Page 49 of How the Belle Stole Christmas

The arse backing through the window was well shaped indeed. But the shape—or firmness—of a backside hardly mattered when it was where it should not be.

That arse was breaking and entering.

Jane gripped her fire poker until the steel of it bit into her palms, but she did not step out of the shadows.

Not yet. For now, the hidden space smooshed between a giant wardrobe and the thin but glamoured curtains yielded safety.

An opportunity, as well, to consider her next move.

She’d been brought to the Bristol Foundling Hospital as a governess, not a guard.

Surely there was someone better suited to playing hero.

She possessed no magical ability, was as plain and powerless a person as could be found.

She didn’t even know how to throw a punch.

Her duke of a father had thought women’s hands better used for, well, nothing at all but sitting prettily atop a lap.

And her stepmother had taught her well that the best way for a woman with no power to survive was by following the rules.

An especially important lesson for women like Jane, born on the wrong side of the blanket.

Illegitimate or not, she needed to rise to the occasion. There were no guards. No footmen. The hospital’s secretary, Mr. Jameson, had passed into a brandy-induced slumber hours ago. She only remained to protect the sleeping children.

To her right, little Emmy snored like a dragon. The smallest of the bunch, thin-limbed and big eyed, she seemed somehow to always produce the most noise. To her left, Timothy slept on his stomach, his bum sticking right up into the air.

Another bum across the room continued its crimes.

She could hit it with the poker, send it back outside.

Even… stab it? Yes, that would work, too.

Perhaps, even, it would work best. But if she did not swing or stab with enough vigor, she might anger instead of injure the villain to whom the arse belonged.

No matter. She had to act, and quietly. If she woke the children, she might scare them.

She could not countenance that, not on Christmas.

Every child should feel safe then. Should feel safe always.

These children knew should from reality, though.

They didn’t expect much, not even safety.

That damning truth forced Jane out of her shadowed corner. They deserved her bravery, and—

Oh! A leg, thick thighed and encased from foot to knee in a shiny black boot, struggled through the window.

Then another leg, then a torso, then the intruder stood inside, shaking off the cold and snow.

He wore all black, from the nightcap pulled low over his brow to the greatcoat buttoned tight about his torso.

And those boots. He shook them, trying to dislodge the downy flakes gathered on their tops.

If the room had been warm, as it should be, they would have melted.

But he shivered as he shook. She shivered, too.

The children, beneath their threadbare blankets, glamoured to appear thick and lovely, also shivered.

Even in sleep they must feel the cold. Glamours never kept a body warm, no matter how luxurious they made an item appear to be.

And her brother’s glamours tended to careen past luxurious and straight toward ostentatious.

Damn him. The children needed real warmth, not the appearance of it. What a rotten miser he was. Just buy new curtains instead of glamouring the old! Especially during such a brutal winter. Especially with so many children dependent on his kindness.

They depended on her, too. To protect them from the intruder.

She stood on the opposite side of the room from his window, and darkness stretched between them along with several rows of narrow, occupied cots.

On bare feet, she stalked closer to him, hugging the walls, clinging to shadows.

She could only make out the big, broad-shouldered outline of him.

When he leaned back through the window—leaving already?

—he filled it. He re-emerged into the room, towing a large burlap sack.

Slinging it over his shoulder, he prowled toward the beds on unexpectedly silent feet.

He hovered over the closest bed, his big, dark shadow falling across the child lying there. Vulnerable. Alone.

Absolutely not alone.

Jane crept nearer, her hand aching from how tightly she held her weapon.

And the intruder dropped to his knees.

She paused, determination wavering beneath the force of curiosity.

Because the man was pulling up the boy’s blanket, shaking his head as if he disapproved.

Then the man pushed a lock of hair off the boy’s forehead and reached into his sack, pulled forth…

something… and set it on the end of the boy’s cot.

The intruder did the same with the next three beds, kneeling, comforting each child, reaching into the sack, then placing an object on top of the blanket.

What in heaven’s name? He appeared to be… leaving them gifts?

When he stood from the fourth bed, his back was to her.

An opportunity. She ran as quickly as she could on soft feet and dug the point of her poker into his back between his shoulder blades.

He tensed, and his arms flew up, bent like wings, hands open flat.

With the poker, she pushed him away from the beds and back toward the window.

He let her.

When they stood before the window, she could see him better. The blanket of snow outside reflected the meager light, cast it on his tall form.

“Turn,” she whispered as loudly as she dared, giving his back a firm poke.

He did, hands still held high and flat. When he was fully facing her, they stood toe to toe.

He tilted his head, his lips—finely carved and mobile—stretched into a white-toothed grin.

He wore a black domino that covered his nose and cheeks and sailed upward underneath his black knit cap.

No, not a domino. A black cravat with holes cut out for eyes.

And what eyes they were, too. Color indistinct. Too dark to see that. But they glittered, amused. They… devoured. They feasted. They laughed. They lived. All at once. Sweeping her away—

“Good evening, Miss Dean.”

She squeaked. He knew her.

He chuckled.

“Who are you?” she whispered, barely able to work her voice.

“A friend.”

“Friends do not steal into a locked house at night.”

Another chuckle, his voice deep and low and merry. His eyes shifted from mirth to something else entirely as his gaze slid down the length of her body. “Aren’t your feet cold?”

Actually… they were. She covered one set of naked toes with the other. “What are you doing here?”

Nearby a cot squeaked, a child snorted and grumbled, and their bodies tilted toward one another, frozen on the same breath. When silence reigned once more, he shifted closer to her. Impossible that there was room to do so, but he’d found it, decimated it.

His gaze slid back up her body. “I come bearing gifts, Miss Dean.” He spoke so softly, she should not be able to hear him. She did. Each of his words caught fire along her skin, burnt deep into her bones. Funny notion… but she might be able to hear him, even if he never spoke out loud.

“What gifts?”

When he reached into the small sack he carried, she tensed, lifted her weapon, but he pulled his hand free from the bag just as quickly. Still, she kept the poker ready.

“See?” He held something out to her on his palm. “Merely a toy. An entire sack of toys. And eternal coal. For children who have little cause for joy.”

With her free hand, she took the lump of shining metal and held it up to the sparse light filtering through the open window.

It was a smooth, metal doll with long braids and a child’s dress.

It was finely carved, beautiful. She wished to see it in the daylight.

There would be detail enough to delight the eye.

She could feel the fine individual threads of carved hair with her fingertips.

“Here.” As he spoke, he covered her hand with his, swallowing the toy with the heat of their palms. She flinched.

Wrong. Rule number one of being a peer’s by-blow—never let a man touch you if he’s not your husband.

“Now open.” He stood so near, his breath was warm on her hair as he released her hand, and it fluttered open of its own accord.

The toy was changed. Gone the braids and child’s clothes. The tiny doll now wore a ball gown, her hair piled high upon her head. She seemed to be in the middle of a dance step.

Jane gasped.

“One for each child,” he whispered. “And something for you, too. If you’re a good girl and let me return to my task.” He winked, and he did not wait for her permission. He snapped up the toy from her palm, took his sack, and wandered off, returning to the rows of sleeping children.

Jane’s heart squeezed, as it often had in the three months she’d been here.

None of these children expected gifts. Even during the long stretch of the Christmas holidays.

Jane had received gifts as a child, had woken up warm in her lovely blue room on her father’s massive estate and opened a nicely wrapped doll or shawl or book as her father looked on indulgently.

The last indulgent smile she’d received from him four months ago, a handful of minutes before he’d drawn his last breath and a few weeks before her half brother, the new Duke of Morington, had told her to pack her bags.

She’d been her father’s nurse for almost a decade, and with the old duke dead and the new duke’s friends unwilling to marry his bastard sister, she’d outlived her usefulness.

No. She. Had. Not. She could still brain the intruder with this fire poker.