Page 52 of How the Belle Stole Christmas

She grasped the doorframe, pausing before moving inside. “I am glad Timothy has found a home, a purpose. But I am always sad to see them go.”

Nico leaned in close. She was such a forlorn little thing.

Hated to see it. Needed a smile. He tugged a loose strand of her hair out of place, fingers brushing almost imperceptibly against her downy skin.

Warm despite the December chill. Heat shot through him, tilting his lips in a wicked direction as his touch tempered hers, tightened them into that narrow, oh-so-prim line.

“Sir Nicholas.” A warning.

“They’re lucky to have you. In the last year, you’ve found five children permanent positions. Good ones. Steady and kind ones.”

She sniffed. “As if you’ve not settled three yourself. And into similar circumstances.”

“Yes.” He frowned. “You’re winning. I need to improve.”

She flinched. Her lips trembled, hinting at pouty pinkness—their natural shape when she wasn’t taming them ruthlessly. “It is not a competition. It is a solemn duty that must be carried out carefully.”

Her stubborn adherence to rules irked him.

And intrigued him. Some people stayed in line because they never once considered thinking for themselves.

But Miss Dean seemed to have thought about it to some considerable extent and come to the conclusion that rules were right, their chaffing limitations righteous.

And God… that was arousing. Roused the part of him that wanted to battle it out with her, prove her wrong.

And roused his body, flushed him with the heat of appreciation.

He offered her his arm to escort her inside. “Yes, yes, Miss Dean. Follow the rules, fill out the proper forms. Consult the law. Everything done the right way.”

She ignored his arm, fisting her hands in her skirts as she swept inside ahead of him.

“But what is the right way? Who decides? And what if they’re wrong?” he asked, following, hurrying to catch up. For a woman of no significant height, her steps were long. Were her legs long, too? And encased in red?

“Impertinent questions.”

Mindreading was impossible. Good God, he was ruined if she had somehow figured it out. She’d know everything, see every lewd imagining.

“Who decides which way is right hardly matters. The important thing is to follow the rules.”

Oh. Those questions. Right. “I bow to your superior understanding, Miss Dean. And I swear to you there is no cause for worry with Timothy. The Grants will take good care of him. They’re a good family. The best.”

“The scandal…”

“You know they made the only good choice. They may have given away secrets, but they did it to save lives. They have King William’s praise.

” He’d not been exiled for his support of the Grants, but he had lost a few friends.

Not that he cared. Alchemists congregated in London and Manchester.

In Bristol, he hardly noticed the loss of a few friends.

She chewed her bottom lip then gave a solid nod. “You’re right, of course.” She paused before the schoolroom, smiled. Hell. What a rare gift, that upward curve, that glorious glint in her eye.

He pressed his hands to his heart and stumbled backward.

“Are you ill?” she asked, her arm extending, her fingers fluttering at his sleeve.

“I’ve been decimated, thank you for asking.”

Confusion furrowed her brow. “Decimated?”

“By your smile. Like an arrow to the heart, a tree branch to the head. It wallops.”

She rolled her eyes. Those lips thinned again. And she picked up her skirts to bustle inside the hospital. But not high enough for him to see her stockings. “I’ve warned you about flirting, Sir Nicholas.”

“Oh yes, I remember. Apparently I need to warn you about smiling. Lethal, it is. What a way to go, though, bludgeoned by beauty.”

She snorted. “Really, Sir Nicholas. You are, and have ever been, absolutely absurd.”

Sometimes. Like right now. He wanted to kiss her. Again.

But she did not know who he was, what he’d done. And if she did, she’d never allow his flirtations again.

Better this easy friendship, even if it did end eleven times out of ten with him in a cold bed, his cock in his hand, the memory of their one coal-hot kiss driving his wrist like a piston.

He followed her into the schoolroom. Almost twenty children of various ages sat in tidy rows bent over slates. They did not even look up. But the woman who’d been monitoring the children—a local widow who often volunteered—did.

“Thank you, Mrs. Tottle,” Miss Dean said. “It’s time for the children to go outside.”

Chairs screeched against wood and whispers broke out like low distant thunder across the classroom as the children stood. A stampede toward the hooks lining the side wall, then the widow helped them put on coats and cloaks before ushering them outside into the bleak and tangled garden.

In the front courtyard of the hospital, it was possible to imagine it a cheerful place.

The yellow facade, the smooth limestone, the well-maintained drive—every detail offered reassurance the children housed here were safe and happy.

The hospital had been glamoured past all reality.

The duke’s transcendent talent was strong.

Nico would not have known had Miss Dean not told him.

The children would know, though. A talent like the duke’s could settle beauty onto a carcass with so much precision everyone thought it living. Until they tried to touch it.

God, he hated that man. For hiding neglect beneath glamour. And for exiling his sister.

He’d meant to hate Miss Dean after he’d learned she’d allowed his gifts to be confiscated after Christmas. Even the coal. But he understood. Of course she’d told Mr. Jameson and her brother the next morning, hoping he might improve security, fix the locks on the windows at least.

The duke and his secretary had put new locks on the windows and bolts on the doors. For several months of the new year, the hospital had been included in the constable’s patrol route. All that good. Necessary. But the duke had also, in a fit of cruelty, thrown away the toys.

But had she saved her stockings?

Dead leaves and gravel crunched beneath his boots as he followed her outside. The children had gone wild, running, hiding, yelling. He grinned. A dead garden turned into a wonderland. Childhood was like that, everything full of possibility. Even the most mundane lump of lead a potential toy.

He glanced at Miss Dean, walking beside him, her hands clasped behind her back.

Would she creep downstairs on Christmas Eve this year?

What would she do if she discovered him again?

Keep quiet in her corner then grant him a kiss?

He almost groaned. The line of her jaw was tight, and despite the wind whipping color across her cheeks, the rest of her skin was too pale.

“Is something amiss?” he asked.

She watched her feet for several steps, then said, “I told you about what happened. Last Christmas Eve.”

He should be commended for not stumbling. “I assume you mean the”—he lowered his voice—“intruder.”

A nod. “As Timothy leaves today, others arrive.”

“More foundlings?”

“Guards.”

He did stumble, covering it as a purposeful pause. “Afraid I need some explanation.”

“My brother has developed something of an obsession with the intruder. Thinks the man set out to personally insult him. His obsession has grown the closer we come to Christmas. He’s hired men to secure the premises and, I’ve been told, they have instructions to shoot any prowlers on sight.”

Prowlers? Nico was not a prowler! “He’s trying to protect… his own self-importance?”

“He’s predictable in that way.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Did she know? Had she suspected him all this time?

She bowed her head, picked at the loose threads of her rust-colored shawl. “I do not want the intruder hurt.” Her voice so soft the wind could eradicate it.

But he heard, and he cupped her elbow, though she wouldn’t welcome it. “What do you think I can do about it?”

“Let it be known about town. There are guards. If the news is shared far and wide, he’ll hear, and he’ll stay away.”

“Do you truly think so? He’s a ne’er-do-well.”

“He’s not.”

“Such fellows as he are hardly cautious.”

“He must be.” Pulling her elbow from his palm’s embrace, she faced him. “I think… I know… he has a good heart, a courageous soul. He must be cautious.”

Good heart and courageous soul. Do not grin like a fool.

“The intruder might not even be planning to visit the children this year.” He was.

“He might know his gifts were confiscated last year. He wouldn’t want to waste his time.

” The joy the children must have felt to wake up warm on Christmas morning and find a small miracle nestled near their feet…

hardly a waste of time. Worth every callus on his hand and every bead of sweat on his brow, even if the damn toys were confiscated.

“I hope you’re right.” Her words were feathered with wistfulness, though. It could be his vivid imagination, wishful thinking, but it sounded as if she wanted to see the masked intruder again. She certainly admired him. “He’s an absolute nodcock if he tries to squeeze through that window again.”

Nico winced and swung back into an easy amble down the worn path. Perhaps her admiration was tempered by her usual carefulness. After all, the intruder broke through windows. She patched them back up. “I’ll spread the news about town. Do not worry, but…”

She joined him, tilting her chin up and twisting to study him. “But what, Sir Nicholas?”

“Promise me… If you hear something go bump in the night on Christmas Eve, do not investigate it.” He clasped his hands together behind his back to keep from reaching for her.

Touch could be as persuasive as logic, and he longed to make his argument with knuckles stroking down her cheek.

But silver could not be managed in the same manner as lead or copper.

And this woman—certainly made of steel—could not be managed with softness.

It would take a direct hit with a powerful hammer.

“Should the intruder strike again, and should it be found you allowed it to happen, your brother will not be pleased. He might blame you. He could send you away.”

And these children needed her.

“I cannot promise.”

“Goddamn it,” he mumbled. Then louder, “Miss Dean, you are not to put yourself in harm’s way.” He would never harm her, but her brother would if he thought her an accomplice to his humiliation.

“If I think the children are in need of me, I will act to protect them.”

“And you think the intruder with the kind heart and courageous soul will hurt them?”

“No!” She drew away from him, her eyes striking lightning. “He would not. But those guards… I do not trust their bullets to not go astray.”

“And what if one went astray into your pretty little breast?”

“Better me than them.”

“No one,” he managed to say despite a clenching jaw, “should be injured.”

“Then make sure every single person in Bristol knows what dangers will lurk here on Christmas Eve. Make sure the intruder knows there is to be no repetition of last year’s kindnesses.”

Bloody hell. He had no choices here. The intruder might argue with her, explain his reasons, his plans.

But Sir Nicholas? He wouldn’t care if the intruder was caught, would only care to keep Miss Dean and her charges safe.

He’d embrace her request. Even though the intruder had spent the last six months making toys of silver for the foundlings—women in fashionable dresses and knights with swinging swords.

The heat of the child’s hand could warm the intricate figures into movable life.

Each toy made with an alchemist’s understanding of the material being shaped.

Each toy a discovery of magic. Each toy an apology for loss.

He had no choices here.

He nodded and stepped away from her, the rush of winter settling between them. “Consider it done.”