A Gift for Guile (The Thief-takers) (26 page)

And so tonight, instead of holding a warm and willing Esther in his arms, he was sitting in his study, glowering at his desk.

Your world is so black-and-white.

Esther’s words echoed in his head. It was an odd accusation for her to have made. He could be stubborn in his views, yes. He could be harsh in his opinions. But she knew he was neither narrow-minded nor willfully blind. She had been the one to insist he wasn’t a hard man.

Except that now she appeared to have changed her mind, and he suspected he knew the reason.

As he stared at the desk drawer, he absently rubbed his scar with the back of his hand. Old scars were tricky things. They made themselves known in unpredictable ways…pinching and itching when you least expected.

He was well aware that his need to guard and protect stemmed from his experiences as a child. It was like a pain he couldn’t fully soothe, a nagging itch he couldn’t quite reach. It would always give him trouble.

Esther had her own scars—the work she’d done with her father and the years she’d spent twisting her personality to fit the ideals of the people around her. What was it she had told him earlier? That she had acted out roles to please others, because she didn’t know who she really was, but if people liked her, then surely whoever she was couldn’t be all bad.

He should have paid more attention to that last bit, that quick acknowledgment that she did, in fact, have some opinion on the sort of woman she was.

All bad, he thought. The old Esther. The one who’d been inferior in her own father’s eyes. The one Samuel had called a selfish imbecile only a year ago.

That woman.
Christ, he owed her a proper apology for that. Not for the words, but for the damning way he’d said them. With one careless, insulting tone, he’d managed to both shame her for the past and insinuate that no portion of the woman she’d once been was worth preserving. It had been so easy for her to hear in those words an opinion he didn’t share—that for the first twenty-seven years of her life, Esther Walker had been
all bad
.

Good or bad. Honest or a liar. Black or white.

No wonder she’d changed her mind. No wonder she’d been so insistent that he didn’t understand her, didn’t really want her.

At the very notion of not wanting her, Samuel gave a harsh laugh and dragged a hand down his face. Hell, he
ached
from wanting her. All of her—her sharp tongue, her wind-chime laugh, her passion, her trust, even her stubbornness and terrifying sense of adventure. He wanted every bit of her, every moment of her time. Her past, present, and future.

But he’d been clumsy. She’d prodded at his old scars and, without realizing it, he’d responded in kind.

The error couldn’t be undone. And, God knew, he lacked the eloquence to win her back with pretty words.

He could, however, make a symbolic gesture.

Once more, his eyes tracked to the drawer.

He could prove to her that his opinions were not so black-and-white. That he did believe a person might be imperfect and still worth knowing, worth loving.

To Esther’s surprise, it took Samuel less than half a day to track down Mr. Smith. Her grandfather had moved only once since leaving Apton Street. His new home was a tiny, weathered house in a neighborhood that looked to have just slipped off the edge of shabby-genteel and was now rapidly descending into full dilapidation.

“I should like to do this alone,” she told Samuel as they sat in the carriage outside Mr. Smith’s residence.

Samuel released the grip he’d had on the carriage door. “I don’t think that’s wise.”

Please, not this argument again.
“Mr. Smith is more than seventy years old, and I’ve knives strapped to my ankles. I suspect I’ll return unscathed.”

“We don’t know who else is in that house. I don’t know anything about his staff.”

She glanced at her grandfather’s home. It was smaller than her cottage. “He can’t have more than one or two. I’d wager neither are assassins.”

He slanted her a decidedly unamused look. “If he insults you—”

“Then I will wish him to the devil and take my leave.”

A muscle worked in his jaw. “I don’t want you to be hurt.”

She stifled the sudden urge to lean across the carriage and brush her hands across that grinding jaw.

It truly was harder for him to wait.

Samuel had been right—when he had gone off in search of their mystery man alone, she had worried about him, but she had not been terrified for him. He was just so capable. Her confidence in his abilities left no room for something as uncomfortable as raw fear.

She was capable as well, but her abilities were admittedly less honed than Samuel’s. There was room for fear there. And he had such a terrible need to protect.

She glanced at the waiting house and back at Samuel. She felt guilty for not fully appreciating how difficult it had been for him to take her to Paddington station. But she wasn’t facing anything more dangerous here than a spot of disappointment. And for God’s sake, he didn’t need to follow her everywhere.

“I don’t know him, Samuel. I’ve no attachment to him at all. He might insult me. He might toss me out of his home, but it won’t hurt me.” It would, however, add a painful layer of humiliation to have Samuel bear witness to whatever insults or accusations her grandfather might care to hurl at her. “I need to do this alone.”

She watched him struggle with her decision for a moment before giving one curt nod. “All right.”

The concession, and the knowledge of what it cost him, warmed her from the inside out.

Maybe they weren’t so incompatible, she thought as she hopped down from the carriage. Maybe they could always find their way to an agreement, so long as they didn’t give up trying.

Maybe, in time, he’ll replace you with a lady who won’t ask him to subjugate his needs to her own.

She was nearly to the house when this unwelcome thought intruded on her newfound hope. It angered her, even as it pricked at her conscience.

Maybe I’ll replace him with a gentleman who doesn’t ask the same of me
, she thought tartly, but that idea only made her feel worse.

She shook her head, setting those fears aside for now, and knocked on her grandfather’s door. A young maid in skirts that were visibly patched promptly answered.

“Mrs. Ellison to see Mr. Smith, please. I am come about his son.”

She was shown into a miniature parlor crammed with furniture that had been out of fashion for at least fifty years.

Esther had barely taken a seat on the threadbare chair before the parlor doors opened again, and the maid returned with her grandfather.

As she rose from her seat, all Esther could think was that Mr. Smith looked even older than his seventy years. He shuffled into the room with the aid of a cane, his back bowed forward and his knuckles white from supporting his weight. A sparse patch of white hair crowned a narrow face heavily lined with wrinkles.

He blinked at her once, then waved a gnarled hand at the maid. “Leave us.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Who are you?” he rasped to Esther. “What do you know of my son?”

“I am…” She swallowed hard and glanced at the parlor door to make certain the maid was no longer in earshot. “I am Miss Esther Walker. I believe your son was my father.”

Mr. Smith went very, very still. “You are Esther Walker?”

At least he appeared to have heard of her. “I am.”

He moved toward her slowly, until they were standing nearly cane to toe. Clouded blue eyes searched her face for a long, long time, then, to her astonishment, filled with tears. “You are real, then. You are real.”

He lifted his free hand and she thought for a moment he might touch her face, but he hesitated and patted her shoulder weakly. “My granddaughter.”

Esther nodded, thrown off-balance by his reaction. She had braced herself for insults, recriminations. At best, she had hoped for mild interest. She had not expected tears.

“You are just as she described,” Mr. Smith breathed. “Just as beautiful as she described.”

“I beg your pardon?” Who had described her?

He closed his eyes briefly, as if remembering an old pain. But when he opened them again, the tears had dried. “How did you find me, child? Your mother, I presume?”

“I…” She shook her head to clear it. She had so many questions, she wasn’t quite sure where to begin. “I found a letter. Or part of one. I thought it was from your son, but—”

“It was from me. Your mother and I kept up a regular correspondence for a time. Did she send you here?”

Regular correspondence? With a woman who would disappear for months at a time and not bother to write her own children? “No, I’m sorry. My mother has been gone a very long time.” Years before the letter she’d found in the desk had been written.

“Ah. I am sorry to hear it.” His gaze turned pensive. “I did wonder if that was the way of things.” He gave his head a little shake, sending the puff of hair wafting. “Well, there is no good to come from wallowing in old grief. Or so I have found. Come. Come. Take your seat.”

He carefully lowered himself to the edge of the settee across from her chair. Both hands braced on his cane, he leaned forward and regarded her with avid interest. “Now then, Esther Walker. Tell me of yourself.”

For the next ten minutes, Esther drew a very faint sketch of her life, offering only the most basic, harmless details. Her parents were gone. She had no children. She enjoyed her art, gardening, and the new game of badminton.

Though it pained her, she also lied. Right through her teeth. She was widowed. She had traveled from Boston to find her father’s family.

Another act, another role to play. But it couldn’t be helped. She didn’t know this man. She couldn’t trust him with the truth. And there was something amiss with his story.

Mr. Smith listened intently, almost raptly, as if every word out of her mouth was fascinating. To her relief, he did not pose probing questions about her late husband and life in Boston, and with a little encouragement, he began offering information of his own.

“You have a younger half brother, you know,” he told her.

“Yes. Edmund.” She considered her next comment carefully before speaking. “He is under the impression you dislike him.” Immensely.

“And no wonder, as I did for a time.” He sighed heavily, the sound a wheeze in his chest. “I am a very old man, Miss Walker. I’ve had a great many years to make a great many mistakes. I have amassed a fortune in regret. But none weigh so heavily as the loss of my family.”

“We are not all gone.”

“Indeed not.” He tapped his cane once in emphasis. “Indeed not. You are of noble stock. Did you know?”

She shook her head and smiled a little at the very idea. “Am I?”

He waggled a hand at an enormous book lying atop a small table. “There. There. The Bible. Bring it here.”

She retrieved the tome and laid it in his lap. It looked to be at least a century old. Its binding was cracked, the pages thin and frail. Inside, the names and dates of births went back three hundred years, the earlier entries obviously copied from older records.

“Do you see?” He tapped his finger at the top of the page and she took a seat beside him. “Second Earl of Silsbury.”

“In the year of our Lord 1531.”

“The title reverted to the crown many years ago. But it was ours for a time. You are a blue blood, Miss Walker.”

The very palest of pale, pale blues. The second earl appeared to have had only daughters. There was a long line of titleless entries after that, spanning several pages, and with the surname changing every so often when the male line ran out again. The last few entries carried the decidedly undistinguished surname of Smith. Her father’s name was the final entry.

Mr. Smith pointed to one of the entries. “Your great-great-grandfather was a naval captain of some renown. He dined with some of England’s finest families. Even King George, himself.”

“I see.” She didn’t really. It was almost impossible to imagine a blood relative of hers keeping company with royalty. Unless it was to steal from them.

“It costs a fair amount of coin to keep up with royalty and nobility,” Mr. Smith continued. “There was little left over for his son, my father. And he left even less to me. I had a decent education, and when my father passed, sufficient funds to go into business for myself.”

“You were a grocer.”

“Yes. A common grocer.” He trailed his fingers down the list of names. “We were a mighty family once.”

“So it would seem.”

“We took pride in it. I sold my goods in Spitalfields, and elsewhere, but I refused to live in rooms above a shop. Like my grandfather and father before me, I spent on my vanity what I should have saved for my boy.”

“I doubt it did my father harm to have been raised in a better neighborhood,” she ventured.

He didn’t seem to hear her. “Even the mighty fall,” he murmured. He tapped the page gently, almost reverently. “But we do not care to admit it.” He sighed again. “George and I had a terrible row. A falling out.”

“I’m sorry.”

“He took a path I could not condone. He dishonored the family.” With great care, he closed the Bible. “But I am not blameless in our estrangement. He came to me one day and told me he was to marry a Miss Thatchum. Edmund’s mother. I knew who she was, and I knew of the boy they’d had out of wedlock. Just as I knew he’d sired a daughter as well. Miss Thatchum was a seamstress. Her mother had been a woman of ill repute.”

She didn’t know what to say to that. Did one express sympathy for having a prostitute attached to the family tree?

“A doxy in the family,” Mr. Smith continued. “It was not to be borne. But you…” He wagged a finger at her. “I heard a rumor that your mother came from good family.”

“Oh. Er…” Her mother had been the only child of tenant farmers somewhere in the north. At least that was the story she’d been told. “They were respectable, I believe.”

He bobbed his head. “I thought, if I could arrange a reconciliation between my son and your mother, he might throw off the other woman.”

“Mr. Smith, my mother was married.”

“At the time, I believed that a dalliance with a married woman of respectable stock was preferable to a permanent alliance with Miss Thatchum. To that end, I hired a man to find your family.”

A man? “What man?”

“A private investigator. He gave me an address in Kent. I wrote your mother introducing myself and indicating my intent to see her reconciled to my son.”

“In Kent?” The Walker family had never lived in Kent “How long ago was this?”

“Oh, ten years or so.”

“I’m afraid you must be mistaken, Mr. Smith. My mother passed away sixteen years ago.”

His mouth hooked down thoughtfully, then he made an impatient sound. “Bah. I am an old man. Dates and details occasionally escape me. At any rate, we wrote for several years. Though she would not agree to renew contact with my son, she did keep me apprised of your accomplishments. And I kept her informed of my son’s current residence, should she be interested.”

“You told her where to find your son?”

“It would have been near impossible for her to do so otherwise. The boy was constantly moving about, never staying in one spot for more than a year at a time. Often no more than a month or two.”

“My family was much the same.” Criminals were like that, she thought. Terribly jumpy.

He nodded absently, not really seeming to hear her. “I have never seen my boy so angry as the day he discovered those letters in my desk. He left London shortly after and refused to speak another word to me for the rest of his life. I was so angry with him. And so bitter at the loss of him. When Edmund arrived at my door four years ago, I blamed him.” He gave that terrible wheezing sigh again. “I alienated my own son and discarded my own grandchild out of pride. I have long wished to make amends, but I have lacked the courage.”

“But now I am here,” she offered quietly.

“Yes.” His face brightened. “Yes, you are here. Like an unexpected and undeserved present. And a pretty little present you are, as well. You’ve a bit of your grandmother about the mouth, I think.”

“Have I? I should like to know all about her. But first…” She retrieved the engraved pocket watch from her bag. “Do you recognize this?”

Mr. Smith’s face brightened at the sight of it. “I do, indeed. It was my father’s. Benjamin Smith. I gifted it to George on the occasion of his twenty-first birthday.” He patted her hand. “Keep it. A child should have something to remember her father.”

“A father’s watch should go to his son. Were you aware your son married Miss Thatchum?”

He absorbed that information quietly for moment. “I have often wondered,” he murmured to himself. Then his gaze fell to the Bible in his lap and his pale lips curved up in a slow smile. “Would you be so kind as to fetch a pen and ink, my dear?”

She did as he requested and watched as Mr. Smith painstakingly added Edmund’s name to the list of entries.

When he’d finished, Mr. Smith blotted the ink and nodded approvingly at his work. “Ah. The mighty may fall, but the resilient will always rise up again.”

She returned the smile he offered, genuinely happy for him, but she inwardly winced when he set the pen aside.