Thief of Shadows (Maiden Lane #4)(29)

He’d dropped his arms as he spoke, unconsciously stepping closer to her. Now he raised his hand and pointed to the ceiling, the muscles on his forearm rigid. “Peach still lies abed above. She was abandoned and used. A child who should’ve been cherished and loved as the very embodiment of all that is good in this world. That is what St. Giles is. That is what I live in. Wouldn’t you find it strange, therefore, if I capered and skipped? Laughed and giggled?”

His bare chest heaved with his vehemence, nearly touching her bodice now he was so close. She had to tilt her head back to keep his gaze, and she found that every inhale brought with it his heady scent.

Man, pure man.

She swallowed. “Others work here and are not a black pit. Your sisters have worked here. Do you think them any less discerning than you?”

She saw his nostrils flare as if he, too, had caught her scent. “I do not know. I only know that the darkness almost consumes me. It is an animal I battle every day. Darkness is my burden to bear.”

Was this the real Winter Makepeace, hidden under the mask he wore normally? She wanted to touch him, wanted to stroke his cheek, feel the warmth of his skin and tell him that he must prevail, must fight the darkness invading him. Tell him that she would beat it back for him if she could. At the same time, she reveled in this part of him. Was the man beneath really all darkness?

Or was he part passion as well?

But Mr. Hurt cleared his throat at that moment. “I believe I am finished, my lady.”

Mr. Makepeace immediately stepped away, his eyes shuttering, and picked up his shirt.

“Of course.” Isabel’s voice came out in a near squeak. She swallowed. “Thank you, Mr. Hurt, for your time.”

“My pleasure, my lady.” The tailor bowed and hurried from the room with his notes.

Mr. Makepeace was donning his breeches now, his back turned.

Pinkney watched him avidly from across the room.

Isabel sent her a stern look even as she searched for something to say to him. It was just so hard to have an intimate conversation with his back. “I hope that my… my torch, as you term it, can bring light into your darkness, Mr. Makepeace. I truly—”

He turned abruptly, catching up his waistcoat and coat. “I beg your pardon, Lady Beckinhall, but I have tasks to do today that really cannot wait. I hope you will excuse me.”

Well, she certainly knew a dismissal when she heard one. Isabel smiled sunnily, trying to hide the sharp crystal of hurt his words had engendered in her breast. “Naturally, I wouldn’t dream of interrupting your work. But we do need to start your dancing lessons. Shall we say tomorrow afternoon?”

“Yes, that will do,” he said brusquely, and with an abbreviated bow, he strode from the room.

“He’s going to need a lot more tutoring,” Pinkney said, apparently to herself. She caught Isabel’s look and straightened. “Oh, I’m sorry, my lady.”

“No, that’s all right,” Isabel replied absently. Mr. Makepeace did need a great deal more tutoring—perhaps more than could be done before the Duchess of Arlington’s ball.

Isabel sent Pinkney to find a boy to fetch the carriage and then paced the small sitting room, considering the problem of Mr. Makepeace. His curtness—which at times verged on outright rudeness—was more than simply learning social manners. After all, the man hadn’t been born in some cave, left to be raised by wolves. No, he’d come from a respectable family. His sister, Temperance, had managed to obtain all of the social graces—so much so that she adapted easily to being the wife of a baron—even if she hadn’t been entirely accepted by aristocratic society.

Pinkney came back to announce that the carriage had arrived. Isabel nodded absently and led the way out the home’s door to the carriage. She murmured a word of thanks to Harold as he helped her in and then settled back against the squabs.

“Have you decided what you’ll wear to the Arlington ball?” Pinkney asked hesitantly from across the carriage.

Isabel blinked and glanced at her lady’s maid. Pinkney was looking a might droopy. “My newest cream with embroidery, I think. Or perhaps the gold stripe?”

Talk of fashion always perked up Pinkney.

“Oh, the embroidered cream,” the maid said decidedly. “The emeralds will be lovely with it, and we’ve just got a half dozen of those lace stockings I ordered. Made in the French fashion.”

“Mmm,” Isabel murmured, her mind not really on the topic. “I suppose I can wear the cream embroidered slippers as well.”

There was a disapproving silence from the other side of the carriage that made Isabel look up.

Pinkney’s pretty eyebrows were drawn together in what was nearly a stern frown. “The creams are frayed about the heel.”

“Really?” Isabel hadn’t notice the fraying, so it must be small indeed. “But surely it’s not enough—”

“ ’Twould be better to get new ones—perhaps in cloth of gold.” Pinkney looked eager. “We could call on the cobbler this afternoon.”

“Very well.” Isabel sighed, resigning herself to an afternoon of shopping.

Usually the activity was quite enjoyable, but at the moment her mind was on the conundrum of Mr. Makepeace, for she’d just come to an important realization about the wretched man.

If Mr. Makepeace’s rudeness didn’t come from his upbringing, then it must be innate to him—an essential part of his character. If this was so—and Isabel very much feared it was—then teaching him graceful manners was a much more difficult matter than she realized. For either Mr. Makepeace must learn to wear a constant mask of false propriety in society—one that he in no way believed in—or she must bring him into the light and teach him to view the world as a more cheerful place.