A Gift for Guile (The Thief-takers) Read online

  “Gabriel will be back in town in a little over two days.”

  “Well, with any luck, my business will be done by then.” Oh, she hoped she would be that lucky. She liked Samuel’s fellow private investigator Gabriel even more than she liked Samuel, but she trusted him far less.

  “What is your business?”

  “Promise first.”

  He shook his head. “Tell me what you are doing in London, and who that young man we saw today is, and I will consider keeping your confidence whilst you’re here.”

  “That is not—”

  “I’ll make no promises until I know what sort of danger you’re facing.”

  Damn it, she would have to compromise on the compromise. “I don’t know who he is. I don’t,” she insisted when he growled at her. Again. “I’ve no idea. I… Here. Look.” She retrieved her chatelaine bag from the bed and pulled out a small, torn piece of paper, which she handed to Samuel.

  He read the short note in silence.

  I know who you are. Meet Wed. Pddy sta. 6:00 p.m. Come alone. Bring 10p.

  It was rather funny to watch his expression jump from grim to befuddled. “Ten pence? Ten pence?”

  “It is most odd,” she agreed.

  “What sort of blackmail is ten pence?”

  “Perhaps he meant pounds,” she ventured, then shrugged when he gave her a dubious look. “It is as good a theory as any you’ve offered.”

  He held up the note. “Was this sent to you in Derbyshire?”

  “No, it was handed to me yesterday by a young boy in Spitalfields.”

  “Spitalfields?” He dropped his hand. “You went to Spitalfields? You idiot.”

  Oh, he did make it hard to be civil. “I am not an idiot.”

  “You went to Spitalfields,” he repeated, very slowly. “Realm of rookeries and flash houses. Home to footpads and cutthroats and—”

  “And people like me,” she finished for him.

  “You are not—”

  “I was born in Spitalfields.”

  That seemed to bring him up short, but only briefly. “You may have been born there, but—”

  “But I grew up in boardinghouses in places like Bethnal Green. Quite an improvement over the common lodging house of my infancy, I’m sure. We had a room, sometimes two to ourselves. Such luxury.”

  “I don’t—”

  “And when I was six, my father took us to Bath, where he swindled a small fortune from a young woman and used those ill-gotten gains to rent an entire house. We lived there for three months, until the young woman’s brother came home from abroad, broke into our house, beat my father senseless, shot him in the leg, and gave Lottie three pounds to see the lot of us out of town. We came back to Spitalfields.”

  She paused, but he didn’t try to speak, which was a little disappointing. She rather liked interrupting him. “It was several more years before my father became a proficient criminal. I was ten the last time we paid for lodgings in the East End.”

  And she’d been nineteen the last time she’d worked there with her father, but she didn’t mention it.

  She gave him a look of reproach. “How quick you are to remind me of my filthy origins when it suits your purpose, and how easily you forget when it does not.”

  “I didn’t mention your origins. You did.”

  “I…” Oh. Right. She had. She was, perhaps, a mite touchy about her sordid past. Particularly in the company of someone like Samuel, whose pristine beginnings made her own seem even shabbier by comparison. But Samuel was not wholly without blame.

  “You assumed I was waiting for a mark or an accomplice at the station,” she pointed out. And he’d been worried she might stab him in the carriage. That had cut to the quick. Years ago, she had flashed her blades at a few of her father’s more unpredictable cohorts because her father had asked it of her. She’d been a foolish young woman then. She wasn’t a monster now.

  “I didn’t assume,” Samuel retorted. “I merely asked. And for what it’s worth, I didn’t know of your origins.”

  Frowning, she retrieved the note from his hand. “How could you not?”

  “Your father’s early career and whereabouts were always a mystery.”

  “Renderwell must know by now.” As far as Esther could tell, Lottie told her husband every damned thing.

  “Probably. He’s never mentioned it.” He studied her a moment, his expression one of idle curiosity. “You have the speech and manners of a lady of breeding.”

  She didn’t mind curiosity, so long as it wasn’t a precursor for judgment and disdain. “My father’s doing. It’s difficult to swindle a class of people with whom you can’t converse. Father was a great mimic, and he taught us well. He wouldn’t allow anything but fine manners and speech under his roof. When we had one.”

  “It’s an act?”

  “No. I suppose it must have been, once,” she admitted. “But by the time we went to Bath, the fine accent and manners were natural to me.”

  “Didn’t your friends wonder at both?”

  “I didn’t have friends,” she replied, a little surprised at the question. “Father kept us isolated regardless of our neighborhood. He had too many enemies. When interaction could not be avoided, we used an alias.” And had learned early how to remember a fabricated family history. They had been the Oxleys, the Farrows, the Gutierrez family. Her father had quite enjoyed being Hernando Gutierrez, the dashing Spaniard who’d taken in his orphaned nieces and infant nephew. Lottie and Esther had been forced to call him Uncle Hernan for months. “I thought you knew all this as well.”

  “I knew that to be the case when your father worked for us.” He tipped his head at her. “I didn’t know you’d always been alone.”

  “I wasn’t alone. I had Lottie. And later Peter.” And she didn’t like the way he was looking at her. As if he pitied her. What was that but another kind of insult? “We are quite off topic. I am not an idiot for having gone to Spitalfields.”

  “Anyone who goes into places like Spitalfields when they have a choice otherwise is an idiot.”

  “That is unfair. There are decent, honest, hardworking people who live there.”

  “A great many. But their combined innocence does not render the cutthroats less vicious. What were you doing there?”

  She shook her head. A compromise went both ways. “I’ll have your promise first.”

  Samuel scratched his bearded chin in a thoughtful manner. “If I agree to help you with your business, then you must agree that I am responsible for that business, and your safety, for as long as you are in London.”

  “No.” Good Lord, no. She couldn’t believe he’d even suggest such a thing. Either he was jesting, he was testing her, or she had significantly overestimated his intelligence.

  “Esther—”

  “I’ll not take orders from you.” She didn’t take orders from anyone. “You may give orders, if you like, but I’ll not promise to follow them.”

  “Orders that don’t have to be followed are called suggestions,” he replied in a bland tone.

  “Then I shall agree to take your suggestions under advisement.”

  His gaze traveled over her in an assessing manner that made her pulse quicken. “I could take you home in shackles.”

  “And I could take myself back to London the next day. Or do you mean to play my gaoler for the rest of your life?”

  He didn’t reply except to produce an angry humming noise in the back of his throat, which she very much hoped was not an indication that he was giving the gaoler idea serious consideration.

  “Samuel, you cannot stop me from finishing my tasks in town. All I am asking is that you not make the process more difficult than it needs to be. For me, or my family.”

  The humming noise stopped, but his hands opened and closed into fists at his sides. Imagini
ng themselves curved about her throat, no doubt.

  “Fine,” he bit off at last. “I’ll help you and keep your secret for the duration of your visit.”

  “Excellent.” Oh, excellent. Esther hadn’t wanted to admit it, even to herself, but once she’d decided on making use of Samuel, she’d quickly become enthusiastic about the idea. For the last few days, she had been alone in London. Alone and, at times, a little frightened. With Samuel at her side—

  “Provided—” Samuel added, holding up a single finger. “You are not in town for reasons that are monstrously stupid.”

  She should have known he wasn’t finished. “Define ‘monstrously stupid.’”

  He dropped his hand. “Define it?”

  “‘Stupid’ is a relative term.”

  “No,” he replied. “It really isn’t.”

  “It certainly is. I believe my reasons are sound, but you might very well think them stupid.” She rather assumed he would, in fact. He’d already declared her an idiot for going to Spitalfields.

  “I didn’t say stupid, I said monstrously stupid. If you’ve come to town to tread the boards, I am going to wire Scotland and haul you home, promise or no promise.”

  Treading the boards wouldn’t be stupid, it would be suicide. If that was the sort of behavior that worried him, she was probably safe. “Very well. But if you break your promise over what I am about to tell you, I warn you—I will make your life a living hell.”

  “No change for me, then,” he said dryly and made a prompting motion with his hand. “Tell me why you’re in London and why you went to Spitalfields, then.”

  “I have come to town to find someone.”

  “Someone from your youth? You know better,” he chided. “Your father kept you isolated for good reason.”

  “Not someone I knew. Someone…” Oh, this was going to be an uncomfortable conversation. “I was looking for… That is, I am looking for my father.”

  Sympathy and a fair amount of trepidation passed over his face. “Esther,” he said in a tone usually reserved for calming overexcited children and raving lunatics. “Your father is dead.”

  “No, not Will Walker,” she replied impatiently. “My natural father. The man my mother ran off with when Lottie was two and abandoned to return to Will Walker a few months before I was born.”

  He appeared perplexed rather than surprised. Evidently her illegitimacy was something Renderwell had seen fit to tell him. “Why?”

  “Why did my mother leave him?” she asked, knowing full well that wasn’t his question. “Because that was what the woman did. She arrived, she charmed, she took money, she left. Eventually, and to the regret of all, she came back again.”

  “No, why do you want to find this man?”

  She bit her lip and shook her head. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “I certainly don’t at present.”

  And he never would. She couldn’t claim to know every detail of his early youth, but Lottie had mentioned once that Samuel’s father was a vicar somewhere in the south. How could she possibly explain to the son of a vicar what it meant to wish for a better father and a better life? “It doesn’t matter why. I do, that’s all.”

  “He lives in Spitalfields?”

  “He did nine years ago.”

  “How do you know?”

  She reached into her bag again and produced a second torn piece of paper. “Last year, when Lottie and I were arranging to have our things moved from Willowbend to Greenly House, I found a portion of a letter that had fallen behind a drawer in an old desk. It was from my father. Mr. George Smith.”

  She gave him the scrap of paper but didn’t wait for him to read it. “There isn’t much to it. Mr. Smith asks after my mother’s health. He hopes she is well. He assures her he is well, and the rest is missing. But look.” She tapped the other side of the letter, where a date and part of the address remained intact. Mr. George Smith, No 58, Commercial Street, London. “I’m told it used to be a grocers, but it was lost to a fire some years ago. I was also told that Mr. Smith survived, but no one knows for certain what happened to him after the fire. A few people did seem to think he moved to either Rostrime Lane in Bow or to a street in Bethnal Green with ‘apple’ in its name. Or possibly ‘pear.’”

  That wasn’t strictly true. One person had mentioned a fruit-themed street in Bethnal Green. She knew for entirely different reasons that her father had lived on Rostrime Lane the year before he’d sent the letter from Spitalfields.

  Samuel frowned at the note. “This couldn’t have been meant for your mother. It was written well after her death.”

  “Five years after,” she agreed. “He must not have known. I don’t know how else to explain it. Perhaps there had been no contact between them after my birth. Perhaps the letter was an attempt to reestablish that connection.” Though how the man had known where to send the letter remained a mystery. “I can’t imagine he kept up a correspondence with Will Walker.”

  “How do you know Mr. Smith is your father? There is no mention of a child in this note.”

  “My mother told me.” The lie slipped off her tongue without thought. She regretted it immediately but couldn’t find it in herself to take it back. The truth required a long and painful explanation, and she’d quite had her fill of explanations today. “Before her death, she told me his name.”

  Samuel handed the letter back to her. “Did you wear your veil in Spitalfields?”

  “Yes, of course. Only…” She winced. “I lifted it to speak to an elderly woman. She had difficulty hearing. It helped her to see my lips. It was only the once.”

  “Once was enough. Someone recognized you.”

  She blew out a short, aggravated breath. “It would seem so.”

  Three

  Rather than put the loathsome mourning bonnet back on, Esther hid behind a folding screen while their meal was brought in the room and set out on a small table before the fireplace.

  Sometimes, it felt as if she’d spent the whole of her life hiding. From the police, from her neighbors, from her father’s friends and his enemies alike. And now from a trio of silly young maids who giggled nervously at Samuel’s every request.

  She couldn’t judge them harshly for it. Samuel cut an imposing figure. In part because there was just so much of him but mostly because so much of him was undeniably appealing. His muscular physique and rough-hewn features were hardly fashionable, but fashionable wasn’t always what a lady desired in a man. Some women might sigh over a pretty prince, but others preferred the captain of the guard.

  It was Samuel’s eyes, however, that compelled a lady to take a second look. They were such an unusual shade of gray, very nearly the color of steel, but sprinkled with warm flecks of gold about the irises. And on the rare occasions that he smiled, they crinkled nicely at the corners. He looked cheerful then, kind and approachable, like a man who welcomed your company and conversation.

  She could count on one hand the number of times she’d seen him smile like that. Not one of those smiles had been meant for her.

  “Leave the lids,” Samuel said. “You may go, thank you.”

  Esther rolled her eyes at the ensuing round of giggles. However understandable their admiration, she wished the maids would hurry about their chore and be gone. Her mouth watered at the aroma of warm bread and roasted meat. Riddled with nerves, she’d not eaten since the day before. She was famished.

  As soon as the door shut on the last giggle, she darted out from behind the screen and pulled the lid off one of the platters.

  Oh, asparagus. She adored asparagus.

  Samuel gestured for her to take a seat. “You’re fond of asparagus, I believe.”

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  He pulled out his own chair and began removing the other lids. “You mentioned it.”

  “Did I? When?”


  “Last year. On the twenty-eighth of June.”

  She stopped midreach for her napkin. “That is very specific.”

  “I’ve a keen memory.”

  He remembered the exact date she’d made an offhand comment about asparagus. That wasn’t keen. That was… Well, she didn’t know what that was, except disconcerting. “Can you recall everything I’ve ever said?”

  He frowned a little as he transferred a thick slice of ham to his plate. “Good God, why would I want to?”

  For your own improvement, she thought but kept the put-down to herself. Lord knew he could use both the improvement and the put-down, but she was in no hurry to ruin the tentative truce they seemed to have formed.

  She smiled at him instead, a thin, tight-lipped smile she was quite certain did not make her eyes crinkle nicely at the corners.

  * * *

  Samuel took in Esther’s strained smile and paused in the act of cutting his ham. “Something the matter?”

  “Not at all. I am merely”—she tilted her head a little and pursed her lips—“taking the moral high ground,” she decided, and then smiled in earnest, evidently pleased by the notion.

  He set down his knife and fork. He hated when people took the moral high ground. By default, that meant everyone else was on the low ground. “Why am I on the low ground?”

  “It’s nothing. You were insulting, that’s all. I am trying to let it pass.”

  She wasn’t doing a very good job of it. Also, he couldn’t see that she had any right to this particular patch of high ground. “You’ve insulted me. Repeatedly.”

  “Yes, but not since…” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Might we agree to both make an effort to be civil going forward?”

  He grunted in assent. It was doubtful that they would manage civility for long. But he wasn’t opposed to the effort.

  He did wonder, however, which insult she’d been thinking of when she’d offered that first smile. Maybe it was when he’d called her an idiot. He’d called her that once before, last summer. Actually, he’d called her an imbecile, but that was close enough. And now that he thought on it, he’d called her a fool in the carriage, and that was essentially the same thing. The sting of a single barb could generally be brushed off, but when that same barb was delivered time and time again, it had the potential to stick and fester. He was personally susceptible to slights referencing Frankenstein’s monster.