The Dream Thief Read Free Page B

Lucy Brammel’s.
    Forty-seven. The loosened trellis the cat
used to climb to the roof; Zane had pulled it free of the chimney last January
to see if it would hold his weight—it wouldn’t—and Lucy still hadn’t noticed.
    Fifty-one.
    He paused, another reflex.
Fifty-one marked his first step onto his property. Too many men relaxed when
they reached their own doors. It was one of the easiest places to make a kill.
    But Zane was not like other men.
He wasn’t like anyone else on this clean, comfortable street, and it was one of
the things he appreciated most about Bloomsbury. Despite being a neighborhood
of actors and artisans, the truth was that everyone here was rigorously,
predictably, church-squeaky good.
    Another advantage to a man who
lived in disguise: it made his sort stand out all the more.
    He slipped around to the back of
his house, evading all the traps he’d set, finding the short rise of stairs
through the clouded darkness and then the keyhole to the kitchen door.
    Joseph was waiting inside. He was
seated at the side table, eating a bowl of something that smelled like very bad
eel.
    “Late,” he grunted, by way of a
greeting.
    Zane removed his cocked hat,
running a hand through his hair. “Whatever it is you are consuming, I do not
want it served at my table tonight. Or any other night.”
    The man’s brows arched; past his
scars and badly mottled skin, he looked pained. “It’s me mum’s recipe.”
    “Then
she is welcome to my portion.” He bolted the kitchen door closed once more, had
worked the top buttons of his coat free and was heading for the hall, for bed,
when he was halted by his front man’s voice.
    “Got a
visitor.”
    “I know.”
    “Not Mim.”
    Zane slanted a look back at him.
Joseph shrugged. “A girl. Put her in the parlor.”
    “A girl,” he repeated slowly.
“Are you certain?”
    “Aye,” answered Joseph, with
exaggerated care. “I’m certain.”
    Zane turned again and silently
left the kitchen.
    His house was dark. He’d grown up
with it this way and kept it as a useful habit. A house ill-lit on the inside
revealed much less of its inhabitants; he nearly always preferred to see and be
unseen. But Joe had apparently felt the girl in question required a great deal
of illumination. When Zane stopped at the arched doorway to the parlor, he saw
that every lamp was burning, plus the pair of candelabras from the dining room.
The contrast was almost like daylight: the reds and blue-greens of the Peshawar
rug searing bright, the carved corners of the paintings rubbed with gilt, the
gleam of the satinwood chairs eye-wateringly sharp.
    The child slumped aside in one of
them, head back, eyes closed, lips apart. There was a half-filled cup of
chocolate tilting precariously on her lap, her fingers still curled around the
handle. Her frock was girlish blue sprigged with daisies, her pumps were dirty,
her hair was mussed. Limp ringlets of darkened gold fell softly against her
cheeks. She looked pale and gaunt and remarkably plain, despite the beauty of
that hair. Everything smelled of hot wax and honey.
    He stood there and felt, to his
distant surprise, none of the anger he had expected but instead a profound
sense of relief.
    To manage it he took the cup from
her fingers and gave the chair a hard kick.
    She came awake at once,
straightening, her hands fluttering across her skirts.
    “Lady Amalia. I wish I could say
I was happy to see you, but I’ve already endured the pleasure of the Marquess
of Langford’s company thrice in the past two days. What the devil are you
about?”
    “Father’s here?” she asked,
looking around them.
    “Not at the present. No doubt it
won’t be long before he returns. I don’t believe he’s fully convinced I haven’t
hidden you away somewhere in the house. Imagine my joy,” he added silkily, “at
walking into my parlor tonight and discovering it to be true.”
    “I’m sorry. I…” She trailed off,
shaking her head, then covered her eyes