Thief of Shadows (Maiden Lane #4)(53)

“Stockings.” Peach said the word as if it tasted foul. “Clocked lace stockings.”

WINTER YAWNED WIDELY the next afternoon as Isabel’s butler let him into her town house.

The butler raised a disapproving eyebrow a fraction of an inch. “Lady Beckinhall is waiting for you in the small sitting room, sir.”

Winter nodded wearily and fell into step behind the butler. He’d been on the streets of St. Giles at first daylight, searching for a chandler shop with a workshop in the cellar beneath, but so far he hadn’t been able to find the place. Nor had anyone heard of a Mistress Cook. Peach may’ve been mistaken about the chandler’s shop—she’d been terrified, after all, when she’d fled Mistress Cook and the lassie snatchers—or Mistress Cook may’ve moved her illegal workshop.

Of course, there was a third—more disturbing—possibility. Several of his usual sources of information had been quite nervous and cagey. Perhaps the denizens of St. Giles were too afraid of the lassie snatchers and Mistress Cook to give away their location.

The butler opened a yellow painted door, and Winter braced himself as he entered the small sitting room. Isabel was standing by one of a series of tall windows on the far side of the room, her face in delicate profile, the sunlight glinting off her dark glossy hair.

His chest squeezed hard, the first glimpse of her almost a physical blow. Usually repeated exposure to an irritant dulled the shock after a time. Yet with Isabel, each sight quaked him anew, seized both limbs and mind. He very much feared that repeated exposure to her merely made him crave her more intensely.

“Mr. Makepeace,” she said as she turned toward him. She was silhouetted now against the bright frame of the window, her face in shadow. “I had wondered if you would come at all today.”

Ah. She had not forgiven him for his tardiness the night before.

“Indeed, ma’am?” he said, cautiously advancing. “But I see that you already have tea laid.” He indicated the service spread on a low table. “I did say I would arrive at four of the clock and it is, by the clock on your mantel, exactly that.”

She stepped away from the window, and he saw by the look on her face that she was hardly pacified by his words. “A new—dare I say unique—circumstance for you, Mr. Makepeace.”

“Isn’t it time you call me Winter?” he murmured, trying another tack—he certainly wouldn’t win any arguments on his punctuality.

“Is it?”

“It is.” He smiled hard. “Isabel.”

She frowned. “I don’t—”

Just then, a tiny sob came from the direction of an ornately carved sideboard.

Both he and Isabel looked at the piece of furniture, and oddly her expression turned from anger to uncertainty. She started forward, but then stopped.

She made no further move, so Winter strode to the sideboard, crouched with one knee on the floor, and opened the door to the cupboard underneath.

A tear-stained face peered out.

“Christopher,” Winter said, remembering the boy’s name from the first time he’d come here. He glanced over his shoulder, but Isabel seemed frozen. He looked back at the boy. “Is it comfortable in that cupboard?”

The boy drew a velvet sleeve across his nose. “No, sir.”

“Would you care to come out?”

The boy nodded mutely. Winter gently reached in and lifted the child in his arms. This close he could see that Christopher was a handsome boy of only four or five. Winter stood, still holding the boy, and turned to Isabel. Many women were naturally inclined to take a child from a man—the maternal instinct being considered stronger than the paternal, perhaps—but Isabel made no such move. Indeed, she’d folded her arms as if to keep herself from reaching for the boy.

Winter raised his eyebrows at her and she shook her head as if coming to her senses. “I’ll ring for Carruthers.”

“Want to stay,” Christopher whimpered.

Isabel swallowed. “I… I think it best that you return to your nanny.”

When had Lady Beckinhall ever been unsure of herself, let alone stuttered? There was something here that he was missing.

Winter cleared his throat and murmured to the boy, “I was thinking of trying one of those scones on the tea tray. Would you like one, too?”

Christopher nodded.

Winter sat on a settee by the low table, the boy on his knee, and gave one of the pastries to Christopher before selecting one for himself.

He bit into the flakey scone, eyeing Isabel’s stiff back. She’d gone to stand by the window again, completely ignoring him and the boy. Strange.

“Good, isn’t it?” he said to the boy.

Christopher nodded and whispered rather wetly, “Cook’s scones are the best.”

“Ah.” For a moment they munched in companionable silence.

“Where is Carruthers?” Isabel muttered from across the room.

Christopher, who had been about to take another bite of the scone, lowered the pastry and gripped it between sticky fingers in his lap. “She doesn’t like me much, most of the time.”

Winter wished he could deny the boy’s words, but he’d never believed in lying to children, and Isabel was across the room, obviously trying to pretend the boy wasn’t in it. He leaned forward and poured some of the milk from the pitcher into a teacup and added a couple of drops of hot tea. He held the teacup up for the boy.