Thief of Shadows

Page 37

“Are you mad?” she hissed as she hastily turned and locked the door.
“You keep asking me that,” he murmured.
“With good reason!” She clenched her fists, rallying her argument. “He’s only doing this out of revenge. He has no true interest in the home—it’s a whim for him. How do you think he’d manage it?”
“Not well,” Winter said as he folded his costume and tucked it into the bag. “But it’s a moot subject: d’Arque has said himself that he’ll hire a manager for the home.”
“And do you truly think anyone could do as well as you?” she asked desperately.
He shot her an ironic look. “It’s hard for me to answer that without sounding conceited, but no, I don’t think anyone will do as well as I.”
She threw out her hands. “There you are. You admit it yourself—you cannot leave the home.”
He shook his head. “I admit only that my replacement will most likely not do as well as I. But the home won’t suffer much overall, I think. Nell Jones has been with us nearly as long as I have. We have more servants now, a cook, and the Ladies’ Syndicate to guide us. I believe the home will find a way to muddle through without me.”
“The home might muddle through, but will you?” she asked softly.
He paused and slowly looked at her. “What do you mean?”
“It’s everything to you, isn’t it?” She gestured about the room. “You’ve said so yourself time after time. St. Giles, this home, the children in it. They’re your life’s work.”
He nodded. “True. I’ll have to find another life’s work, I suppose.”
Her heart swelled with grief. For him. For all he would not admit. “Where will you go, Winter?”
He shrugged. “I have resources. I’ll find another place to live.”
“And will you find another boy like Joseph Tinbox?”
“No,” he said softly, regretfully, as he placed a few books in his bag and shut it. “No, Joseph Tinbox is quite unique.”
“You love him, Winter,” she said. “You can’t let him go to sea.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, and it was suddenly there in his face: all the grief, all the pain she’d expected before.
Then he opened them and his eyes were resolute. “It is because I love Joseph that I will let him go.”
Chapter Fifteen
The Harlequin’s True Love kept to the shadows as she searched the narrow lanes of St. Giles for the Harlequin. Twice she fled dangerous-looking men, and once she had to hide in a doorway for long minutes as a group of drunken louts stumbled by. But no matter how hard her heart beat in fear, she did not give up her search for the Harlequin…
—from The Legend of the Harlequin Ghost of St. Giles
Word travels fast in an orphanage. There are plenty of ears, plenty of watchful little eyes, gathering information and eager to spread it.
All the boys were at lessons. The minute Winter walked into the classroom half an hour later and saw Joseph Tinbox, he could tell that the boy had already heard.
“Joseph Tinbox, may I have a word with you?”
The other boys stared at Joseph as if watching a condemned prisoner. Joseph swallowed and rose from the bench he’d been sitting on. As the boy walked toward him, Winter noticed how tall he’d become. He could almost look Winter in the eye. Only a year ago he’d been less than shoulder height. Now he was nearly the height of a man.
Joseph stopped before him and said low so the other boys wouldn’t hear, “Do I have to?”
The sound of his voice cracking on the last word nearly made Winter’s heart split in two. “Yes, you must.”
Joseph lowered his head and preceded Winter out of the classroom. Winter looked about the hallway for a moment, nonplussed, before leading Joseph to the sickroom. It was empty at present—Peach had felt well enough to join one of the girls’ lessons.
He shut the door and looked at the lad. “You’ve heard, I take it?”
Joseph Tinbox nodded mutely. “Some toff wants to send me off to sea.”
Winter sat on Peach’s empty bed. “He wants to do much more than that, Joseph. He’s promised to buy you a commission in His Majesty’s Royal Navy.”
The grandeur of the name alone was enough to make Joseph’s face break with awe—for a second, no longer. Then he resumed the stubborn expression he’d had upon entering the room. “I don’t want to go.”
Winter nodded. “Of course not. You’ve never been to sea, and you will be leaving everyone—and everything—you know. But I’m afraid that doesn’t matter. You’re going to have to be as brave as you’ve ever been, Joseph, because you simply can’t pass up this opportunity.”
Joseph’s eyes darted to the bed Winter was sitting on. “Can’t. Peach needs me.”
For a second Winter wanted to close his eyes and admit defeat. Most of the children came to the home alone—bereft of both kin and friend. So it was doubly wonderful when they chose to make a friend. To become close to another child who was alone and lonely in the world. Joseph had, out of pure altruism, become Peach’s protector… and friend. To tear apart such a bond was surely a sin.
But that didn’t matter.
Winter leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “Most of the boys who leave here become apprentices. You know that, don’t you, Joseph?”
Joseph nodded warily.
“If they are lucky, after years of service, they might become a cobbler or a butcher or a weaver. All honest trades. All good enough lives.”
Winter spread wide his hands. “But you, Joseph, you have the opportunity now to become more. You can become a gentleman. Once in the Royal Navy—as an officer, not a simple seaman—if you work hard, are brave, and act smart, you can rise far above any of the other boys here. Someday you might be captain of your own ship.”
The boy’s eyes widened before he bit his lip. “But the sea. What if I don’t like the sea, sir?”
At that Winter smiled, for it was the one thing he was certain of. “You will. You’ll learn how to sail a ship, listen to the stories of the older boys and men, and travel to wondrous lands far, far away from England. Joseph, it will be the most amazing adventure of your life.”
For a moment Winter was sure he’d won the match. Had convinced Joseph that this decision was the best for the boy in the long run.
Then Joseph Tinbox’s eyes landed on the pillow, still indented from Peach’s head. He stared for a moment, his eyes uncertain, and then he looked at Winter, resolute. “I’m sorry, sir. It sounds a treat, really it does, but I can’t leave Peach by herself.”
Winter swallowed. He felt so weary, so tired of fighting and fighting without cessation. Without even a little rest.
But that was maudlin self-pity.
“I’m sorry, too, Joseph Tinbox, for I fear you’ve mistaken the matter.” He rose from the bed. “I’m not asking you to go. I’m ordering you.”
ISABEL SAT DOWN to a solitary dinner late that night in her private dining room. A fire crackled in the hearth behind her, there were fresh flowers in a small china vase on the round table, and Cook had made an excellent clear soup, but she seemed to have no appetite.
She’d been invited to a soiree, but with Winter leaving the home and Mr. Fraser-Burnsby having been murdered, she simply didn’t feel like an evening out. Poor Lady Littleton would no doubt have a very sad showing tonight—if anyone came at all.
“Shall I bring in the fish, my lady?” Will the footman asked.
“Please,” Isabel sighed absently.
She was still greatly disturbed both by Winter’s proposal and his defection from the home. For that was what it was, no matter his reasons or how righteous he might think them. He’d given up the home for one child’s future. That simply wasn’t morally correct, no matter his arguments or how much Joseph Tinbox meant to him.
And then there was an even greater worry: Where was he? Pinkney had been excited to tell her earlier that the Ghost had been seen fleeing over the rooftops of St. Giles as Trevillion’s dragoons gave chase. For all she knew, he might be lying gravely wounded somewhere—or worse, dead.
Isabel shoved her wineglass aside. She suddenly felt quite nauseous.
“My lady, you have a visitor,” Butterman intoned with deep disapproval from the doorway. “He insisted that he see you, otherwise I would have turned him away. As it was—”
“That’s fine,” came a masculine voice from behind the butler.
Oh, thank God!
Winter stepped around the man. “Thank you, Mr. Butterman.”
The butler stiffened. “Just Butterman, sir.”
Winter nodded gravely. “I’ll be sure to remember.”
“Mr. Makepeace,” Isabel said, “won’t you join me for dinner?”
He turned to her, brows raised as if surprised—what else had he expected her to do, throw him out?—and said, “That’s very kind of you, Lady Beckinhall.”
Well. Weren’t they terribly formal considering just last night he’d been thrusting into her wildly in her library?
“Please ask Mrs. Butterman to set another place,” Isabel instructed the butler.
He left, somehow making his retreating back look shocked—as only a very good butler can.
The minute the door shut behind him, Isabel leaned across the polished mahogany of her dinner table and hissed, “Where have you been? There have been reports of the Ghost running about St. Giles all evening. I didn’t know if you were risking your neck—again—or if the sightings were all false.”
“Oh, some of them were real enough.” He pulled out the chair opposite hers and sank into it. “I had a time of it, avoiding Trevillion and his men tonight.”
Maddening man! He simply wouldn’t give up—no matter how dangerous the streets of St. Giles were for him now. She didn’t know whether to throw her cutlery at him or leap across the table and kiss him.
Fortunately, Mrs. Butterman bustled into the dining room at that moment with a maid in attendance. The silence between her and Winter seemed pregnant, but the housekeeper didn’t appear to take any notice of the atmosphere.
Once Winter’s wine was poured, Mrs. Butterman nodded to herself with satisfaction, asked if there would be anything else, and left the room. They were now alone, as Will the footman was still gone—presumably retrieving the fish course.
Isabel took the opportunity to ask, “Did you find the workshop that employs children?”
Winter shook his head, looking bitterly disappointed as he lifted his wineglass. “Only rumors. There’re stories of children living in an attic somewhere, but my source—who I had to pay double to talk—was vague on the location. I tried one likely building but was driven away by the dragoons from another. I’ll have to try again another night.”
His going out night after night with the dragoons hot on his trail scared her to bits.
“I’m sorry,” she said cautiously, “but can you at least wait a couple of nights before you go out again?”
He cast an impatient glance at her from under his brows. “Every day I can’t find them, those children are abused.”
She shook her head and frowned down at her plate, wishing she could help in some way before another thought occurred. “And Joseph Tinbox? How did he take the news of his commission?”
“Not well.” Winter sipped the wine, for a moment closing his eyes at the taste. Then he opened them and looked at her. “I had to tell him he has no choice but to take the offer. When I left, he was no longer speaking to me.”
“Oh, Winter.” She started to reach across the table to touch his hand when Will opened the door.