Thief of Shadows

Page 44

Miss Greaves heaved a sigh.
The cook grimaced. “Almost as soon as Mr. Makepeace left. It’s been a right riot ’round ’ere. The little monsters don’t pay a whit of attention to anyone. Got Lord d’Arque quite smartly on the back of the ’ead with a walnut, one of ’em did.”
Mistress Medina sounded almost pleased.
“Lady Penelope did try,” Miss Greaves said earnestly. “She brought hothouse cherries for the children the second day, but—”
“Pits,” Mistress Medina said succinctly. “Not to mention cherry juice stains right proper. Any ’alf-wit knows that.”
“I think she would’ve handed the home back after that,” Miss Greaves murmured, “if it were not for Lord d’Arque’s insistence that they keep it. He hasn’t even bothered to hire a manager.”
“But why?” Isabel asked.
“Because,” Lord d’Arque said from the doorway, “it irritates Makepeace for me to be here. That’s why. Besides I’m right in the middle of the Ghost’s haunting grounds here. If he shows, I’ll be the first to hear about it.”
Miss Greaves squeaked at his entrance and hurriedly made her excuses. Mistress Medina rose from the kitchen table, her very slowness an insult.
Fortunately, Lord d’Arque was in no state to notice. He leaned against the doorway, almost a parody of insouciance, quite obviously the worse for drink. “Do you still hate me?”
“Oh, yes,” Isabel said sincerely. No matter what his reasons—if there were any—he’d hurt Winter very badly. Her loyalties were quite confirmed. “But I’ve come with a question for you anyway.”
Lord d’Arque pushed off from the doorjamb and walked overly carefully toward her. “Given him up? Come for a real lover?”
She wrinkled her nose. “I’ve never known you to be crude before.”
He sank rather abruptly into the chair opposite her. “Sorry.”
She studied him. Something was obviously tearing at his soul. Perhaps Winter was right. This d’Arque might very well do something shady and immoral. “I want to ask you about your coachman.”
“My coachman?” The viscount blinked as if that were the last thing he expected. “Don’t tell me he’s in trouble—I only hired him the other day.”
It was Isabel’s turn to look puzzled. “I thought you’d had him for months.”
Lord d’Arque rolled his eyes. “No, that was my old man. He disappeared while we were attending the opera. Damned inconvenient. I had to get one of the footmen to drive me home, and the man had never handled the reins as far as I could tell.”
Isabel frowned, thinking. Had someone killed the coachman to keep him from telling Winter anything? If so, that hardly exonerated Lord d’Arque. She pulled the scrap of paper with his seal from her pocket. “Is this yours?”
He leaned down to peer at the paper, his brows drawing together. “It’s my seal, certainly, and this is my handwriting.” He turned the letter over, staring at the misspelled words there. “Looks like someone reused the paper for a note.” He shrugged and straightened. “Where did you get it?”
“It was found in St. Giles,” she said. “And I would very much like to know what it was doing there.”
“How should I know?”
She pursed her lips impatiently. “It’s your letter.”
“Do you remember everyone you write to?”
“Actually, yes,” she said. “Because the people I write to are usually personal friends.”
He stared at her a moment. “Let me see that.”
She handed the scrap of paper over.
He peered at it, turning it over. “Well, it says October…” He looked up at her suddenly. “Why do you want to know whom I wrote to anyway?”
“Because,” she said with a hard smile. “Why do you wish to conceal whom you wrote it to?”
“I don’t.” He shrugged again and let the paper fall to the table. “I write my grandmother when she’s out of town—but she was in London during October. I might’ve written this to a paramour or…” He frowned, thinking.
“Who?” she whispered.
“I wrote a note on a matter of business to Seymour in October.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “What business?”
He shook his head. “It was a delicate matter. I gave my word not to reveal it.”
“Adam.”
He smiled suddenly with some of his normal attractiveness. “I do like the way you say my given name.”
“I haven’t the time for this,” she said sternly.
He sighed. “Oh, all right. Seymour had a moneymaking scheme he wanted me to invest in. I declined in a letter.”
“Why did you decline?”
“I’ve found that moneymaking schemes are a good way to lose all one’s blunt.” He smiled, dissipated and handsome. “And despite my devil-may-care exterior, I have the heart of a conservative miser.”
“Hmm.” Isabel thought for a bit. Was Mr. Seymour’s moneymaking scheme somehow connected to the lace stocking workshop? Or was the whole thing a false trail? “What was Seymour’s scheme?”
“I don’t know.”
“What?”
The viscount shrugged elegantly. “We never got as far as specifics. I declined at once.”
She grimaced. “Very well, I’ll ask the man himself. I’ll visit Mr. Seymour at his home.” Isabel rose, gesturing to Harold, but Lord d’Arque was shaking his head again.
“He’s not there. We met Makepeace when we came here. He and Makepeace set off together for the place where the Ghost had rescued all those girls the other night.”
Alarm caused Isabel’s hands to tremble, but she made herself ask calmly, “Did anyone go with them?”
“No, they went alone. Why?” The viscount was staring at her curiously.
“It’s probably nothing.” Isabel tried to think. She looked at him. “How did you come to hire your former coachman anyway?”
“What very odd questions you’re asking this morning,” Lord d’Arque murmured. He threw up his hands at a fierce glance from her. “All right! Seymour recommended him, in fact.”
Oh, God! Mr. Seymour must be the aristocrat behind the workshops, and Winter had gone off with him alone. Why else would Mr. Seymour do that except that he’d realized that Winter was the Ghost and wished to kill him? How could she get to Winter in time to warn him?
She balled her hands into impotent fists. “I don’t even know where they’ve gone. I don’t know where the workshop is.”
“Well, that’s settled easily enough,” the viscount drawled. “I do.”
Her mouth dropped open. “You do?”
He smiled, looking almost boyish. “Makepeace told us where the place was before he left with Seymour.”
WINTER PAUSED BESIDE a tall house, looking up. Four stories plus the attic. This was the building that he’d found the children in the night before last.
He lowered his gaze to his companion. “This is the place.”
“You’re sure?” Seymour looked doubtfully at the building. “It looks like all the others around here.”
“I’m sure,” Winter said. “Would you like to go first?”
“Oh, no,” Seymour said. He smiled and gestured. “After you, Mr. Makepeace.”
Winter nodded and entered the building. It had been divided up into multiple small rooms, each for let, some sublet again, and some with beds rented yet again within the rooms. A typical St. Giles house. Luckily the stairs were here at the front of the house and they wouldn’t have to travel the warren to find them.
Winter started up the stairs. “I was surprised to see you and Lord Kershaw in St. Giles today.”
“Really?” Seymour’s voice echoed off the bare walls eerily.
“Mmm.” Winter turned a corner. “Why were you here?”
“We came to help d’Arque look for Fraser-Burnsby’s murderer,” Seymour said. “The Ghost of St. Giles. You still know nothing about him?”
His voice was suddenly very close.
Winter paused and turned, unsurprised to find Seymour on a tread just below him. “You move very quietly, Mr. Seymour.”
The other man was no longer smiling. “So do you. I noticed on the walk here that you’re quite at home in St. Giles.”
Winter smiled thinly. “I have lived here for nine years. And, no, I don’t know anything about the Ghost.”
“You’re sure?”
“Very.”
Winter started up the stairs again, aware that the other man followed him closely. The house was old and made odd noises—creaks and groans. This time of day it was mostly deserted. The inhabitants were out, scrabbling for what money they could earn or steal so they could afford to sleep tonight in this wretched place.
If they were attacked, probably no one would hear. And if anyone did, they were very unlikely to do anything about it. People minded their own business in St. Giles out of desperate necessity. They might as well be trekking through some African desert.
“I was surprised you knew about the children the Ghost brought to the home,” Seymour said. They were nearing the top floor now.
Ah, at last. “Were you?”
“You seemed to know almost before anyone else outside the home. Almost as soon as the Ghost himself.”
“I have my sources,” Winter said easily. The climb was making him warm and he folded back the edge of his cloak.
“Your sources must be nearly as good as the Ghost’s.”
“Perhaps.” Winter paused outside a small door. “The workshop is in here. Would you like to go in first?”
“Please, Mr. Makepeace,” Mr. Seymour said.
Winter looked at him a moment and then opened the door. The outer attic room was even smaller in daylight. The wood from the broken roof door lay on the floor in jagged pieces among a layer of dust. Oddly, the machines were all gone.
Behind him the door to the attic room closed.
Winter felt the jolt of warning rush through him.
A moment too late.
When he turned, Seymour already had his sword drawn. “I think you’d better kneel before me, Mr. Makepeace. Or do you prefer to be called the Ghost of St. Giles?”
Chapter Nineteen
Now the Harlequin could see, but he still stood mute and unmoving before his True Love. So once more she stood on tiptoe, this time kissing him on the cheek before whispering, “Remember how we once lay together, love? Remember how we became lovers and hoped for a future? That future is alive and here.”
And taking his hand, she laid it upon her gently swelling belly, where a new life grew. Thus she made him touch Hope…
—from The Legend of the Harlequin Ghost of St. Giles
She’d pushed him away from her again and again, but she never thought he’d go far. He’d always be in her life, always be in this world, living his own life, perhaps marrying, managing his home, happy, damn it.
Winter Makepeace wasn’t supposed to die. Isabel simply couldn’t conceive of it. He was too athletic, too young, too vital. He wasn’t like other men. He challenged her. He saw all her faults—and they were myriad—and he said he loved her anyway. If she lived a thousand lifetimes, she’d never find another man like him, and she didn’t want to.
She loved Winter Makepeace and no other.
The thought was dizzying. Isabel actually stumbled in the dank, awful St. Giles alley.
“Are you all right, my lady?” Harold said as he caught her arm.
“Yes, yes,” she panted. “We must hurry.”