A Gift for Guile (The Thief-takers) Read Free Page A

hat, make polite inquiries after his day, and inform him that all was well in the house. Then he’d be left alone to go about his business in peace.
    Oh, how he missed those times.
    There was no one waiting for him in the foyer that evening. He tossed his hat and gloves on a side table and winced when a great crash arose from the other end of the house. It was followed by a feminine shriek, another crash, and then a cacophony of angry voices, slamming doors, and pounding footsteps.
    Within seconds, a shaggy gray beast, its teeth bared and gleaming white, tore into the foyer. It reared up and planted two hulking paws on Samuel’s chest, knocking him back a solid foot. Samuel stumbled to the left. The beast slipped, stumbled to the right, and slammed into the side table, sending the hat and gloves toppling to the floor, along with an expensive vase that shattered against the tiles.
    Undeterred, the beast gathered itself and launched a second attack.
    “Off, you sodding beast! Off—” Samuel was forced to snap his mouth shut when a great, wet plank of a tongue lapped at his face.
    Swearing silently, he threw an arm around the animal’s shoulders and managed to wrestle it to the ground just as a young maid came hurrying into the room carrying a lead. “I’m sorry, sir. I’m sorry. He got away from me.”
    Samuel scrubbed his sleeve over his face as the girl struggled to slip the lead around what was, at best guess, an ill-advised cross between an average Irish wolfhound and an exuberant hippopotamus. “Quite all right, Sarah.”
    Sarah dodged a series of desperately happy tongue laps. “Gor, it’s like wrestling a ship of the line.” She dipped her hand in her apron pocket and pulled out a sizable chunk of bread. “Here now, beastie. Look what I have. Look. Wouldn’t you like a taste of this?”
    The beastie would, indeed. He ceased his squirming and gobbled up the treat while Sarah attached the lead. “There we are, nothing to it.”
    Brushing off his trousers, Samuel gained his feet and discovered his stout, silver-haired housekeeper, Mrs. Lanchor, glaring at him from across the foyer. “Sir Samuel, this animal is out of control.”
    He spat out a piece of dog hair as discreetly as possible. “He’s just excitable.”
    “A Pekingese is excitable. This dog is deranged.”
    Samuel glanced down at the wild, gleeful amber eyes and lolling tongue. A thick glob of food-laden slobber gathered at the edge of the dog’s mouth, then made a slow but steady descent toward the floor. Mrs. Lanchor could be right. “He’s young, and this is all new to him yet.”
    “He has been here two weeks.”
    Was that all? He looked at the jagged remains of the vase. The second in four days. “He’ll calm with age. Take him into the garden.”
    “With age?” Mrs. Lanchor planted her hands on her hips. “We cannot have this sort of nonsense going on for years. What if you’d had a guest with you? What if he leaps upon a young lady? What if—?”
    “I’ll continue to work with him. The garden, please, Mrs. Lanchor,” he repeated as he headed for the stairs. “I’m in a hurry.”
    He pretended not to hear Mrs. Lanchor’s final, dire warnings on the perils of keeping dangerous animals in one’s home.
    The dog was undisciplined, not a danger. Well, not the sort of danger she was implying. Besides, this wasn’t his home. It was merely a house Renderwell had insisted he buy six years ago and pay a decorator a small (and in Samuel’s opinion, wasted) fortune to outfit in the manner befitting a fashionable gentleman. It was where he ate, slept, and sometimes worked, but it was not his home.
    Home was his modest country house in Cheshire, decorated in the comfortable style he preferred—lots of dark colors and solid furniture. It had a generous garden and plenty of land on which to roam. That was where he felt most at peace, and where he had been spending more and more of his time lately. Particularly since Renderwell had