The man gave a yell at the sight of Winter coming over the eves. “Th’ Ghost! ’Tis th’ Ghost come to drag us to ’ell!”
“Leg it!” cried the youth, and they turned.
But Winter was on them already, the blood pumping in his veins, righteous rage nearly blinding him. He grasped the man’s coat, pulling him backward. The man threw a frantic punch that Winter absorbed on his shoulder before laying the man flat with a blow to the jaw.
The youth hadn’t stopped. He was near the roof edge, debating whether he could make a six-foot leap across to the next building. He backed a step in preparation, the child still in his arms.
And then Winter caught hold of him.
The youth whipped around, as lethal as a snake, and sank his teeth into Winter’s wrist.
Winter grit his teeth and grabbed the boy by his hair, shaking him like a rat. The youth let go of his wrist at the same time as he let go of the child. The child tumbled down, narrowly missing the roof edge, and lay as if stunned, small eyes staring up at Winter unblinking.
With his free hand, Winter took hold of the child’s foot and dragged him away from the roof edge. The child had been wrapped in a blanket, which caught on the roof tiles as he was dragged, leaving him entirely nude.
Winter bent and flung the edge of the blanket over the child. “Stay there,” he whispered.
The little boy nodded mutely.
Then Winter turned to the youth he still held by the hair. He shook him again. “You might’ve dropped that babe over the edge.”
The youth shrugged. “Plenty more where ’e came from, innit there? ’Sides, it’s a boy.”
Winter’s eyes narrowed. “The whoremonger you work for doesn’t take male children?”
“Don’t ’ave a lassie’s nimble fingers, do they?” The youth bared his teeth like a feral dog. “ ’Sides, I don’t work for no stinkin’ whoremonger. You’d best be afeared of the man who pays me—’e’s a toff, ’e is.”
“What toff?”
The youth’s eyes flicked over Winter’s shoulder.
Winter ducked to the side, just avoiding the blow meant for his head. The older man skipped back. But the youth was free now, racing after the older man as they fled away over the rooftops.
Winter instinctively started in their direction but drew himself up abruptly when he remembered the little boy. He turned back to the child.
The boy lay where Winter had left him, still unmoving. His eyes widened as Winter approached and picked him up, bundled in the ragged blanket. He felt too light. No doubt he was undernourished as so many children were in St. Giles. If the child had had clothes before his mother’s death, the other inhabitants in the house where he lived had obviously stolen them.
A black weight seemed to settle on Winter’s shoulders. He might’ve saved this little boy, but no doubt the “lassie snatchers” were running somewhere else in St. Giles, still plying their evil trade tonight even as he stood here.
“What’s your name?” Winter whispered to the boy, pushing golden curls back from the little forehead.
The child reached out a chubby hand and fingered the curved nose of Winter’s mask in wonder. As he did so, a scrap of paper fell from his little fist.
Winter bent and picked up the paper. The child was nude, so he must’ve somehow grabbed the paper off the lad who’d snatched him. Winter couldn’t tell what, if anything, the paper had written on it, but he could feel a part of a waxen seal. He placed it carefully in his pocket and then wrapped both arms about the little boy.
“Best we get you to the home, Joseph Chance.”
“NOW, THEN,” ISABEL said early the next afternoon. “The most important thing to remember when dancing with a lady is not to step upon her toes.”
Winter Makepeace, dressed as usual in his black coat and waistcoat, looked rather like a faintly bemused scarecrow. He nodded somberly. “I shall endeavor to preserve your toes, my lady.”
“Good.” Isabel inhaled and faced forward. They were in her ballroom—a delightful space with green and black marble floors and her prized harpsichord, painted red with gilt trim. “Mr. Butterman has some talent with the harpsichord and has agreed to provide our dancing music.”
The butler bowed gravely from his seat at the harpsichord.
“How kind,” Mr. Makepeace murmured.
Isabel darted a sharp glance at him but was slightly surprised to see no sarcasm in his expression. Indeed he nodded his thanks to her butler, who, looking a tad surprised himself, nodded back. Perhaps he saved his sarcasm solely for her.
Depressing thought.
“Shall we begin?” she asked briskly, holding out her hand to him.
He took her hand in his warm fingers and looked down at her gravely. “As you wish.”
“On three. One and two and three.” She moved forward in the steps she had previously demonstrated for Mr. Makepeace and was astonished to realize that not only had he understood them on the first introduction, but also that he moved gracefully.
She darted a glance sideways at him and found him looking back, a faintly amused expression on his face as if he knew her thoughts. “When did you learn to dance, my lady?”
They faced each other for a beat and then separated and paced gently backward away from each other.
“Oh, as a young girl,” she said breathlessly, even though the dance was slow. “I had a dance master when I was twelve and shared his lessons with my girl cousin who, sadly, I did not get on with.”
They turned and paced in a parallel line together.
“You had no brothers or sisters?” he asked.
“None that I knew,” she replied. “I had an older brother who died in infancy before I was born. Now take my hand.”
He did so, his large hand enveloping hers in warmth as she circled him.
“Yours sounds like a lonely childhood,” he murmured, low enough that Butterman couldn’t hear.
“Does it?” She faced him again. “But it wasn’t. I had many friends and that same girl cousin I argued with when young is now an intimate. There were parties and teas and picnics in the country. I had a very happy girlhood.”
She curtsied as he bowed. “When I was old enough, I came out—to great acclaim, if I do say so myself.”
His dark eyes lit. “I can believe it. You must’ve had scores of young aristocrats at your feet.”
“Perhaps.”
He shook his head. “Did you think about what you were looking for in a husband? What type of man you wanted to spend the rest of your life with?”
What was he getting at? “I suppose I thought mostly of elegance and form, like most young girls,” she said cautiously.
His eyes narrowed. “And yet you married Beckinhall?”
She laughed; she couldn’t help it. “You make poor Edmund sound like a dire fate. He wasn’t, you know. I was quite fond of him, and he of me.”
His face was expressionless. “He was also much older than you.”
“No, to the left here.” She shrugged as he circled her in the direction indicated. “What of it? Many marriages are made with differing ages.” She glanced at him slyly with a sudden urge to provoke—he was so grave today! “I do assure you that I was quite… satisfied… in my marriage.”
They linked hands, about to skip sideways, but he tugged over hard on her fingers, making her fall against him.
“Oof!” She looked up at him, startled.
The harpsichord clanged in discord before Mr. Butterman caught himself.
“Oh, dear,” Mr. Makepeace drawled. “I do beg your pardon.”
Isabel narrowed her eyes. Each breath she took pushed her breasts into his chest. “Do be careful, Mr. Makepeace. Complicated maneuvers such as the one you just tried are better left to those more experienced.”
“Ah, but, Lady Beckinhall,” he said as the corners of his mouth twitched, “I hope under your tutelage to be experienced quite soon.”
“Yes, well…” She stepped back, trying to regain he
r breath. “Shall we try again?”
He bowed. “As you wish.”
“I do wish.” She nodded at Butterman.
Once again they faced forward, repeating the steps, though she wasn’t sure why since he seemed to have already learned them in a damnably short time. When she glanced at him, he was studying her thoughtfully.
“A penny for your thoughts,” she murmured.
“I was just thinking,” he said as he paced toward her, “how very stupid your husband must’ve been to stray from you.”
She braced herself, but still his words hurt. “I never said that.”
He merely looked at her.
She inhaled. “I assure you I thought nothing of it. Marriages among my rank are often more friendly than passionate.”
“And yet you are a passionate woman,” he whispered as he took her hand and raised it. They circled each other as he spoke. “Has anyone cherished you just for yourself?”
She looked up and laughed at him. “This question from the man who takes care of everyone yet whom no one takes care of?”
He frowned slightly. “I don’t—”
“No, no,” she said softly, placing her hands on his hard hips and turning him. “Like this. And you do know exactly what I mean.”
They stopped dancing, oblivious to the music still playing.
“Do I?” he asked.
“We might come from terribly divergent backgrounds, Mr. Makepeace,” she murmured. “But I do assure you I can recognize one as lonely as I.”
He stilled. “You keep surprising me, my lady.”
“What do you do at night,” she whispered impulsively, “after all the children have gone to bed? Do you lie in your own lonely bed—or do you walk the streets of St. Giles?”
His face closed as surely as if a door had shut. “You also keep drawing me in,” he murmured as he stepped away from her, “when I know you are a danger to my mission in St. Giles.”
She knit her brow. Mission? That sounded very religious. Surely he couldn’t—
“I think our lesson must be over with for today,” he continued.
He bowed and was out the door before she could react.
“Shall I retire, my lady?” Butterman asked diffidently from the piano.
“Yes. Yes, that will be all, Butterman. Thank you,” Isabel replied absently, then reconsidered. “Wait.”
“My lady?”
She looked at her butler, a man who’d been in her service since her marriage. She’d never really thought about it, but she trusted him implicitly. That made up her mind. “I’d like you to do something a little out of the ordinary for me, Butterman.”
He bowed. “I’m always at your service, my lady.”
“And I thank you for it,” she said warmly. “I’d like you to find out everything you can about the Ghost of St. Giles.”
Butterman didn’t even blink. “Of course, my lady.”
She continued staring at the door where Mr. Makepeace had left long after the butler had gone about his business.
She’d hit a soft spot somehow in their sparring, and his reaction hadn’t been what she’d expected. She’d have to think long and hard on what to do next.
SUPPER AT THE Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children was always a somewhat chaotic affair.
“Amen.” Winter raised his head as a ragged chorus of childish voices gave end to the evening grace.
It was good to be back at the home after the afternoon’s sparring with Lady Beckinhall. The lady was getting too close—both to the Ghost of St. Giles and to his own inner beast. Last night he’d found himself dreaming about her in quite an explicit manner. He’d woken with his base flesh hard and eager, and it had taken an hour of preparing lessons and writing letters for his cock to subside. Even now, the memory of those luminous dream breasts held in sweet offering was enough to—
“Can you pass the salt?” Joseph Tinbox said, interrupting his inappropriate reverie.
“Yes, of course,” Winter replied, doing just that.
He eyed his plate with some anticipation. Tonight they appeared to be dining upon a wonderfully thick beef stew with crusty bread and a creamy cheese as accompaniments. Mistress Medina had exceeded his expectations as cook for the home.
“Cor! I loves beef stew,” Joseph Tinbox exclaimed from his seat across from Winter, giving voice to his own thought.
“I love beef stew, Joseph Tinbox,” Winter gently corrected.
“Me too,” Henry Putman piped up from beside Winter, oblivious. “Do you like beef stew, Joseph Chance?”
“Aye!” The new little boy nodded vigorously as he raised a big spoonful of stew to his mouth.
“If I had my druthers,” Henry Putman declared, “we’d have beef stew every night.”
“Couldn’t have fish pie, then,” objected Joseph Smith from Winter’s other side.
“Don’t hardly ever have fish pie anyways,” Joseph Tinbox pointed out. “ ’Sides, no one likes fish pie but you, Joseph Smith.”
Sensing that culinary tastes might be a potential source of conflict, Winter cleared his throat. “How far have you progressed in your study of the Bible, Joseph Tinbox?”
“Revelations,” Joseph Tinbox said. “Right corker it is, too, sir. All about dragons and blood running in streams, and—”
“Yes, quite,” Winter said hastily. “And you, Henry Putman, what Psalm is your class memorizing this week?”
“Psalm 139,” Henry said dolefully. “It’s long.”
“But very lovely, don’t you think?” Winter said. “ ‘If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me: even the night shall be light about me/Yea the darkness hideth not from thee, but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.’ ”
Henry scrunched up his nose doubtfully. “If you say so, sir. I just can’t make out what it all means.”
“It means that the Lord can see in the dark,” Joseph Tinbox said with eleven-year-old authority.
“And also that whether in the daytime or the nighttime, there’s no hiding from God,” Winter said.
For a moment there were alarmed faces about the table.
Winter sighed gently. “What else has happened at the home while I was away today?”
“Dodo got in a fight with Soot,” Joseph Smith said.
“Aye!” Henry Putman waved his spoon, nearly getting stew in Joseph Chance’s hair. “Dodo came into the kitchen and went too close to Soot—he was sleeping by the fireplace. And Soot leaped up and scratched Dodo’s nose. But Dodo fought back and barked until Soot ran outside.”
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.”