A Gift for Guile (The Thief-takers)

by Alissa Johnson

  Esther went still, the beast went still, and Samuel slowly and carefully set the box aside and began moving forward.

  “It’s all right, Esther.” He kept his voice calm and steady. If they both remained calm, if neither of them made any sudden moves, catastrophe might still be averted. “He doesn’t—”

  “Oh, aren’t you beautiful,” she cut in, her voice breathy with delighted wonder. “Aren’t you glorious?”

  Taking that as encouragement, the beast launched all thirteen glorious stones of himself right at her.

  Samuel leaped forward, but he needn’t have bothered. Esther sidestepped the animal, quick as you please.

  “Here now, none of that,” she chided. “Sit down.”

  Not surprisingly, the beast did not immediately comply. He turned about and gathered himself for another charge. But this Esther averted by making a fist and holding it over his head, so that he had to stretch his neck up and back for a proper sniff at the suddenly fascinating appendage. She reached farther back, forcing him to lean back as well…back and back until, finally, he had no other choice but to plop his rump on the carpet to keep his balance.

  “There you are,” she cooed. “What a good dog.”

  Samuel watched in astonishment as Esther knelt down and gave the dog a rub. “You’re not afraid of him.”

  “Of course not. I might have been, I suppose, if he’d come in slinking or with his teeth bared. He looks as if he could take my head off with a nip.” She ruffled the dog’s shaggy ears. “But you were quite happy to see me, weren’t you? What a darling you are.” She glanced over her shoulder at Samuel. “What is his name?”

  “He hasn’t one at present. I’ve only had him a fortnight or so. We call him the beast for now.”

  She threw him an offended look. “You can’t call him the beast. He needs a proper name.”

  “Lucifer would be fitting. Mephistopheles. Doom. Mount Vesuvius.”

  “Don’t listen to him,” she said to the dog. “What shall I call you, you great hairy Goliath. Ooh! Harry. I quite like that.”

  “I am not calling him Harry.” Goliath had a nice ring to it, though. So did Vesuvius now that he thought on it.

  “What’s wrong with Harry?”

  “I know men named Harry. Give me your hand.” He pulled her to her feet when she obliged. “How is your neck?”

  “Much improved, thank you.”

  He brushed away a loose curl to see for himself. There was no sign of bruising or swelling, and the angry red had dulled to a faint pink.

  She ducked away and pointed at the box he’d set aside. “What do you have there?”

  “I… It’s… Er…” He didn’t know why he was suddenly stumbling over his own tongue. Retrieving the box, he shoved it at her. “It’s a present.”

  She looked mildly confused. “For me?”

  “No, I merely wished for your opinion on the wrapping.”

  She snatched it out of his hands with a laugh. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  She shook it gently. “It’s rather light. Is it breakable? Should I be careful?”

  “No. Are you going to open it?”

  “In a moment. I’ve not had a present from a gentleman since my father gave me Mr. Nips. Well, I’ve had presents from Peter, but young boys don’t count. I want to make it last.”

  “Will was alive for years after he gave you Mr. Nips.”

  She shrugged and began pulling at the knotted twine. “He forgot most of my birthdays.”

  Samuel made no comment but he silently wished he could go back in time, to when he’d known her as a young girl in London, and bring her a birthday present or two. What might have been different, he wondered, if she’d not been forgotten on those days?

  Esther lifted the lid off the box and gasped when she saw the contents. She pulled out a long, thick rope with a series of dangling bright white ribbons tied along its length.

  Samuel gave one of the ribbons a flick with his fingers. “So you can play more easily in the evenings.”

  “Oh, Samuel. This is wonderful. Thank you.”

  He grunted.

  She grinned at the rope. “Peter will love it.”

  “Beg your pardon? Peter?” What did Peter have to do with it?

  She laughed and gave one of the ribbons a tug. “I never would have thought to add these. I’m going to tell him they were my idea.”

  “Tell Peter?”

  “Yes. Oh, he will be pleased. And impressed. As will his friends at school, I should think. Not so much about my fictitious cleverness, but with the set as a whole.”

  His friends at school.

  She’d bought the damn badminton set for Peter. Which meant he’d bought the damn rope, and spent a good half hour in the store tying ribbons to it like a girl tying ribbons to a damn braid, for Peter.

  He felt like an idiot.

  But she was smiling. Actually, she was beaming at him as if he’d brought her a king’s ransom in jewels. That wasn’t so bad.

  “This was very thoughtful of you, Samuel. And uncommonly creative.” Hugging the rope close to her chest, she stepped forward and cupped his cheek in her free hand. Then she pressed a kiss to his cheek that lingered a hair too long to qualify as chaste. “Thank you.”

  Maybe he wasn’t such an idiot.

  “My pleasure,” he replied and balled his hands into fists to stop himself from reaching for her again when she stepped away.

  She was still smiling as she replaced the rope in the box. “Have you been out for long this morning?”

  “Not very. An hour or two.”

  She shot him a speculative look. “Did you—?”

  “I went in search of the rope. Nothing more.” He’d needed something to occupy his time while she slept and he waited for breakfast. Which reminded him. “Have you eaten?”

  “Not yet. Your housekeeper has set breakfast out for us. Shall we?” She patted her leg as she headed for the door. “Come along, Harry.”

  “We are not naming him Harry,” he called out after her.

  Samuel followed the sound of her laughter, then stifled a groan when she stepped into the breakfast room instead of the dining room. He loathed the breakfast room. It was too small, the furniture was too delicate, the colors were too bright, and everything in it was too feminine. There wasn’t one square inch in the room that wasn’t covered in flowers, lace, bows, fringe, or a combination of all four.

  “This room is very dainty,” Esther commented after they’d filled their plates at the sideboard. She took a seat at the small table and glanced about at the fringed purple drapes, vivid floral wallpaper, and contrasting wainscoting. “And complicated. How long have you lived here?”

  Samuel took his own seat carefully. He didn’t use the flimsy little chairs with their spindly, tapered legs if he could possibly help it. “Six years.”

  “And you’ve not changed it?”

  He tried and failed to think of a way to answer that without sounding responsible for the purple drapes.

  Esther’s eyes widened at his silence. “This”—she twirled her finger in the air to indicate the room—“was your doing?”

  “Not exactly. Renderwell suggested I hire a decorator.”

  “Was this decorator under the impression that only ladies eat breakfast in breakfast rooms?”

  That had been his very assumption upon seeing the room for the first time. “He might have been.” Amused, he pasted on a surprised expression. “You don’t like it?”

  “I…” She blinked rapidly several times and began to sputter. “I… That is… I apologize. I’ve been very rude. You’ve a lovely home, and I shouldn’t have—Why are you laughing?”

  He’d never seen her so flustered. He’d seen her angry, embarrassed, hurt, and amused but not ruffled to the po
int of tripping over her own tongue. It was so contrary to the confident woman he knew, he couldn’t help but find it funny.

  “Why are you laughing?” she demanded again. “I’ve insulted you.”

  “You’ve insulted me before,” he pointed out.

  “Yes, but this was out of carelessness, which is quite different.”

  “You’ve not insulted me.”

  “I have,” she replied with a wince. “You’ve invited me into your home and I’ve disparaged it. It was wrong of me—”

  He threw up a hand. “Esther, stop. You’ve not disparaged my home. You disparaged this room. This perfectly hideous room.”

  “It isn’t…” She trailed off as her eyes meandered back to the wallpaper. “Well, it does make one a bit dizzy.”

  “Like a ride on a centrifugal railway.”

  She leaned forward, fascinated. “Have you done that?”

  “Been thrown in a loop at a tremendous speed? No, thank you.”

  She sighed wistfully. “Oh, I should like to try it.”

  “Why am I not surprised?”

  “Why haven’t you changed this,” she asked, indicating the room with her fork again, “if you don’t care for it?”

  “I don’t give the room much thought, to be honest. I generally take breakfast in the kitchen.”

  “I see. Was it also redecorated?”

  “No. Mrs. Lanchor insisted it be kept as it was.”

  “I see,” she repeated and glanced toward the door. “Might we…?”

  He was out of his spindly seat and tugging the bellpull before she could finish the sentence.

  * * *

  Samuel felt better the moment he stepped into the kitchen.

  This was how a home should feel. Warm and inviting and lived in. It should smell of cut herbs and flowers and baking bread. It should be a little messy, a little bit scuffed at the edges. It should be a place where a man could move about without fear of damaging something.

  He felt at ease moving about here. It didn’t matter if his boots scraped the kitchen table leg; it was already pitted and scarred from years of use.

  “What a lovely kitchen,” Esther commented. “It reminds me of our old kitchen at Willowbend, the way the morning light comes through the windows.” She took a seat at the table and sighed happily when the beast settled himself next to her with a tremendous groan. “I wish more rooms were like kitchens. They’re so comfortably unpretentious.”

  He’d expected her to be comfortable enough in the kitchen; he hadn’t expected her to truly appreciate it. “I thought you preferred finery.”

  “Something can be fine without being pretentious: soft taffeta, a pretty bonnet, a cozy chair, a well-appointed kitchen with good morning light.”

  “Fine company.”

  “Exactly so,” she replied, but she grew quiet when his staff entered and set out their meal on the table.

  Mrs. Lanchor and Sarah smiled at Esther. She smiled back but looked a little wary of the friendliness. The moment the staff left, she leaned across the table and whispered, “Your staff is being very kind to me.”

  “I should hope so. I don’t pay them to be rude.” He picked up his fork and decided that the lukewarm eggs were worth the move to the kitchen. “You don’t have to whisper. They don’t eavesdrop.”

  “That’s not what I meant. What did you tell them?”

  “About you? Mostly the truth. I told them you are a client in danger and therefore in need of my protection.”

  “That’s not the truth.” She sat back again. “That’s not even a half-truth.”

  She was in danger and she needed his protection. Two-thirds of the truth as he saw it. “It doesn’t matter. After last night, they are disposed to feel kindly toward you.”

  “They must think I’m hiding from a brutal husband or father.” She leaned a little in her chair to glance at the open door. “I feel as if I’ve won their sympathies out of deceit. I don’t like it.”

  “This from a woman who won a rope from a shopkeeper out of deceit.”

  “That was an accident.”

  “Esther, you are in danger. You were attacked. Their sympathy is not unwarranted.”

  “I suppose.” She broke off a bit of bread and slipped it to the beast. Her eyes flicked to his as the dog’s loud smacking filled the room. “I beg your pardon. I should have asked if I could feed him from the table.”

  “I don’t mind.” He might eventually, if the beast took the treats as a sign he could start helping himself, but he’d worry about that possibility later. Both the woman and the dog looked pleased with the arrangement. Why spoil their fun?

  “Why is it you haven’t a dog?” he inquired. “You’re fond of animals. Dogs in particular.”

  “I mean to have one, after I return to Derbyshire. I couldn’t before. Peter has a sensitivity to dogs and cats. Horses as well, though he won’t admit to it.”

  “Why won’t he admit to it?”

  She hitched up one shoulder and was immediately obliged to tug the loose neckline back into place. “I suspect he thinks it detracts from the fact that he’s a far more accomplished equestrian than his sisters,” she said. “He’s quite proud of it.”

  “I could give you riding lessons, if you like.”

  “I should like that, thank you. Next time we are in Derbyshire, then?”

  “Next time.”

  What would that next time look like? He wondered. The last time they had seen each other in Derbyshire, they had been… What, exactly? He didn’t know how to qualify the relationship he’d once held with Esther. Longtime acquaintances? It was odd to have known someone for years, and to have kept their greatest secret for all that time, and still not be certain if that individual counted as a friend. He had saved her life once. She had (arguably) nursed him back to health from a serious wound. Surely what they’d had was a kind of friendship. It was just a wary, begrudging kind of friendship.

  And now they were something more than friends.

  Would they still be something more once she returned to her little cottage? Could they still be more once she left the freedom and anonymity afforded her in London?

  Suddenly, Derbyshire seemed a world away, and her return home seemed much too imminent.

  He watched her break off another piece of toast and slip the small morsel into her mouth. She chewed slowly, lost in thought, and he forgot all about Derbyshire and riding lessons. He was captivated by the subtle movement of her lips, remembering how they felt opening beneath his own. Her tongue darted out to catch a tiny crumb at the corner of her mouth, and fascination turned to uncomfortable arousal. He wondered when breakfast had become such a sensual activity. When she licked her lips again, he wondered how long his staff was apt to leave them unattended and whether Esther would object if he hauled her over the table and into his lap.

  She probably would. Still, he gave into the temptation to reach over and run the pad of this thumb once across her bottom lip.

  Esther blinked and touched her fingers to her mouth. “Oh, did I have a bit of toast?”

  “Yes.” No. He’d just wanted to touch her.

  “Well, thank you.”

  He gave her a smile designed to charm, and seduce. If all he had with Esther was a week, then he was going to make the most of it. “It was my pleasure.”

  A faint rose lit her cheeks, and he knew a moment’s masculine pride that he could make Esther Walker-Bales blush like a schoolgirl.

  He decided then and there that it would have to be more than a week.

  She cleared her throat delicately. “Shall we go to Bow today? Or the General Register Office?”

  Surprised by the question, he dragged his eyes away from her mouth. “Neither. You’ll stay here. You need to rest.”

  She looked appalled at the very notion. “I do not.”
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  “You were injured.”

  “Only mildly.”

  “Mildly strangled.”

  “You were mildly shot,” she pointed out. “Will you be staying in as well?”

  “There are a few matters I need to attend—”

  “Don’t you dare,” she warned with a quick jab of her fork in his direction. “Don’t you dare tell me you’ll be attending to other business if you mean to attend to mine.”

  “I do have other business, you know. You’re not my only client.”

  “I’m not a client at all. I’m not paying you.” She sat up a little straighter in her chair. “Perhaps I should. That would make me your employer, would it not? What is your rate?”

  He named a perfectly outrageous figure.

  “You lie,” she scoffed. “There aren’t half a dozen people in England who could afford such a fee.”

  “The fee varies depending on individuals and circumstances.”

  “What on earth makes you suspect my circumstances would allow for such an expense?”

  “Nothing at all.”

  She set down her silverware and crossed her arms over her chest in a huff. “You could just say you’re not willing to take me on as a client.”

  “I believe I just did.”

  Her eyes narrowed, but it was more thoughtful than it was angry. She was hatching a plan of attack. Or escape. He was sure of it.

  “Very well,” she replied at last. “You are not in my employ.”

  He was fairly certain capitulation was not the plan. “No, I am not.”

  “And I am not in yours. Therefore, I suggest you attend to your business today, and I shall attend to mine.”

  Closer, but not quite it. “No.”

  She gave him a taunting smile. “Are you intending to extend an offer of employment to me?”

  And there it was. “I—”

  “Because I can’t imagine any other reason for your presumption that I will follow your orders.” She tilted her head. “What say you, Sir Samuel?”

  “I say yes.”

  She uncrossed her arms, and the smile disappeared. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Yes, I am extending an offer of employment.” Hell, he should have thought of the plan himself. “I will pay you to follow every one of my orders. To the letter. Agreed?”