Thief of Shadows (Maiden Lane #4)(38)

He looked at her, brows raised. “Wasn’t that the proper way to excuse ourselves?”

“Yes, of course, quite proper,” she said grumpily. “But we could’ve stayed longer with them.”

“I thought the point of this ball was to meet an array of people,” he said with quiet amusement.

She wrinkled her nose as if ready to argue.

“Oh, Lady Beckinhall, how nice to see you tonight.” Lady Margaret Reading slipped in front of them and exchanged with Isabel the odd pretend cheek kissing that lady friends seemed to favor.

Lady Margaret hesitantly extended her hand to him. Winter took it and kissed the air over her knuckles.

The girl beamed as he straightened, as if he were a spaniel who had performed a particularly clever trick. “Mr. Makepeace, you look quite wonderful.”

“Thank you, my lady,” he replied.

Isabel narrowed her eyes at him, probably because of the dryness of his tone.

He cleared his throat. “Your smile brightens this room, Lady Margaret.”

“Oh, thank you.” She glanced rather distractedly over his shoulder, and Winter had to repress the urge to look. This wasn’t St. Giles—presumably he was safe from attack here.

Or at least the type of attack he was used to.

“Lady Beckinhall, I quite fear I’d grown limp with worry that you would not attend this night,” a tall, handsome man drawled from Isabel’s other side. “And yet here you are and I find my entire constitution lifted with the glory of seeing you.”

Isabel laughed at this ridiculousness and took her hand from Winter’s arm to offer it to the newcomer. “La, Lord d’Arque, where do you come up with such creative flattery? If I don’t take care, my head may be turned.”

“Only if you don’t take care?” d’Arque asked lightly as he bent over her hand.

Winter repressed an urge to growl, for he was sure the other man wasn’t just pretending to kiss her knuckles.

D’Arque straightened languidly, his eyes intent on Isabel. “I needs must practice my flattery it seems, my lady. But perhaps you could help me? Under your gentle tutelage, I have hope of rising to meet your sweet regard.”

Winter cleared his throat. “She already has one man to tutor.”

Isabel started as if she’d truly fallen under the spell of this jackanapes. “My lord, may I present Mr. Winter Makepeace, the manager of the Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children? Mr. Makepeace, this is Adam Rutledge, the Viscount d’Arque.”

“Ah, Makepeace,” Lord d’Arque said after they’d made their bows. “What’s this about tutoring?”

“Lady Beckinhall has kindly offered her services to give me some polish,” Winter said in a flat voice. “In order to better represent the home.”

D’Arque’s eyebrows rose lazily. “But what’s the point, pray tell? After all, I shall be replacing you soon as the home’s manager.”

Winter stilled, the pounding of his pulse loud in his ears. “I beg your pardon?”

D’Arque tilted his head as if intrigued. “I was given to understand by Lady Penelope that you would be resigning as manager of the home. Don’t tell me you’ve changed your mind? I had my heart quite set on the position.”

“I do not have any intention of relinquishing my position at the home,” Winter said through clenched jaws. “Now or ever.”

WINTER MAKEPEACE LOOKED absolutely furious.

For a man who normally kept his emotions under strict control, the sight was rather frightening. Isabel instinctively started to take a step back from him, but he slapped his hand over her fingers on his arm, keeping her close.

Lord d’Arque’s heavy-lidded eyes flicked to where Winter had trapped her hand, and his cynical smile became fixed. “I’m told that you’ve outstayed your usefulness at the home, Makepeace.”

Isabel opened her mouth to deny the charge, but Winter was already speaking, low and lethally. “I’ve no doubt that Lady Penelope is the source of your information. The lady knows her slippers and gloves, but she has no practical experience running an orphanage in the heart of St. Giles. I have been and will be the best person to manage the home.”

“Is that so?” D’Arque’s lips curved cruelly. “You may still be happy at the home, but as I understand it, the home has grown beyond you. Forgive me, but I believe with the illustrious patronesses it now has, you may even be an embarrassment.”

“Adam!” Isabel’s shocked gasp was out before she could think. She felt Winter’s forearm turn to steel beneath her fingers at the use of d’Arque’s Christian name.

Lady Margaret glanced at her curiously while d’Arque’s expression grew smug.

Isabel’s eyebrows rose coolly at him. She and Adam Rutledge may’ve been playing a sophisticated game of seduction for the last year, he may’ve made it subtly known that he was interested in a liaison, and she may’ve hinted that she wasn’t averse to the idea, but she’d never committed herself.

He had no right to look so damned complacent—and certainly no right to attack Winter in a show of male possessiveness.

Lady Margaret cleared her throat in the awkward silence. “I think Mr. Makepeace is an excellent manager and… and representative of the home.”