Thief of Shadows (Maiden Lane #4)(37)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

Contain the animal.

Something within him growled. He must release the beast when he was the Ghost, but he had to control it at the same time. Just a little freedom. Just a bit of fresh air. What would he do if he ever met Isabel Beckinhall in this guise again? Would he take what he dared not in the light of day?

Winter pushed the disquieting thought from his mind and stowed his soft bag with his clothes behind the door. Cautiously, he peered into the corridor. Twenty minutes and when he’d have his answers from d’Arque’s coachman, he’d return and change back into his suit. Draw the protective shell of Winter Makepeace about himself and became again the rigid, upright schoolmaster and orphanage manager.

A man who only dared think about kissing Isabel Beckinhall in his dreams.

ISABEL’S CARRIAGE FINALLY drew opposite the opera’s front doors, and Harold’s plain, honest face appeared at the carriage door. “My lady.”

“Thank you,” she murmured as she stepped down.

The carriage pulled away, and Isabel mounted the steps to the opera house alone. She’d simply have to arrive at d’Arque’s box sans her pupil—even if it would count badly against Winter. Lady Penelope would certainly take note of his tardiness.

The crowd became thicker as she entered the opera. Brightly gowned ladies chattered with gentlemen no less elegantly dressed. Overhead, the vestibule ceiling arched high, recessed box molding painted in blue, cream, and crimson.

“Pardon me,” Isabel murmured as an elderly lady in a fussy lace cap bumped against her. The woman pivoted and Isabel felt the distinctive pull of her skirt. She looked down and saw a bit of lace hanging off her hem.

“Drat,” she muttered under her breath.

She remembered that a retiring room lay in a corridor just off the main lobby. Carefully, Isabel lifted her skirts and headed that way. If she hurried, she should have time to pin up the lace and get to d’Arque’s box before the opera started.

The corridor was ill lit, but the retiring room was the first door on the right. Isabel began to push it open when she saw a form dart at the far end of the corridor.

Black and scarlet motley flashed.

Surely not. Isabel told herself that she must’ve mistaken the pattern even as she began making her way down the dim corridor. The Ghost had never been seen outside St. Giles. Well, except for the day she’d found him. That day he’d ventured out as far as Tyburn to keep a pirate from swinging from the gallows. Further, Winter Makepeace was supposed to be attending the opera right now. If he were indeed the Ghost…

Isabel’s heart was beating in a quick, fluttering rhythm as she neared the place where she’d seen the flash of scarlet. She glanced around. Only a few candles in sconces on the wall lit this part of the hall. Judging from the bare wood floor and unadorned walls, this must be a service passage of some kind. Isabel tiptoed down its length, passing a half-opened door to a storage room. At the end, the hall made a right-hand turn. She peered around the corner. A narrow staircase leading up.

Empty.

She sighed and straightened in disappointment.

“Looking for something, Lady Beckinhall?” The whisper was husky and low, but quite distinctly masculine. She whirled.

He leaned against the hallway wall, as indolently graceful as a lounging leopard. She hadn’t seen him standing last time—then he’d been wounded and ill. Now he was tall and virilely athletic, the formfitting harlequin’s costume outlining muscles on legs, chest, and arms, while the long-nosed mask gave him a faintly satanic aspect.

He tilted his head, his mouth—that familiar, sensuous mouth—curving in sardonic amusement. “Or do you search for someone, my lady?”

“Maybe I do.” She raised her chin even as she felt the blush heat her cheeks. “What are you doing here?”

“Mischief, mayhem, merrymaking?” He shrugged. “Does it matter?”

She took a cautious step closer to him. The voice was the same, and the body was the right height and build, but he had a freedom, a daring recklessness that Winter Makepeace had never shown her. But then Winter Makepeace had never shown any sign of violence, either, and if the stories were to be believed, the man in front of her was not only used to violence, but also skilled at it.

Isabel was utterly fascinated. “It matters if you have no fear for your life. You must know that many wish your arrest and even death.”

“And if they do?” Unbelievably, he sounded amused.

Another step. “I might be… disheartened… should anything happen to you.”

“Would you?”

She slowly reached out and ran a finger down the length of the deformed nose of his mask. “Who are you?”

His beautiful mouth twisted. “Whoever you wish me to be.”

She laughed then, a little breathlessly. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, sir.”

“I never do,” his words whispered across her senses.

She met his eyes, brown behind the eyeholes in his mask, and reached around the back of his head. Her fingers found the tie holding his mask and gently pulled.

He lifted his hand and for a moment she was disappointed, thinking he meant to stop her.

Then he took the cured leather mask away from his face.

As he had the last time, he wore a thin black silk half-mask under the leather one.

He cocked his head. “Is this what you want?”

“No,” she whispered, standing on tiptoe, her hands flat against his hard chest. She’d find out for certain one way or the other. “This is.”

She opened her lips against his. He claimed her like a barbarian marauder. The kiss was rough, unpracticed, and without finesse, and yet Isabel felt a trembling thrill go through her. She was used to civilized embraces, carefully thought out, impeccably implemented. Mannered and cool. The Ghost of St. Giles, in contrast, was a storm breaking over her, all passion and emotion.

All real man.

She felt his arms come about her, pulling her tight against his chest as he bent her helplessly, lost, falling, her heart half beating out of her breast. And she knew—she knew—that she kissed not only the Ghost of St. Giles, but Winter Makepeace as well.

She drew back, gasping, her eyes searching for the familiar features beneath the mask.

And then a hand clamped down on her shoulder and she was torn from his arms.

“How dare you!” d’Arque shouted as he flung Isabel at the wall.

She blinked, shocked, and looked at the Ghost.

He was tying the leather mask onto his face.