket flaps in apple green, silver, light blue, and pink.
“That,” Isabel said as she lounged on one of the settees in her sitting room, “is the most refined waistcoat I think I’ve ever seen. A duke wouldn’t be ashamed to wear it.”
She couldn’t hide her satisfaction—both with the excellent cut of his suit and the fact that he’d finally returned to her home. Since the dancing lesson, Mr. Makepeace had sent his excuses, avoiding another lesson, or even a meeting, until tonight. She’d begun to think that she’d scared him off entirely.
Now he was standing before her mantelpiece mirror making perturbed little pokes at his neck cloth. He shot her an ironic glance. “I’m not a duke.”
“No, but you’ll be mingling with dukes.” Isabel stood and caught Mr. Makepeace’s hand. “Stop that. You’ll undo all the good that my rented valet did dressing you.”
Mr. Makepeace turned his hand suddenly so that now he gripped her fingers. He cocked his head at her, watching her with those mysterious brown eyes, and then slowly—so very slowly—lowered his head and kissed her fingertips.
She inhaled and met his eyes. Damn him! Why should the touch of this man’s lips on her fingers of all things make her belly heat? And why was he playing with her thus?
“As you wish,” he murmured as he straightened.
“I do wish,” she said rather incomprehensibly. She snatched her hand away and smoothed her skirts. “The carriage is waiting, if you’re finished having maidenly nerves.”
“Quite finished.” His mouth quirked as he held out his arm to her.
“Good,” she humphed, just to say something, and laid her fingertips on his forearm as he led her to the door.
The night was pleasantly cool against her shoulders as he helped her into the carriage. Tonight she wore her embroidered cream, the skirts heavy and sweeping, and it occurred to Isabel as she settled in the carriage that Mr. Makepeace’s colors complemented her own quite nicely.
She looked across at him as he sat. There was a rustling sound as he moved and she noticed that the pocket of his coat was tented.
“Have you something in your pocket?” she asked. “I can’t believe Mr. Hurt even made them to work.”
“I asked him to.” Mr. Makepeace shot her a look as he drew a crumpled piece of paper out of the pocket. “It seemed a waste of material to make false pockets.”
“But you’ll ruin the line if you go putting things in your pocket.” Isabel leaned forward to peer at the splotch on the paper. “What is that anyway?”
He shrugged. “Something I found in a little boy’s hand.”
“That’s d’Arque’s emblem,” she said as she finally realized she was looking at a red wax seal. “Who was the little boy who had it?”
“You recognize this?” His broad thumb smoothed over the blob of hardened wax.
“I think so.” She took it from him, holding it up to the swaying carriage light. “Yes, you can see the owl. It’s quite distinct in the d’Arque coat of arms.”
The paper looked like it had been torn from a letter, the seal still attached to one edge. On it, scrawled in a hand that looked barely literate, were two words:
chapl allee
She looked on the other side. Here there was more writing, but in an elegant, cultured hand:
12 Octob
The last two letters of October had been torn off. She turned the paper back over and looked up at him. “I doubt this is d’Arque’s handwriting on this side, though the date might be and the seal is definitely his. How strange. How do you suppose a small boy in St. Giles found such a thing?”
He took the scrap of paper from her hand, turning it over thoughtfully. “That’s a good question. Tell me about this d’Arque.”
She looked away from him and shrugged carelessly. “You’ll meet him soon enough—I’m sure he’ll be here tonight. He’s the Viscount d’Arque. Inherited the title from his uncle, I believe, not that long ago—perhaps three years?”
“He’s a young man?” He’d sat back against the cushions, so a shadow was cast across the upper half of his face. She couldn’t read his eyes and could see only his lips.
“Young is relative, isn’t it?” She cocked her head, staring at him. “I suppose he’s not much older than I, if you call that young.”
He smiled faintly. “I do.”
She could feel the blush creep up her cheeks—damn the man! “Most wouldn’t, I think. I’m two and thirty and have buried a husband. I’m far from a dewy maid, Mr. Makepeace.”
“But you’re also far from a doddering crone, my lady,” he retorted. “Do you consider Lord d’Arque old?”