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

Where her hands were.

Isabel swallowed and untied the garment, a little surprised by the tremble of her fingers, and drew them down his legs. His genitals were revealed, his cock thick and long, even at rest, his bollocks heavy.

“Well,” Mrs. Butterman said, “he certainly seems healthy enough there.”

“Oh my, yes,” Pinkney breathed.

Isabel looked around irritably. She’d not realized the maid had come close enough to see the Ghost. Isabel drew a corner of the counterpane over the Ghost’s loins, feeling protective of the unconscious man.

“Help me take off his boots so we can bare his legs completely,” Isabel told Mrs. Butterman. “If we can’t find the wound there, we’ll have to turn him over.”

But as they stripped his breeches farther down his legs, a long gash was revealed on the man’s muscled right thigh. Fresh blood oozed and trickled over his leg as the sodden material was pulled away.

“There ’tis,” Mrs. Butterman said. “We can send for the doctor, my lady, but I’ve a fair hand with the needle and thread.”

Isabel nodded. She glanced again at the wound, relieved it was not nearly as bad as she’d feared. “Fetch what you’ll need, please, Mrs. Butterman, and take Pinkney with you to help. I have a feeling he won’t be much pleased by a doctor.”

Mrs. Butterman hurried out with Pinkney following behind.

Isabel waited, alone in the room save for the Ghost of St. Giles. Why had she rescued him? It’d been an action taken almost without thought—to leave a defenseless man to be ravaged by a mob was an idea that instinctively repulsed her. But now that he was in her house, she found herself more curious about the man himself. What sort of man risked his life in the disguise of a harlequin? Was he a footpad or a sword for hire? Or was he merely a madman? Isabel looked at him. He was unconscious, but he was still a commanding presence, his big body sprawled upon the dainty bed. He was a man in the prime of his life, strong and athletic, nearly bare to her gaze.

All except his face.

Her hand moved almost without thought, stretching toward the black silk mask still covering the upper part of his face. Was he handsome? Ugly? Merely ordinary-looking?

Her hand began to descend toward the mask.

His flashed up and caught her wrist.

His eyes opened, assessing and quite clearly brown. “Don’t.”

THIS DAY WAS not going as planned.

Winter Makepeace stared up into Lady Isabel Beckinhall’s clever blue eyes and wondered how, exactly, he was going to extricate himself from this situation without giving away his identity.

“Don’t,” he whispered again. Her wrist was warm and delicate, but he could feel the feminine strength beneath his fingers, and his own muscles were damnably weak at the moment.

“Very well,” she murmured. “How long have you been awake?”

She made no move to pull her wrist from his grasp.

“I woke when you took off my leggings.” That had certainly been an interesting way to regain consciousness.

“Then you’re not as badly off as we thought,” she drawled in her husky voice.

He grunted and turned his head to look about the room. A wave of nausea and dizziness nearly made him pass out again. “Where am I?”

He kept his voice to a low, barely audible rasp. Perhaps if he whispered, she wouldn’t recognize him.

“My home.” She cocked her head. “I won’t touch your mask if you don’t want me to.”

He watched her, calculating. He was naked, in a strange house, and wounded. The odds were not in his favor.

She raised one elegant eyebrow. “If you’d let go of my wrist?”

He opened his hand. “Your pardon.”

She rubbed her wrist, her eyes lowered demurely. “I saved your life earlier, and you’re quite at my mercy now”—her eyes flicked over his nude body—“yet I don’t think you truly ask my pardon.”

She raised her gaze to his, intelligent, humorous, and utterly seductive.

The danger was palpable.

Winter’s lips twitched. “Perhaps I’m just a rude fellow.”

“Rude, undoubtedly.” She flicked a finger over the small bit of material covering his pelvis, and his base flesh stirred in mindless response. “But ungrateful as well?” She shook her head sadly.

He raised his eyebrows. “I trust you do not blame me, madam, for my present state of undress. I do vow, I woke thus and know not who to blame but you.”

Her eyes widened just a fraction and she bit her lip as if to quell a tremor of laughter. “I assure you my, uh, curiosity was prompted merely by a desire to find out where you were wounded, sir.”

“Then I am honored by your curiosity.” Winter felt as if he had tumbled down a hill and landed upside down. He never bantered thus with women, and Lady Beckinhall had made it quite clear on their previous meetings—when he was merely Mr. Makepeace, the manager of the Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children—that she did not hold him in high regard.

Perhaps it was the mask and the intimacy of the quiet room.

Or perhaps it was the knock on the head he’d received earlier. “Did you discover that which you sought?”

Her lips, wide and delicate, curved into a secret smile. “Oh, yes, I found all that I could wish for.”