A Gift for Guile (The Thief-takers) (11 page)

“He bites.”

“He doesn’t bite me,” she countered pertly. “I should think it all makes very little difference to you, either way. You never accepted my apology.”

No, he never had, and for good reason. “You apologized for going after Mr. Nips.”

“Yes, I know.”

“I wasn’t angry with you for that.”

“What rubbish,” she countered. “My memory might not be as fine as yours, but I remember your anger perfectly well. You called me a selfish imbecile.”

“And so you were, for not calling for help first.”

“But I did. I yelled, ‘Fire.’”

“You didn’t. Lottie saw you running across the lawn. You weren’t yelling.”

“Well, not then. There was a man in the woods with a gun. I’d rather hoped he wouldn’t notice me. I yelled before I opened the door.” She lifted her shoulders. “It’s not my fault if no one heard.”

“You should have made certain someone heard.”

“And by that you mean I should have shouted until you or one of your friends came and took care of the problem for me?”

“Ideally, yes. But—”

“But you wouldn’t have gone into the stable for Mr. Nips.”

His voice lowered of its own accord. “I would have. If you’d asked it of me.”

“Oh.” Her expression went a little soft. “That’s tremendously sweet of you. Thank you. Truly. But I wouldn’t have asked it of you. I wouldn’t expect you to risk your life for my pony while I waited comfortably in my parlor.”

“Esther—”

“But I could have asked for your assistance,” she broke in. “We could have done it together. It would have been the smart thing to do.” She nodded thoughtfully. “I should have secured help before I went outside.”

“I shouldn’t have called you a selfish imbecile.”

Her eyes widened in mock surprise. “I wish I could paint this moment. Preserve it for posterity. Sir Samuel Brass very nearly apologizes twice in one day.”

He smiled, but mostly because she so clearly wanted him to smile. Apparently, it looked as obligatory as it felt, because she sagged in her seat a bit, then studied him with a sharp eye.

“Enough talk of the past,” she decided after the moment. “Do you know what you need, Sir Samuel?”

He felt it best not to hazard a guess. Esther had a look about her all of a sudden—a little eager, a little thoughtful, and too mischievous by half. He didn’t trust that look.

“You need to have fun,” she announced.

He’d been right to be wary. “Fun.”

“Yes. Surely you’ve heard of it,” she drawled. “Amusement? Divertissement? A rollick? A lark?”

“Rings a dim bell.”

“We are in London, the most exciting city in the world. Well, in England anyway.”

He knew he was going to regret his next question before he even asked. “What did you have in mind?”

She rubbed her hands together as she’d done in Spitalfields. Another bad sign. “I purchased something at the shop down the street. I shouldn’t have,” she admitted before he could chastise her. “It wasn’t safe. But it is done now, so there’s no point in you wasting your breath on a lecture.”

“What did you purchase?”

“Come and see,” she urged, jumping out of her chair.

He followed her to the other side of the room, where she knelt down to dig through a small trunk. After a moment, she produced two small racquets and a shuttlecock.

He lifted a brow. “Battledore and shuttlecock?”

He was not playing battledore and shuttlecock.

“No.” Setting aside the racquets and shuttlecock, she reached into the trunk and pulled out a considerable length of thin, frayed rope. “Badminton. The man at the shop said it is all the rage in India. You see, rather than attempt to keep the shuttlecock in play as long as possible, one must hit it over the rope and past an opponent, rather like tennis, only without so many rules.” She frowned at the rope. “Actually, I’m not sure there are any rules.”

“So, it’s battledore and shuttlecock with a rope.”

“No, it’s badminton. It’s competitive.”

It was competitive battledore and shuttlecock with a rope. “Is it a special sort of rope?” he asked, taking it from her. It didn’t look special. It didn’t look like it could hold a flag on a breezy day. “Did you pay extra for it?”

“It is an average rope. It was given to me free of charge due to its condition.” She pressed her lips together a moment, then gave him a sheepish look. “And because the shopkeeper might have been under the impression that I was a recently widowed woman purchasing a gift for a fatherless child.”

“Good Lord, Esther.”

“I wasn’t attempting to swindle the man,” she replied defensively. “He made the assumption, and I could hardly stand there in widow’s weeds and correct him, could I? I tried to pay for the rope. He wouldn’t take it.” She snatched the rope back. “Do you wish to play or not?”

As she likely overpaid for the “badminton” set several dozen times over what the rope (and possibly the set) was worth, Samuel didn’t see the point in pursuing the matter. “This hotel doesn’t have a garden.”

“I know. We are going to play in Hyde Park.”

“No, we are not.”

“But we’ve an hour or two of light left yet and—”

“You can play this game in Derbyshire.”

“But I can’t play in Hyde Park in Derbyshire.” She sat back on her heels and looked up at him. “I am in London for the first time in nine years, and once I leave, I will likely never have the opportunity to return. I’ll never be able to go to the opera, or the theater, or a ball, or do any of the exciting things I spoke of before. But I can play badminton in a secluded spot in an enormous park where no one will see and bother us.” She gave him a pleading look. “Please, come play with me.”

Please, come play with me.

How could a man, any man, hear those five words from a beautiful woman and say no?

A man should say no. A properly responsible gentleman would say no. Only a fool would say yes.

“Fetch your bonnet.”

Twenty minutes later, Samuel found himself with Esther in Hyde Park. He chose their spot with great care. Leaving Michael, the driver, to wait on the road, he led Esther through a thick stand of trees to a relatively open area that was sufficiently far from the road to shield them from view.

“We can’t play here,” Esther said when they stopped. “There are too many trees.”

“We’ll play around them. We can’t be in the open, Esther.”

“But… Oh, I suppose you’re right.” She patted the trunk of an ancient oak with one hand while she lifted her veil with the other. “They’ll add challenge.”

“Put your veil down.”

“I can’t play with the veil. I can’t see properly.” She looked around at their surroundings. “We’re nowhere near a road or path, Samuel. I’m no more likely to be seen here than I am sitting in the hotel, where some forgetful maid might waltz in without knocking. But…” She pulled the sides of the veil down along the wide brim of her bonnet, leaving only the very front tucked up. “How’s this?”

He considered it. The veil fell around her like a curtain, effectively obscuring her face from almost every angle. A person would have to be directly in front of her, and as near to her as he was now, to make out her features. She could easily pull the rest of the crepe down long before someone got that close. It would do.

She pointed a finger at him before he could agree, however. “I compromised on the trees. You can compromise on the veil.”

He grunted.

“And you can do it a bit more cheerfully.” She gave a little sniff. “
I
compromised quite gracefully.”

He ignored this, because some comments weren’t even worth the effort of a grunt, and turned his attention to setting up the game. With Esther’s rather exacting guidance, two trees were selected and the rope strung between them, creating a line about five feet off the ground and seven feet across.

Esther handed him a racquet and took her place on the other side of the rope. “Ready?”

He felt perfectly ridiculous, standing in the woods in front of a rope, as if he were a child engaging in an invented game. But it was worth the discomfort to see the smile of anticipation on Esther’s face. She looked relaxed and happy, and utterly beautiful. The late sunlight wove strands of deep gold in her hair and caught flecks of amber in her blue eyes. A breeze caught a lock of hair and slipped it free of its pins. Her dark widow’s weeds might look out of place among the lush green of the woods, but Esther didn’t. She belonged here, he realized. For all that she might enjoy visiting a city like London, at the end of the day, she belonged in the country, out-of-doors, in the fresh air, and far away from the prying eyes and strict rules of British society.

There was loneliness and boredom in isolation, but there was freedom as well. A woman like Esther needed that freedom. Just as he did.

“Everything all right?” she called out.

“What? Yes. Quite.” He shook off his musings and motioned for her to start the game. “Ready.”

She tossed the shuttlecock into the air, hopped up, and gave it a solid whack, sending it over the top edge of the rope and right past Samuel into the ground.

“Oh, point for me,” she cried. “I
like
this game.”

“Are there points?”

“I’ve no idea. There must be, I should think. Else the game would go on forever.” She scrunched her face up in thought. “Shall we play to twenty?”

“Fifteen.” He retrieved the shuttlecock and passed it under the rope. “We haven’t much light left.”

“You’ll change your mind once I’ve arrived at fifteen without you. At this rate, it shouldn’t take more than a minute,” she teased, tossing the shuttlecock in the air for another volley.

He was ready this time. One quick step to the left and he sent the shuttlecock back over the net in a high arc. It went sailing a good six feet over Esther’s head and landed a solid ten yards behind her.

“Point for me.” He shrugged at her shocked expression and decided he might just enjoy this game. “You said there were no rules.”

“You play dirty, Sir Samuel.” A smile of unholy delight spread slowly across her pretty features. “Excellent. So do I.”

* * *

Esther ceded the point but insisted they mark out a rudimentary field of play before continuing the game. They used trees as boundary markers and decided to make up any additional rules as needed.

Additional rules were most definitely needed. They started out relatively sensible, but as the game progressed, they grew increasingly creative, then a bit silly, and finally, utterly absurd.

One point for a hit over the net and past an opponent within the set boundaries, two points if one used a hand instead of the racquet. An additional half point was granted if one managed to score by hitting the shuttlecock after it bounced off a tree. One point was subtracted for bouncing the shuttlecock off an opponent. This she successfully argued down to three quarters of a point in her case, as he was by far the larger target. But they both agreed that two and a half points should be subtracted if either one of them jumped in front of the projectile on purpose.

And still, they played dirty. She feigned a twisted ankle and leaped up from her injury to deliver a scoring hit when he rushed to help. He feigned a hard hit, then scored himself after she ran off into the bramble in search of the shuttlecock he’d palmed.

They argued good-naturedly over boundary lines, stumbled over roots, had several near collisions with the trees, and nearly brought the rope down on several occasions after it was agreed that he could reach over it, so long as she could reach under.

The game was, by any standard, a complete disaster.

And Esther loved every minute of it. Every preposterous, ridiculous minute. She couldn’t remember ever laughing so hard, couldn’t remember the last time she had felt so carefree, so unguarded in someone else’s presence.

She ought to feel a fool, lunging about in the woods, swinging wildly, and missing more than half the time. But she didn’t feel the least bit embarrassed.

That was Samuel’s doing. When she’d suggested the trip to the park, it had been with the intention of coaxing Samuel out of his temper. He was such a reserved man, so proud and stodgy, she assumed the process would be akin to prying out a bad tooth.

To her astonishment, Samuel engaged himself in the exercise without resistance. He played with a disarming balance of childlike abandonment and adult perspective. He played with just enough competitiveness to keep the game challenging but didn’t seem to care who actually won. He ceded points she didn’t deserve and argued for points he didn’t need. He lunged and dove and swung without any apparent self-consciousness. He laughed at himself freely and at her without spite. Not once did she feel as if he was judging either of them for their foolishness, not even when they had to stop the game to disentangle the top of her bonnet from a low branch of an evergreen.

He simply enjoyed himself in the moment, and that gave her the confidence and freedom to set aside old inhibitions, old fears of being judged and found lacking, and do the same.

She lost track of the points and time. They played until the golden light of late afternoon dimmed into the blue light of dusk and then the grainy gray of early evening. Until they could no longer see the rope between them. And she hoped it would never end.

* * *

“Enough.” Samuel raised both hands before Esther could launch her next serve. “Enough. We’re done.”

“One more round.”

He shook his head and squinted across the rope. “We’ve lost too much light. I can scarcely see you in that damned black dress.”

“Oh, but—”

“We’ll play another time.”

In Derbyshire, he decided. He’d like that. He’d like to see Esther wearing a cheerful gown, laughing and playing in a grassy field in the bright light of day.

“Promise?”

“Gladly.”

“All right then.” She twirled her racquet as he headed to the knotted rope. “I knew these would be fun. That’s why I went in the shop when I knew I shouldn’t. I just knew they were worth it. I wanted to go into a shop farther down the street as well. There was the prettiest emerald green bonnet with matching velvet ribbons in the window. It was perfect. Just perfect. But I thought I shouldn’t—”