“Coo! Bet this banister would make a grand slide,” Joseph Tinbox said somewhat unwarily. He seemed to realize his mistake as soon as the words had left his lips. The boy turned an innocently earnest freckled face up toward Winter. “ ’Course, I’d never do such a thing.”
“No, that would be quite unwise.” Winter made a mental note to include a warning against banister riding in his next address to the children of the home.
“There you are, sir.” Nell Jones, the home’s right-hand woman, appeared at the bottom of the stairs, looking flustered. “You have a caller in the sitting room, and I don’t know that we have any muffins left. There’re a few sweet biscuits from the day afore yesterday, but I’m afraid they may be stale and Alice can’t find the sugar for tea.”
“Biscuits will be just fine, Nell,” Winter said soothingly. “And I don’t take sugar in my tea in any case.”
“Yes, but Lady Beckinhall may,” Nell pointed out as she blew a lock of blond hair out of her eyes.
Winter stilled on the landing, aware that his heartbeat had quickened. “Lady Beckinhall?”
“She’s in there with her lady’s maid,” Nell whispered as if the lady could hear her from down the hall and through the walls. “And she’s wearing jeweled buckles on her slippers—the maid, not the lady!”
Nell sounded awestruck.
Winter repressed a sigh even as his muscles tightened in anticipation. His body might be eager to see the lady again, but the reflex was involuntary. He did not need the complication of Lady Beckinhall and her overly inquisitive nature today.
“Send in the tea and whatever biscuits you have,” he told Nell.
“But the sugar—”
“I’ll handle it,” he said firmly, catching Nell’s frantic gaze. “Don’t worry so. She’s only one woman.”
“One woman with a fancy lady’s maid,” Nell muttered, turning toward the back of the house and the kitchen.
“And, Nell,” Winter called, remembering the matter that he’d originally come down for, “have the new girls arrived yet?”
“No, sir.”
“What?” He’d received word just this morning of two orphaned sisters, only five years of age, begging for scraps on Hog Lane not far from the home. Immediately he’d sent the home’s sole manservant, Tommy, to bring them in. “Why not?”
Nell shrugged. “Tommy said they weren’t there when he got to Hog Lane.”
Winter frowned, troubled by the news. Only last week he’d gone to pick up a little girl of seven or so who had been left at St. Giles-in-the-Fields Church. Yet when he’d arrived, the girl had inexplicably disappeared. The whoremongers of St. Giles were often on the lookout for girls, but these children had vanished within minutes of his receiving word that they were on the street. That was awfully swift even for the greediest of whoremongers. Why would—
Someone pulled on his coat, and Winter looked down into Joseph Tinbox’s brown eyes, grown wide with pleading. “Please, sir, can I go with you to see the lady and her maid? I ain’t never seen jeweled buckles afore.”
“Come.” They’d reached the lower floor by now, and Winter tucked his cane discreetly in a corner, then placed his palm on the boy’s shoulder. Hopefully this arrangement would be less conspicuous—the last thing he needed was Lady Beckinhall realizing that he was limping on the same leg that the Ghost had been wounded on. He smiled at Joseph. “You shall be my crutch.”
Joseph grinned up at him, his face suddenly quite angelic, and Winter felt a quite inappropriate warmth in his chest at the sight. As the manager of the home, he should have no favorites. He should view all eight and twenty children equally and impartially, a benevolent governor above and apart from them all. His father had been such a manager, able to be both kind and distant. But Winter had a near-daily struggle to follow his father’s example.
He squeezed the boy’s shoulder. “Best behavior, mind, Joseph Tinbox.”
“Yes, sir.” Joseph composed his face into what he no doubt thought a solemn expression, but to Winter’s mind it merely made him doubly mischievous-looking.
Winter squared his shoulders and let his weight settle equally on both legs, ignoring the pain that shot through his right thigh. He opened the sitting room door.
The sight of her was like a swift, cool wind through his frame, quickening his body, alerting all his senses, making him completely aware he was a male and she a female.
Lady Beckinhall turned as he entered. She was attired in a deep crimson gown, delicate layers of lace falling from the sleeves at her elbows. The lace was repeated in a thin line about her low, rounded bodice as if to frame her creamy bosom. More lace edged the frivolous scrap of beaded linen that served as a cap on her glossy mahogany hair.
“Mr. Makepeace.”
“My lady.” He crossed to her carefully, his palm still on Joseph’s shoulder.
She held out her hand, no doubt so that he could bend over it and kiss her fingers, but he would do no such thing.
Instead he took her hand, feeling the small shock of her slim fingers in his palm, and shook it before quickly letting go. “To what do we owe the honor of your visit?”
“Why, Mr. Makepeace, perhaps you’ve already forgotten your promise to show me about the new home?” She widened her eyes mockingly. “To make up for our appointment last week?”
He suppressed a sigh. Lady Beckinhall’s maid stood behind her, and Nell was quite correct: The girl was overdressed, her lace as dear if not dearer than her mistress’s. Joseph had his head tilted sideways and was leaning slightly away from Winter’s grip, presumably in an effort to catch a glimpse of the fabled jeweled buckles.
“I must apologize again for missing our meeting last week,” Winter said.
Lady Beckinhall inclined her head, making the teardrop pearls she wore swing from her earlobes. “I hear you were caught up in the mob.”
He started to reply, but before he could, Joseph cut in eagerly. “Mr. Makepeace was near crushed, he was. He’s spent almost the whole last week abed. Got up only when we moved to this here new home.”
Lady Beckinhall’s dark eyebrows arched in interest. “Indeed? I had no idea you were so gravely injured, Mr. Makepeace.”
He met her gaze, keeping his own complacent, though his pulse had quickened. She wasn’t a fool, this woman. “Joseph exaggerates.”