“I do know.” Since the dragoon captain had already spotted him, Winter emerged into the moonlight. “Out hunting old women gin hawkers, Captain?”
Trevillion’s lips tightened and Winter wondered how much ribbing the captain might’ve taken over his less-than-successful campaign to clean the gin makers and sellers out of St. Giles.
“I’ve bigger prey tonight,” Trevillion said in a clipped voice. “The Ghost has been spotted near St. Giles-in-the-Fields.”
“Indeed?” Winter arched a brow. “Then he is quite active tonight. I come from the opera, where he also made an appearance earlier in the evening.”
“The opera?” One of Trevillion’s eyebrows rose sardonically. “You move in rarified circles for a man who lives in St. Giles, Makepeace.”
“And if I do?” Winter replied coolly.
A corner of the captain’s stern mouth actually cocked up at that. “Then it is none of my business, I suppose.” Trevillion jerked his chin at the bag over Winter’s shoulder. “And do you always carry such a heavy load to the opera?”
“No, of course not,” Winter said, his manner easy. “I stopped by a friend’s house on my way home. He has donated some books to the home.”
Winter kept his gaze steady even as he held his breath. If the dragoon captain asked to look in his bag, he would have no explanation for the Ghost’s costume.
Trevillion grunted and glanced away. “See that you take care on your walk home, Makepeace. I’ve enough to deal with without you getting yourself murdered.”
“Your worry for my person is touching,” Winter said.
Trevillion nodded curtly and wheeled his horse about.
Winter watched until the soldiers were swallowed by the night. Only then did he sigh and let his shoulders slump.
The rest of the journey home was without incident. Twenty minutes later, Winter let himself into the home’s kitchen. Soot, the black tomcat, stretched by the fireplace, his sharp claws scratching softly against the red brick hearth, before straightening and padding over to bump his big head against Winter’s shins in greeting.
Winter bent to scratch the old tom behind the ears. “On the watch, are you, Soot?”
Soot yawned and returned to his warm hearth. A lamp had been left burning for Winter and he lifted it, turning toward the back stairs that would lead to his rooms under the eaves. Only as the light hit the corner by the stairs did he realize that he wasn’t alone.
Joseph Tinbox sat slumped in a chair, his eyes closed, his breathing soft and regular.
Winter’s heart twisted at the sight. Had the boy waited up for him?
He laid a gentle hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Joseph.”
Joseph blinked, his eyes sleepy and confused. Winter was reminded suddenly of the two-year-old toddler he’d found on the old home’s front steps nearly ten years before. He’d been towheaded, his little face streaked with tears and with an empty tin box tied to his wrist. The little boy had sighed deeply when Winter had picked him up, and he’d laid his head against his shoulder with all the trust in the world.
Joseph Tinbox blinked again and sudden awareness came into his face. “Oh, sir, I was waitin’ up for you.”
“I can see that,” Winter said, “but it’s past your bedtime now.”
“But, sir, it’s important.”
Winter was well used to what boys considered “important”—squabbles with other boys, lost spinning tops, and the discovery of kittens in the alley.
“I’m sure it is,” he said soothingly, “but—”
“Peach talked!” Joseph interrupted urgently. “She told me where she came from.”
Winter, who’d been on the point of chastising Joseph Tinbox for interrupting, paused. “What did she say?”
“I think she should tell you for herself,” Joseph said with the solemnity of a lord in parliament.
“She’ll be asleep.”
“No, sir,” Joseph said. “She’s frightened. She said she’d wait for your return.”
Winter arched his eyebrows. “Very well.”
Joseph Tinbox turned and led the way up the back stairs.
Winter followed with the lamp and his bag, still over his shoulder.
The house was quiet this late at night, the lamp’s light flickering against the plain plaster walls of the staircase. Winter wondered what secret would keep a child from talking for over a week. He eyed Joseph’s narrow back. He had the feeling the boy had had to use all his considerable powers of persuasion to get Peach to talk to him tonight.
Joseph stepped out onto the dormitory floor. It was quiet here, too, but now and again faint sounds could be heard: a murmured word, a sigh, and the rustling of bedclothes. Joseph glanced over his shoulder at Winter as if to make sure he still followed, and then tiptoed down the hall to the sickroom.
When Joseph cracked the door, Winter saw that the boy was quite right: Peach was wide-awake. The lass lay in the exact middle of the sickroom cot, the covers pulled to her chin, one arm around Dodo the dog. A single candle was lit by her bedside.
Winter looked at the candle and then Joseph.
The boy reddened. “I knows you say that a candle left burning might start a fire, but—”
“I don’t like the dark,” Peach said quite clearly.
Winter looked at the girl. She stared back at him, frightened but defiant, her brown eyes so dark they were nearly black.
He nodded and dropped his bag to the floor before taking the chair by the bed. “Many dislike the night. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Pilar.”
“I likes Peach, if you please, sir.”
Winter nodded and watched as Joseph Tinbox went to the other side of the bed and took Peach’s hand. “Peach, then. Joseph tells me that you have something to say to me.”
Peach nodded once, her pointed little chin digging into the white covers. “ ’Twas the lassie snatchers what got me.”
Winter felt his pulse quicken, but he remained calm and casual, as if what the girl had said weren’t of great import. “Oh?”
Peach gulped and clenched a hand in Dodo’s wiry fur. The dog twitched, but otherwise showed no sign that the girl was pulling at her fur. “I… I was on a corner by th’ church.”
“St. Giles-in-the-Fields?” Winter murmured.
The girl scrunched up her forehead. “I guess. I was beggin’ there.”
Winter nodded. He didn’t want to interrupt the flow of Peach’s story, but there was something he needed to know. “Were your parents there, too, Peach?”