Thief of Shadows (Maiden Lane #4)(28)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

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.”

He was turning away, so he nearly missed the whisper from the bed.

Winter looked back. “I’m sorry?”

“Peela,” the child whispered. “Me name’s Peela.”

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.”