Page 54 of How the Belle Stole Christmas

The other alchemist, Mr. Grant, had returned, and he stood next to Sir Nicholas, watching Timothy play with the friends he would soon leave.

A young girl—Susan—ran up to Sir Nicholas, her arms wrapped tightly about her thinly-clothed body.

Sir Nicholas slipped his greatcoat off and squatted before the girl, wrapped her up warmly in the thick wool lined with a bright-red silk.

Susan laughed. The coat pooled around her feet, but Sir Nicholas ruffled her hair and sent her off, flexing to rise once more.

And… Jane truly tried not to ogle his arse. She did. But without the greatcoat, it was an object of easier study and… familiar? Similar to one she’d seen backing brazenly through a window? Or familiar because she’d been sneaking glances at it for a year?

No. She was likely transposing the two backsides because she wanted the man whose kiss she craved to be the same man she married.

“If you continue looking at the governess,” Temple said, “she’s going to notice.”

“She already has, no doubt. But I cannot seem to help it.” Nico winced as the young Susan dragged his coat through a pile of dead leaves.

Beneath it, the girl wore a new gown of thick blue wool, the same fabric he’d seen Jane wear when she’d first arrived last year but that she’d not worn in quite some time, not since Susan had received her new dress.

“I’m like a burr attached to Miss Dean’s skirts. Where she goes, so do I.”

“Are you going to do anything about it?”

“Not currently.”

“Why’s that?”

“A host of reasons. She’s a duke’s daughter.”

“Illegitimate,” Temple said. “She won’t be expected to make an exalted match.”

“Still. Her brother is a duke, a strong transcendent.”

“And you’re the best silver alchemist of this age.”

Nico grinned. “You’re not wrong. But—”

“Intermarriage is not illegal. It is simply rare.”

“We make good friends.” And they would make even better lovers.

One single, slight kiss had taught him that.

“But I’m in no place to take a wife.” He shifted to the other foot.

“My annuity is too small for that, and the lands around Bowen Hall have been sold off. I own a house too big for me, a closed shop in London, and the clothes on my back. I wouldn’t bring a wife into my chaotic, pitiful life. ”

“Reopen the shop.”

Something dark pinched at Nico’s insides, and he held still to keep from squirming. “I have no desire to sell guns. Besides, I have other, more pressing matters. Do you remember what I told you about last Christmas?”

Temple groaned. “You could have been arrested.”

“I was not. And I’m doing it again.”

“Have you tried helping the children in an, oh, I don’t know”—Temple rubbed his forehead as if smoothing away a headache—“legal way?”

“Yes. The duke refuses anything that would go directly to the children. Accepts only money donations, and those, I’m positive, go straight into his pocket. And the secretary, Jameson, is too scared of the duke to accept… undocumented donations of any sort.”

Temple turned to look up at the hospital, his brow furrowed. He’d not rid himself of that headache after all. “It’s glamoured, I see. So well I almost cannot see the truth that lies beneath.”

“But you can see it?” Temple possessed the rare ability to see past glamours. All iron alchemists did.

Temple nodded. “Limestone chunks missing at the corners, yellow paint peeling. Windows dusty. Some of the iron so badly rusted even the most unskilled alchemist could manipulate it.”

Metals were set with a final layer of setting liquid that kept them from being tampered with, but rust offered a pathway inside it. Any rusted or unset metal could be melted away or reshaped for deadly purpose with nothing more than an alchemist’s touch.

Nico couldn’t see rust or decay in the hospital though.

All he could see was exactly what Morington wanted everyone to see—a jolly place, bright and beautiful and well kept.

Even the children’s coats and cloaks looked sumptuous, thick velvets and braided gold.

But they shivered, and when he’d flung one of them up in the air earlier, his finger had caught on a hole in the armpit of the girl’s coat.

“Not much I can do out in the open,” Nico said. “They won’t allow it.”

Temple made noise halfway between a growl and a snort. “Be careful, then.”

“That’s the point. I’m not sure how to be. Miss Dean has just told me her brother is sending in guards for Christmas Eve. It seems I personally offended Morington with my gifts to the children last year.”

“Guards?”

“Armed.”

“Hell.”

“Precisely.”

“You see now that you must abandon your plans.” Temple skewered Nico with a gaze hard as the iron he tamed so effortlessly.

“I see no such thing.”

“Nico—”

“I simply need a new plan. I’m asking for suggestions, Temple, not remonstrations.”

“You’ve already heard my suggestion.”

“I’m thinking a distraction.”

“Oh, God.”

“Something to draw the guards away from the hospital.”

“Any distraction that draws them away will endanger the children.”

“Not true. Free drinks at a pub across town?” Nico stuffed his hands in his pockets, remembered he didn’t have pockets because they were hanging near Susan’s knees, and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not going to set fire to the place.”

“Reassuring. Listen, those guards are not likely to abandon their task.”

“They might if they’re not very bright. Or not paid very well.”

“You’d be very lucky.”

“I usually am.” He grinned wide as Sybil ambled over, her arms outstretched for a hug. He wrapped his arms around her, lifting her off the ground and shaking her feet.

She laughed. “Put me down, you brute. Put me down!” When her feet were firmly on the ground once more, she punched his arm, a surprisingly strong hit. It stung. “Rogue. When are you coming to London for a visit?”

“After Christmas, as usual.” He’d spent the holiday with the Grant family every single year since his father’s death when he was thirteen years old.

He’d been apprenticed to another alchemist, Mr. Slate, a silver worker, but the elder Mr. Grant had taken Nico into his home.

He had a son the same age, after all, and a houseful of younger children.

The Grant home had been warmer than the Bristol silversmith cottage where Nico had been raised, louder and more chaotic.

That was home. Because he’d had someone, an entire family full of someones, to make it home for him. The foundlings did not have that. Yet.

Sybil squeezed his hand. “Come sooner if you can.” She was so jolly, despite everything that had happened to her family. That seemed to be the Grant family way. Smile and keep going. Except for Temple. His way seemed more scowl and kick something hard.

“I will if I can,” Nico said. He’d be too busy on Christmas Eve breaking and entering.

And in the weeks before that, crafting silver knights the size of a child’s palm that moved when charged with the body’s electric heat.

Silver dolls with swishing skirts. Silver flowers that bloomed, from bud to beauty in the time it took for a governess’s cheeks to blush.

Sybil hugged him again then called loudly for Timothy. “We’re off for the inn now.” Timothy stopped, red-cheeked next her, regarding her as if she were a goddess. She ruffled his hair without looking.

As she steered Timothy around the side of the house, Temple clapped Nico on the shoulder.

“Forget this deuced dangerous plan. Giving Timothy a home and a purpose—that was good work. Your real work. Not this other dark-of-night nonsense. There are other children here, and with you on their side, they will not long stay in this house of gilded lies.” He strode after his sister and new apprentice, not waiting for a response.

Temple probably knew he wouldn’t like what he heard.

What was Nico’s real work? Not his father’s weapons.

But not these children either, it seemed.

He’d already exhausted his contacts and still this handful of children remained at the hospital without the home and purpose he’d helped find Timothy.

How could he help them find futures if he couldn’t even see his own clearly?

The only thing he could truly give them was a single morning of magic. And that he would do, armed guards be damned.