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A Preview of SCANDALOUS DESIRES

ENCHANTED BY

FAIRY TALES

One need only read the first page of one of my romance novels to realize that I have a certain affinity for fairy tales. I include a fairy tale with each of my books, as a sort of foil or complement to the main story. They’re an additional seasoning, like cinnamon in apple pie. The pie would be fine without the cinnamon, but with it, the pie becomes more.

I have always loved fairy tales, myths, fables, and legends. Growing up I nearly memorized the family copy of Aesop’s Fables and the TV re-broadcast of Rodger’s and Hammerstein’s Cinderella (starring a very young Lesley Ann Warren) was a highlight of first grade.

I come from a storytelling family. My mother used to tell me stories, mostly from her own childhood, but she also told me the story of Rapunzel. I remember one day when I was about five, sitting on the steps to the basement while my mother did the laundry and told me Rapunzel—again. My mother must’ve been bored with telling the same story over and over again because she tried to alter the fairy tale and I got quite mad at her. Most children hate to have their stories changed, I think, and I was no exception. I made my poor mother tell the story again—this time the “right” way.

Later, I had old copies of both Hans Christian Anderson’s stories—very depressing and not at all romantic—and Lamb’s version of Shakespeare’s plays, many of which have an essentially fairy tale plot (The Winter’s Tale, The Tempest, The Taming of the Shrew.)

And then, when I was about nine, someone gave me a copy of Howard Pyle’s The Wonder Clock. What a marvelous book! Pyle had made up his own fairy tales—including one about a giant raven—and he’d illustrated them with romantic pre-Raphaelite-like woodcuts. I loved that book!

After a childhood reading fairy tales and myths, is it any wonder that when I began to write my own stories I included fairy tales? Fairy tales are storytelling at its most basic. They’ve been with mankind for as long as people have told stories to each other. Fairy tales speak to something intrinsic in humans—they touch our most primitive selves. How else to explain that the Cinderella story is told in nearly every society on earth? To think of fairy tales as merely stories for children is to ignore thousands of years when fairy tales were used to teach morality, to warn, and to entertain both children and adults.

There is no room for character development in fairy tales. In fact, I’d say that in most fairy tales there aren’t any characters at all. The “characters” are really personified attributes. The golden-haired princess is “Good”, the wrinkled crone with a wart on her nose is “Evil”, and that enchanted book helping the princess is “Memory” or perhaps “Reward.” Dialogue, setting, and description are all usually very sketchy in fairy tales. What remains are stories in which the fat has been removed; underneath are bare, beautiful bones in which it’s easy to trace motif, themes, and morality—especially morality!

It’s rather ironic that I got so cross at my mother for changing Rapunzel because now I don’t bother to tell my fairy tales the “right” way. I make them up. Which is not to say that I don’t take parts from other storytellers. That is, after all, what all storytellers do—take bits and pieces from those who came before them and shape the fragments into their own stories. For instance, some of the bits in The Raven Prince, the fairy tale in my debut book of the same name, came from the classic myth of Psyche and Eros. That myth explains how mind and emotion came to be married. The other source for The Raven Prince was of course The Wonder Clock and that story about the giant raven.

When I wrote the fairy tale for The Raven Prince, I wanted the themes in the fairy tale to echo the themes in The Raven Prince’s main story. I liked that the hero had been changed into the shape of a rusty old raven, forcing the heroine to marry a creature she found frightening and downright repulsive—at first anyway. There’s always more beneath the surface. That theme is used over and over again in fairy tales such as Beauty and the Beast: the idea that there may be beauty and even love beneath an ugly exterior. That what is at first scary and foreign can become beloved.

Love is, of course, the center of both my fairy tales and my books. It’s the revelation that changes everything in the life of my heroes and heroines. It’s the ultimate goal and the prize for having made the right choices. Love, in my world anyway, can overcome anything.

One of the wonderful things about romance novels is how they teach us to think outside the box. Very often the heroine makes a conscious decision to change her destiny, to not follow the path laid before her, to wander into the woods and greet the big bad wolf head-on. That’s the kind of stories I tell: the ones where the heroine overcomes her obstacles, decides her own fate, and wins her prince—whether handsome or not—in the end. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy writing them.

CLEVER JOHN

~ a fairy tale ~

BY ELIZABETH HOYT

Now once there was a king who ruled a tiny kingdom by the sea. He had no sons, but he did have three nephews, and the youngest one was called Clever John…

The king had a palace, naturally, and beside the palace was a large and lovely garden. Every morning it was the king’s habit to stroll about his garden and inspect the fruit trees, which were his pride and joy. Imagine then, the king’s shock when one morning he came upon his favorite cherry tree and found the ground underneath littered with cherry pits…

The king roared with royal rage and called his three nephews.

“Whomever of you can find this nighttime thief shall be my heir!” cried the king.

Well the nephews all looked at each other and then they each gathered weapons and settled themselves beneath the cherry tree to wait for night and the thief. But a very strange thing happened. As dusk fell in the king’s garden, all three of the nephews began to nod and soon they all slept. In the morning they woke and none of the three could remember a thing. The nephews had to confess rather sheepishly to the king that they had not caught the thief. But when Clever John ran his hand through his hair, a bright green feather fell to the ground.

The second night the nephews resumed their guard with renewed determination. They placed thorns beneath their clothes to keep themselves awake, refused to sit, and paced about to stimulate their senses. But despite all their efforts, once again they fell asleep. And in the morning once again they had to confess their failure to the king. And this time when Clever John rose he found a yellow feather behind his ear.

Now on the third night when dusk drew near, Clever John thought long and hard about the feathers he’d found on his person and the fact that he and his cousins could not stay awake no matter how they tried. He took a bit of candle wax from the castle and stopped up both his ears. Then he took up his position beneath the cherry tree and waited for nightfall.

As soon as dark fell in the king’s garden, a bird’s song filled the air. Three notes and the other two nephews were nodding their heads, but Clever John had his ears stopped so he could not fall under the spell of the sweet birdsong. As soon as the king’s nephews were asleep, a wonderful bird alit on the cherry tree. Its feathers were every color of the rainbow. The bird began pecking at the king’s cherries. But up jumped Clever John and seized the bird by its delicate neck.

Whereupon the bird turned into a lovely—and quite nude—woman

Well, a bird that turned into a woman startled Clever John very much, but he kept his hand about her neck as he examined her. She was young and lithe, her face lovely and unlined, and her hair waved gently about her head in every color of the rainbow.

He plucked the candle wax from his ears and said, “What manner of being are you?”

The woman laughed merrily. “My name is Tamara. I am daughter to the dawn and sister to the four winds. Let me go and I shall grant you three wishes.”

Now, it’s well known that an offer of three wishes must be carefully considered, lest the wrong thing be wished for. Clever John thought on the matter for some time, while he held Tamara’s soft neck in his broad hand.

Finally, he looked at her and asked, “Must I make my three wishes all at once?”

She grinned, as quick as a sprite. “Not at all. You have merely to call my name and I will come to grant a wish.”

He nodded and slowly unwrapped his hand from about her neck. “I wish for a kingdom ten times the size of my uncle’s.”

“As you wish!” Tamara cried.

At once they were transported to the top of a mountain. Before them were spread rich fields and a huge, sparkling lake.

Clever John’s eyes widened. “All this is mine?”

“Of course, my King Clever John!” Tamara danced a few delighted steps, her bright hair waving in the mountain wind. “What else do you wish?”

But Clever John’s gaze was on the wealth before him. “I shall call you when next I need you.”

Tamara nodded and quick as a wink turned into the rainbow bird and flew away, leaving only one bright red feather to float to the ground in her wake.

Well, being a king was quite lovely, and for many years Clever John was happy with the arrangement. But as the years went on, it became a bit… monotonous. Every morning Clever John ate his breakfast off of plates of gold. He strolled his royal garden—ten times the size of his uncle’s—and then went riding about his kingdom. By afternoon he’d usually exhausted all there was for a king to do and was forced to take a nap.

So it was with more interest than trepidation that he heard the news that his neighbor had invaded his kingdom.

Clever John put on his armor and went to the top of his mountain and called, “Tamara!”

At once the rainbow bird swooped down from the clouds and circled his head before alighting and turning into the girl Tamara.

She clapped happily at the sight of Clever John. “How have you been, my friend?” she asked. “Do you like your kingdom? Have you swum the sparkling lake?”

But Clever John merely frowned to the west where his neighbor was even now marching toward his castle. “I wish for an invincible army.”

Tamara threw up her arms. “As you wish!”

An army appeared at the base of the mountain, mounted men in armor and warriors on foot, carrying shields and swords. Quickly, Clever John ran down the mountain and led his army into battle to defend the kingdom. The shouts of men and the screams of horses were heard for miles around. When the shadows began to grow long, Clever John looked up and saw that his enemy was defeated. Only then did he notice the blue feather stuck in the links of the armor covering his right arm.

Now Clever John’s kingdom was safe from attack. With an invincible army the people grew used to peace and prosperity. And if Clever John found his days a little dull, he amused himself by climbing to the top of his mountain and surveying all he owned and controlled. But an army has many mouths to feed, and one day Clever John found his kingdom’s coffers bare.

It was with a light step that he went to his garden and called, “Tamara!”

The rainbow bird swooped low from the sky and flew in happy cartwheels around Clever John’s head before alighting and turning into Tamara.

She threw back her rainbow head and laughed merrily. “Clever John, you have gray in your hair and your strong back has begun to bend! Has it been so many years, my friend?”

But Clever John was looking toward his castle with worry. “I wish for a chest of gold and jewels that is always full.”

Tamara smiled a little sadly and raised her arms to the sky. “As you wish!”

A great chest appeared before Clever John, as long as a horse and nearly as tall. When he lifted the lid he found gold coins, long strands of pearls as big as his thumb, and sparkling gems of every description. For a moment he merely stared in wonder. Then, belatedly, he remembered Tamara. He raised his head to thank her, but the girl was gone. Clever John stood alone in his garden with all the riches in the world. Only a single orange feather floated gracefully on the wind.

Well now Clever John had everything he’d ever wished for: a large and prosperous kingdom, an invincible army to defend his lands, and a treasure chest that never could be emptied. He was awash in wealth and good fortune. Kings and princes sent their daughters, seeking a match with the powerful King Clever John. But no matter how lovely the princess, Clever John merely turned his head aside, his gaze searching the skies for the glimpse of a rainbow wing.

The years went by and Clever John grew old. His once black hair turned snowy white, his broad shoulders stooped, and his strong hand shook. And in all those years he never again saw Tamara. Finally the day came when he knew his time on earth was drawing to a close. He sat on his grand golden throne in his wonderful castle, with his treasure chest beside him overflowing with jewels and he had eyes for none of that. Instead he examined five brightly colored feathers upon his lap.

Clever John called for his cook and made a special order, and then he waited for the cherry pie to be brought to him in his throne room. His voice had grown weak with age, so he was only able to croak her name. “Tamara.”

At once a beautiful rainbow bird flew through the window and alighted at his feet, turning into Tamara. She was as young and as lovely as she had been all those years ago when he’d first seen her, but she didn’t smile.

Instead her eyes were grave when she asked, “Why have you called me?”

Clever John watched Tamara stick her finger in the pie. “I thought of all the possible mistakes I could make in phrasing my wishes, and still I made the most fundamental one of all: I asked for the wrong thing.”

Tamara ate a cherry thoughtfully and nodded. “Yes, but I cannot help you—you’ve used up all your wishes.”

Clever John closed his eyes wearily. “Then might I ask for one of your feathers, sweet Tamara? A purple one? I shall go to the next world with a rainbow of feathers in my hand.”

There was a patter of bare feet and when Clever John opened his eyes again Tamara knelt by his side. “Why do you want my purple feather?” she asked softly. “What possible use could a man who has everything he’s ever wished for have for a simple feather?”

He reached out a hand that shook with palsy and touched her smooth cheek. “The rainbow feathers remind me of you and everything I should’ve asked for.”

“And what is that?”

“You,” he said. “I should’ve wished for you and only you, sweet Tamara, for I have loved you all these years and without you my wonderful riches are but bones and dust to me.”

“Is this true?” she whispered.

“Oh, yes, it is true,” Clever John replied sadly. “I am a foolish old man who has lost everything he might’ve had in this life.”

But as his last words died away there was a great rushing as a powerful wind blew. Everything—the kingdom, the invincible army, and the treasure chest—disappeared, and Clever John found himself once again in his uncle’s garden. His limbs were young and strong, his hair black once again, and Tamara stood before him, her rainbow hair shining in the dawning sun.

Impoverished, lonely, and kind, Silence Hollingbrook once desperately needed help… and trusted the wrong man.

The notorious pirate Mickey O’Connor sees people as mere pawns to be manipulated, until a secret from his past drives him toward Silence—the woman he betrayed.

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SCANDALOUS DESIRES

Available in Mass Market and E-book in November 2011

Chapter One

Now once there was a king who ruled a tiny kingdom by the sea. He had no sons, but he did have three nephews, and the youngest one was called Clever John….

—from Clever John

LONDON, ENGLAND

APRIL 1738

Wolves, as Silence Hollingbrook well knew, are savage beasts, little given to pity or honor. If one must face a wolf cleverly disguised in human form, it did no good to show fear. Rather, one must throw one’s shoulders back, lift one’s chin, and stare the damned beast down.

At least that was what Silence told herself as she eyed “Charming” Mickey O’Connor, the most notorious river pirate in London. As she watched, Mr. O’Connor did something far more alarming than any real wolf.

He smiled at her.

Silence swallowed.

Mickey O’Connor lounged like the pirate king he was on a gilded throne of red velvet at one end of a lavishly corrupt room. The walls were lined with sheets of gold, the floor was a fabulous mosaic of different colored marbles, and around her, piled high, were the spoils of thieving: trunks overflowing with furs and silks, crates of tea and spices, and treasures from every corner of the globe, all of it stolen from the merchant ships that came into London’s docks. Silence stood in the midst of this illicit opulence like a petitioner.

Once again.

Mr. O’Connor plucked a sweetmeat from a tray offered by a small boy, holding it between long, beringed fingers as he examined her. One corner of his wide, sensuous mouth curled in amusement. “ ’Tis always a pleasure to gaze upon yer sparklin’ hazel eyes, Mrs. Hollingbrook, but I do wonder why ye’ve come to see me this lovely afternoon.”

His mocking words strengthened Silence’s spine. “You know very well why I’m here, Mr. O’Connor.”

The pirate lifted elegantly winged black eyebrows. “Do I, now?”

Beside her, Harry, one of Mickey O’Connor’s guards and her escort into the throne room, shifted his weight nervously. Harry was a big man with a battered face—a man who’d obviously lived a rather rough life—yet he was just as obviously wary of Mickey O’Connor.

“Easy now,” he muttered to her beneath his breath. “Don’t want to get ’is temper up.”

Mr. O’Connor popped the sweetmeat into his mouth and chewed, his black eyes closing for a moment in pleasure. He was a beautiful man. Silence could see that even if she found him quite repugnant herself. His eyelashes were thick and black, surrounding dark, liquid eyes, his complexion a smooth olive, and when he smiled… well! The dimples that were revealed on his cheeks made him look both as wicked as the devil and as innocent as a small boy. Had a Renaissance master wanted to paint all the seductive allure of Satan, he would’ve painted Charming Mickey O’Connor.

Silence inhaled. Mr. O’Connor might well be as evil as Satan himself, but she’d braved him once before and survived—even if she hadn’t walked away entirely unscathed. “I’ve come for Mary Darling.”

The pirate’s eyes opened lazily as he swallowed his sweetmeat. “Who?”

Oh, this was too much! Silence felt her face heat as she shook off Harry’s restraining arm and marched right up to the foot of the small dais on which the ridiculous throne stood. “You know very well who! Mary Darling, that sweet little baby girl I’ve taken care of for over a year. Mary Darling, who knows only me as her mother. Mary Darling, who you took from the foundling home where we both live. Give her back to me at once!”

So great was her ire that Silence found herself out of breath at the end of her little tirade and pointing her finger nearly in Mr. O’Connor’s face. For a moment she froze, her finger only inches from his nose. Everyone in the room seemed to hold their breath. Mickey O’Connor had lost his smile, and without that expression to lighten his face, he looked quite, quite frightening.

Silence let her hand fall.

Slowly, the pirate straightened from his chair, his long limbs uncurling gracefully like a predator. He stood, his polished black jackboots thunking to the floor, and stepped down from the dais.

Silence could’ve backed up, but that would’ve shown fear. And besides, she thought she might’ve become rooted to the spot. The scent of lemons and frankincense drifted in the air. She lifted her chin in defiance as Mickey O’Connor’s smooth, tanned, bare chest nearly touched her nose—the man was so vain he left his extravagantly ruffled shirt unlaced—and looked him in the eye.

Mr. O’Connor bent, his mouth lightly touching her ear, and murmured, “Well, and why didn’t ye say so in the first place, darlin’?”

And while Silence gaped up at him, he straightened, his gaze still locked with hers, and snapped his fingers.

A door opened and Silence finally found the willpower to tear her gaze from those black, impenetrable eyes. And then she forgot all about Mickey O’Connor. A servant girl had entered, and in her arms was the sweetest, most wonderful being in the whole world.

“Mamoo!” Mary Darling shrieked. She began a frantic bouncing in the servant girl’s arms. “Mamoo! Mamoo! Mamoo! Up!”

Silence rushed to catch the toddler before she could completely squirm from the girl’s arms. “I have you. I have you, my love,” she murmured as Mary Darling wrapped soft, pudgy arms about her neck and squeezed.

Silence breathed in the scent of milk and baby, tears pricking her eyes. When she’d found the toddler gone—when she’d feared that she’d never see Mary Darling again—her heart had seemed to shrivel into a tiny, frozen thing.

“Mamoo,” Mary Darling sighed, and unwrapped her arms to pat Silence’s cheeks.

Silence ran her hands over Mary Darling’s black curls, touching and squeezing and rubbing, making sure the little girl was as well as when she’d last seen her, half a day before. The previous six hours had been the most frightening of her life and she never wanted to repeat—

“Ahem,” a masculine voice murmured nearby, and Silence suddenly remembered where she was.

She clutched Mary Darling to her breast and whirled to face the river pirate. “Thank you. It’s most… most kind of you to have given her back to me. I really can’t thank you enough.” Silence took a step backward, afraid to take her eyes from Charming Mickey’s face. “I… I’ll just be leaving—”

Mr. O’Connor smiled. “Oh, certainly, sweetheart, do as ye wish, but the little one will be a-stayin’ with me, I think.”

Silence froze. “You have no right!”

The pirate lifted one inky eyebrow and reached out to finger Mary Darling’s black curls. His tanned hand was large against her little head. “Oh, don’t I? She is me daughter.”

“Bad!” Mary Darling glared at Mickey O’Connor, dark eyes meeting dark eyes, black curls framing a face that might’ve been a feminine miniature of Mr. O’Connor’s own.

The resemblance was quite devastating.

Silence swallowed. Mary Darling had been abandoned on her doorstep almost a year ago to the day. At the time she’d thought that the baby had been left with her because Silence’s brother, Winter, ran the Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children. Now she wondered if there had been a much more diabolical reason. Fear that she was about to lose Mary Darling forever made her clutch the baby closer.

“You abandoned her upon my doorstep,” she tried.

He cocked his head, eyeing her with ironic amusement. “I left her with ye for her safekeepin’.”

“Why?” she whispered. “Why me?”

“Because.” He let his hand drop. “Ye were—are—the purest thing I’ve ever seen, me sweet.”

Her eyebrows drew together, confused. He didn’t make any sense, and besides, they’d wandered from the main point. “You don’t love her.”

“No. But I’m a-thinkin’ that don’t matter when ye do, Mrs. Hollingbrook.”

Silence felt the breath catch in her throat. “Let me leave with her.”

“No.”

Mary Darling squirmed again with one of those mercurial shifts of moods that toddlers are prone to. “Down!”

Silence let her slip from her arms, watching as the little girl carefully stood against one of the huge trunks of booty. She looked so small. So precious. “Why are you doing this? Haven’t you done enough to me in this lifetime?”

“Oh, not nearly enough, m’darlin’,” Mickey O’Connor murmured. Silence felt more than saw him reach out his hand toward her. Maybe he meant to fondle her hair as he had Mary Darling’s.

She jerked her head out of his way.

His hand dropped.

“What are you about?” She folded her arms and faced him, though she kept Mary Darling within sight.

He shrugged, the movement making his shirt slip further off one muscled shoulder. “A man in me position has many an enemy, I fear. Nasty, mean creatures who don’t let the thought of innocence or youth stop them from doin’ terrible, murderous things.”

“Why take her from me now?” Silence asked. “Are these enemies new?”

His mouth curved into another smile, this one entirely without humor. “Not at all. But me enemies have become more… er… persistent in the last month, ye understand. ’Tis merely a matter o’ business—one that I hope to soon tidy up. But in the meantime, should me enemies find the wee child…”

Silence shivered, watching as Mary Darling grabbed for a dark fur and pulled it half out of the trunk. “Damn you. How could you have put her in this danger?”

“I didn’t,” he said without any signs of conscience. “I gave her to ye, remember.”

“And she was safe with me,” she said desperately. “What has changed?”

“They’ve discovered where she and ye live.”

She shifted her gaze to him and was disconcerted to find him only a foot away. The room was big, and besides Harry and the sweetmeats boy, a gang of pirates sat around Mr. O’Connor’s throne. Was he worried they’d be overheard?

“Let me keep her,” Silence whispered. “She doesn’t know you, doesn’t love you. If there’s truly a danger, then send men to guard her where we live, but let her stay at the home. If you have any decency in you at all, you’ll let her go with me.”

“Ah, love.” Mickey O’Connor tilted his head, long coal-black locks of hair slithering over his broad shoulders. “Don’t ye know by now that decent is the last thing anyone would be a-callin’ me? No, the lass stays with me and me men, here where I can keep me eye on her night and day until I can put an end to this bit o’ bother.”

“But she thinks me her mother,” Silence hissed. “How can you separate us when—”

“And who said anythin’ about separatin’?” Mr. O’Connor asked with feigned surprise. “Why, darlin’ I said the babe had to stay with me, I never said ye couldn’t as well.”

Silence inhaled and then found she had trouble letting the breath out again. “You want me to come live with you?”

Mr. O’Connor grinned as if she were a pet dog that had finally learned a trick. “Aye, that’s the way o’ it, sweetin’.”

“I can’t live with you,” Silence hissed furiously. “Everyone would think…”

“What, now?” Mickey O’Connor arched an eyebrow, his black eyes glittering.

She swallowed. “That I was your whore.”

He tutted softly. “Oh, and we can’t be havin’ that, now can we, what with yer reputation bein’ all snowy white and all?”

Her hand was half-raised, the fingers balled into a fist before she even realized it. She wanted to hit him so badly, wanted to wipe that smirk from his face with all her soul.

Except he was no longer smiling. He watched her, his face expressionless, his eyes intent, like a wolf waiting for the hare to break from cover.

Trembling, she let her hand fall.

He shrugged, looking mildly disappointed. “Ah, well, it’d be a great inconvenience to have ye livin’ under me roof anyway. I ’spect ye’ve made the right decision.”

He turned away from her, sauntering smoothly toward his throne. She’d been dismissed, it seemed. He no longer found her interesting enough to play with.

In that moment, with rage and grief, and yes, love, swirling all inside, Silence made her decision.

“Mr. O’Connor!”

He stopped, still turned rudely away from her, his voice a rumbling purr. “Aye?”

“I’ll stay.”

AH, BUT VICTORY felt so fuckin’ lovely. Mick smiled, his back still toward the little widow. She was so outraged, her dusty black feathers all ruffled, she probably didn’t even feel the net tangled about her prim little feet. And yet, how easy it’d been to make her walk into his palace of her own volition, simply by kidnapping the babe.

He turned, eyebrows arched as if surprised. “Ye’ll be stayin’ with me, is that what yer sayin’, Mrs. Hollingbrook?”

Her pointed chin was raised as if to challenge him in his own palace, poor foolish wench. She was an odd creature, Silence Hollingbrook, pretty, of course—or he’d not have looked twice at her in the first place—but not his usual type, oh no. She didn’t flaunt her charms, didn’t try to lure a man with titties overflowing from a low bodice or a wicked wink. She didn’t try to lure at all, come to think of it. She held her womanliness locked up tight like a miser, which, on the whole, was a bit irritating.

Irritating and alluring at the same time—made a man want to find the key to her locks, truth be told.

Mud was splashed on the hem of her plain black frock; her shawl and cap were tattered, and yet her eyes stared at him all defiant like. Ah, but what eyes they were—large and wide, and a glorious hazel—made of golden brown and grass green and even a bit of gray blue. Hers was a face that might haunt a man’s dreams, make him wake in the night sweating and lonely, the flesh between his legs heavy with longing. Why, it made him think of those ghost tales his mam used to tell him when he was but a wee lad, crying for lack of a dinner and the burning from the welts upon his back. Wailing women, dripping water in the night, searching for their lost loves.

Mind, the tales might’ve been lovely, but his belly had still ached with hunger, his back had still stung with pain when he’d woken in the morning.

“Yes,” Mrs. Hollingbrook said, her nose tilted proudly in the air, “I’ll come and live in this… this place. Just to take care of Mary Darling, nothing else.”

Oh, it was hard not to grin at those words, but he was strong, keeping his expression as solemn as a judge’s. “And what ‘else’ might ye be thinkin’ about?”

The color flew high into her pale cheeks, making her eyes sparkle. Making his cock twitch. “Nothing!”

“Yer sure now, Mrs. Hollingbrook?” He took a step closer, testing, watching for her to flee, for despite his enjoyment of this sparring, ’twas a serious matter that she stay beneath his roof. Her very life might depend upon it.

But she stood her ground, his little widow. “I’m quite certain, Mr. O’Connor—”

“Oh, do call me Mickey, please,” he murmured.

“Mister O’Connor.” Her eyes narrowed on him. “Despite what the rest of St. Giles thinks, you and I both know that my honor is quite intact, and I’ll thank you to remember that fact.”

She was a brave one, was Silence Hollingbrook. Her small chin outthrust, her hazel eyes steady, her pale lips trembling. Any other man might’ve felt a twinge of guilt, a trickle of remorse for the sweet innocence he’d taken and smashed to the ground like a fine china dish.

Any other man but he.

For Mick O’Connor had lost any vestige of guilt, remorse, or soul on a winter’s night sixteen years before.

So now he smiled, without any conscience at all, as he lied to the woman he’d hurt so cruelly. “Oh, I’ll be sure and remember, Mrs. Hollingbrook.”

She heard the mockery in his voice—her lips thinned—but she soldiered on. “You said that you’ll soon have your business tidied up.”

He tilted his head in interest, wondering what loophole she thought she’d found. “Aye?”

“And when you’re done with your… your enemies, then Mary Darling will no longer be in danger.”

He merely watched her now, waiting patiently.

She inhaled as if to fortify herself. “When that happens—when your enemies are defeated and Mary isn’t threatened anymore—I want to leave here.”

“O’ course,” he said at once.

“With Mary.”

Oh, now, but the lass wasn’t daft, was she? “She’s me own flesh and blood,” he said softly. “The only soul in London related to me—or at least the only one I’ll acknowledge. Will ye be partin’ a fond papa from his wee little one?”

“You’ve said you don’t love her.” Mrs. Hollingbrook ignored his pretty words. “I can provide a loving home for her, a wholesome, decent life.”

Well, and he’d already admitted to a lack of decency, now hadn’t he? The corner of his mouth curved, a bit too sharply. He glanced at the babe, playing with the furs from a chest. Her down-bent head was topped with hair the exact shade as his own—and his mam’s, come to think of it—and yet the sight didn’t cause anything to stir within his chest.

He looked back at Mrs. Hollingbrook. “When I say the danger’s past, when I say ye can go, then aye, ye may take the babe with ye.”

She sighed a bit. He had the feeling she didn’t like it, not at all—he’d not put a date on the day she could go—but she’d already made the bargain, hadn’t she?

“Very well. I shall have to return to the home to retrieve my things and Mary’s. We’ll come back here as soon as—”

“Ah, ah.” He shook his head with amusement. Did she think he’d toddled into St. Giles yesterday? “The lass stays here with me. Ye can take two o’ me men with ye to bring back whatever ye’d like.”

She must’ve known she was pushing the matter. She merely pursed her pretty lips, nodded, and bent to kiss the oblivious baby on the top of the head. “I’ll be right back, sweetheart.”

Then she turned to stalk to the door.

Mick admired the outraged sway of her hips for a second before jerking his head at Harry to follow the little widow. Harry touched his forehead and hurried after her. He’d get his cohort, Bert, and between the two of them guard Mrs. Hollingbrook to and from the home.

There was a squeak somewhere around the level of his knees. Mick glanced down and saw the babe’s face turn a bright shade of beet red as she watched Mrs. Hollingbrook leave the throne room. It was his only warning.

And then all hell broke loose.

“YOU DON’T HAVE to escort me all the way back to the home,” Silence muttered irritably some moments later.

“ ’Imself says we do, and so we do,” Harry said somewhat obscurely.

He took one step for every two of hers and might’ve been out for a late afternoon stroll. The buttons of his frayed brown coat strained over his barrel chest and he wore a bright red scarf wound around his neck, the ends flung debonairly over his shoulders. The scarf was at odds with his battered face and massive broken nose—Harry looked like a pugilist who had lost one too many rounds. The early spring wind was chill with a nasty edge of damp, but Harry didn’t seem to notice as he stumped along, his old cocked hat at a jaunty angle.

The same couldn’t be said for his companion.

“And ’oos mindin’ the palace, is what I’d like to know,” grumped Bert. He was half a head shorter than Harry and was hunched inside the collar of his bottle-green coat like a turtle. A huge gray scarf wrapped around and over both his face and the seedy wig he wore, making his head look disproportionately swollen. “Sendin’ us off in the middle o’ the day with a wench!”

“There’s a dozen o’ the crew at the palace,” Harry pointed out. “And Bob.”

“Bob! Jaysus, Bob,” Bert said in disgust. “Couldn’t guard a kitten, could Bob.”

“When ’e’s not three sheets to the wind ’e can,” Harry said judiciously.

“ ’E’s always fuckin’ drunk!”

“Watch yer tongue,” Harry said, and then as an aside to Silence, “ ’E’s missin’ ’is afternoon tea is Bert, and it makes ’im tetchy like. Normally the most placid o’ men is our Bert.”

Silence, watched as “our Bert” spat through his missing two front teeth, almost hitting a passing mongrel. She was rather doubtful that the man was ever in a good mood, tea or no tea, but she wisely decided not to share this thought. For whatever reason Harry seemed to have taken a liking to her, and she was loath to spoil their accord.

If she was to live with Charming Mickey O’Connor she would need a friendly face.

Dear God. Only now as she walked the grimy streets of St. Giles, did the full impact of her decision hit her. She’d pledged to live in the same house as the most notorious man in St. Giles—a man she’d spent over a year hating and fearing. Whatever shreds of respectability she’d been able to pull together over her battered reputation in the last year would be truly torn asunder now. But what choice did she have? One look at Mary Darling’s face and she would’ve walked through fire.

Silence shivered and pulled her cloak more firmly about her person. Mickey O’Connor had never actually hurt her—not physically anyway—and she had Harry as an ally. She would draw on her own strength, keep to herself, and avoid the company of Charming Mickey and his men as much as possible until his enemies were defeated and she could go home.

Pray that was soon.

She turned into a small lane and the modest door to the Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children came into sight. It was the temporary Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children, sadly, ever since a fire had burned down the original home a year ago. A new building was being built for the home, but a series of setbacks had delayed their move to the new place.

The door was flung open before Silence could touch it.

“Have you found her?” Nell Jones, the home’s trusted maidservant, looked eager, but her bright blue eyes dimmed when she saw Silence’s empty arms. Nell’s pretty face was flushed, one blond lock fluttering around her ear—her disorder a measure of how worried she was about Mary Darling.

“I did find Mary Darling,” Silence said hastily. “But… well, it’s a long story.”

“And who are these two?” Nell asked suspiciously, eyeing Harry and Bert.

“Gentlemen what ’as seen yer mistress safely ’ome,” Harry said. He removed the battered tricorne from his head, revealing a thinning patch of straggly brown hair, and bowed rather elegantly, considering his size.

“Huh,” Nell sniffed, though her tone was less strident. “Best come inside, then.”

The entryway to the home was narrow and cramped and the two men seemed to take up not only what little room there was, but the air as well.

Nell stared at them disapprovingly for a moment and then turned to a small boy loitering curiously behind her. “Joseph Tinbox, take these, er, gentlemen back to the kitchen and ask Mary Whitsun to make them a pot of tea.”

“Why, that’s quite kind o’ ye, ma’am.” Harry beamed.

Silence was surprised to see Nell fight to keep her face stern.

“Mind nothing goes missing in there,” the maid said gruffly. “I know everything in that kitchen down to the vinegar shakers.”

Harry placed his hand over his heart. “I’ll keep me eye on Bert, ’ere. See that ’e don’t pocket a spoon or nothin’.”

With an indignant snort from Bert, Joseph Tinbox led them off.

“Hurry,” Silence said as she made for the stairs. “I had to leave Mary Darling behind and I want to get back quickly.”

“Back where?” Nell cried as she followed Silence up the stairs, panting.

“To Mickey O’Connor’s house.”

“Dear Lord in Heaven,” Nell muttered. “Is that where you rushed off to after reading the note? To see that devil?”

Silence had returned from the shopping that morning to find that Mary had somehow disappeared from the home. Everyone in the house—all eight and twenty children, three maids, and the lone manservant—had immediately begun searching for her. But it wasn’t until a mysterious note had been delivered hours later that Silence had even thought of Mickey O’Connor.

“The note was from Mr. O’Connor saying he might have something I’d want,” Silence said breathlessly as they made the top floor of the house. The room she shared with Mary Darling was up here under the eaves. “He’s Mary’s father.”

“What?” Nell had finally caught up with her and she laid a hand on Silence’s arm. “How long have you known this?”

Silence bit her lip. “I’ve suspected it for some time. You remember Mary’s mysterious admirer? The one who used to leave presents for her on the step?”

“Yes.” Nell sank onto the narrow bed in Silence’s room, her pretty face creased with worry.

“A couple of months ago, just before Christmas, he left me a lock of black hair.” Silence pulled a small trunk from under the bed. She straightened and looked at Nell. “The lock matched Mary Darling’s hair.”

“And you think Mickey O’Connor left it for you?”

“I don’t know.” Silence shrugged. “But I think it must’ve been him. I thought I saw him watching me and Mary Darling once or twice last fall.”

“If he’s her father, why did Mickey O’Connor leave her with you?”

“He says he was trying to protect her from his enemies.” Silence began to throw clothes into the chest. “Perhaps he thought her safely hidden with me. Perhaps he was merely playing a game to amuse himself.”

Nell shook her head as if dazed. “But what of the baby’s mother? Surely she had some say in the matter?”

Silence froze, her hand outstretched for one of Mary’s frocks hanging on a hook. She turned her head and stared at Nell. “Her mother—my goodness, he never even mentioned the woman.”

“Perhaps she’s dead.” Nell frowned. “Do you think Mickey O’Connor was married? I never heard of such, but he’s a secretive scoundrel.”

“I don’t know.” Silence took the frock with shaking fingers and placed it carefully in the trunk before closing the lid. “I only know that I must go live with him now.”

“What?” Nell jumped to her feet in alarm.

Silence locked the trunk. “He says that Mary is in danger from his enemies and he won’t let her leave his house. If I’m to be with her, I must live with him.”

Nell lifted one end of the trunk even as she moaned. “But after what he did to you—”

“I haven’t any choice, don’t you see?” Silence walked to the door, the heavy little trunk between them.

“But the home—”

“Oh, goodness!” Silence stopped and stared at Nell.

She’d been so busy worrying over Mary Darling, she’d not thought of what her actions would do to the home. In the last year the Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children had gained the patronage of several aristocratic ladies—ladies who cared terribly about appearances and reputations. The home depended on their donations. If they found out that Silence was staying with a man—a pirate—without benefit of marriage…

Silence’s eyes widened. “You mustn’t let anyone know where I am. We can say that I’ve gone to attend an ill aunt in the country.”

“And Mr. Makepeace?” Nell muttered as they began to descend the staircase. “What shall I say to him?”

Silence stumbled, nearly dropping her end of the trunk. She’d forgotten she’d have to deal with Winter’s disapproval as well. Her brother had made a journey to Oxford on business and thus had been away from the home when Mary Darling’s absence had been discovered. This morning Silence had wished desperately for her brother’s support in searching for the little girl. Now she was thankful he was away. Winter was a mild man, a schoolmaster by trade, as well as manager of the home, but she had no doubt at all that he would’ve locked her in her room before letting her go to Mickey O’Connor.

Just the thought made her hurry her step. “I’m truly sorry, Nell, to leave you with the chore of telling Winter but I can’t stay. I need to go to Mary Darling.”

“Of course you do,” Nell said stoutly.

Silence shot her a quick smile. “None of this is your fault and Mr. Makepeace will understand that.”

“I surely hope so, ma’am.”

By the time they’d descended the rest of the stairs Silence was perspiring from exertion and anxiety. Winter wasn’t expected back for days, yet she couldn’t help jumping when the door to the kitchen opened.

“Take that, shall I?” Harry asked as he strolled out, a bun in one hand. He grasped one of the trunk’s handles and easily swung it to his broad back.

Nell straightened, hands on hips and glared. “Watch you don’t drop the mistress’s things.”

“O’ course not,” Harry said easily, earning himself a disgusted grunt from Bert.

Nell looked at Silence and her face seemed to crumple. “Oh, ma’am!” She threw her apron over her face and let out a loud, hiccupping sob.

“It’s all right, Nell, really ’tis,” Silence said helplessly.

She didn’t know whether or not she believed the words herself, but what else was she to say? Tears were pricking her eyes now as well. She’d lived at the home for just over a year, learned of her husband William’s death last fall here, discovered she was more than a wife here—that she could stand on her own two feet and be of use to others. Now she was leaving suddenly and without warning. She felt as if the very ground beneath her feet was unstable. She had no home now—hadn’t since William’s death, really—all she had was Mary Darling.

“I’ll be back,” she whispered, not even sure she spoke the truth.

Nell pulled down her apron, her face reddened and damp, her blond hair trailing from its pins. She marched up to Harry and stuck a finger in his chest. “Just you watch out for her, you hear me, you great lout? A hair on her head gets harmed and it’s you I’ll be coming after.”

The threat was ludicrous, Harry towered over Nell. Silence blinked, Bert scowled, but Harry himself was quite solemn. He took Nell’s hand gently in his big paw and spread her fingers until he could rest them on his great chest, just over where his heart might be.

“Never you fear, ma’am,” was all he said. “Never you fear.”

And then Silence was out the door, the wind whipping her skirts flat against her legs as she headed into a new life.

CHARLIE GRADY, BETTER known as the Vicar of Whitechapel, poured himself a tankard of beer. Some might find it strange—his taste for beer—seeing as how he controlled the distilling of damn near every drop of gin in Whitechapel and indeed the whole East End of London, but there it was. Charlie liked beer, so beer he drank.

And if anyone did find his taste in drink strange, well… no one was foolish enough to tell him so to his face.

“What have you found?” he asked, watching as the foam in the pewter tankard slowly subsided. He didn’t need to look up to know that Freddy, standing before Charlie’s table, was studying his own big feet.

“ ’E moved the babe into ’is palace today.” Freddy was a big bruiser, smarter than he looked, but not much for expansive talk.

Charlie grinned, only half of his face moving. “Always a smart one was Charming Mickey. He must have a real fear for what I’d do to the babe to take her out of his hiding place and move her to the palace.”

Freddy shuffled uneasily. “There’s more.”

“Aye?”

“A wench came to see ’im.”

Charlie laughed, the sound a strange sputter. “That there isn’t news.”

His gaze flicked up in time to see Freddy look hastily away.

Freddy flushed, the red mottling his pitted face. “This one is different.”

“How do you figure?”

“She’s the one ’oo lived in the orphan’s ’ome—the respectable one. The one takin’ care o’ the babe.”

Charlie cocked his head, feeling the pull of old scars on the left side of his face and neck. “Ah, but that is news. Charming Mickey don’t like the respectable ones much, now does he?”

Freddy knew better than to answer, so Charlie took a sip of his beer, the tart taste of hops washing down his throat.

He set his tankard back on the table and picked up the dice with his left hand—the one with the thumb and fore-finger turned to claws. He’d had the dice for long years now and they were worn smooth, the paint gone from the carved pips, the edges rounded. They were old friends in his palm and when he threw them gently, they rolled with barely a sound on the bare plank table.

Deuce and trey. A five. Ah, now, five could be good or very good, depending. Depending.

Last fall he’d had plans to move into St. Giles. Take over the gin distilling there and become king of gin in all of London. Those plans had stumbled because of an aristocrat not afraid of blowing up his own still—and taking half of Charlie’s men with it. But Charlie’d had time to regroup since then.

And besides, he had another focus now.

“My Gracie’s dead and buried. What she wanted, what she kept me from doin’… now that’s dead, as well.” Charlie stared with fascination at the greasy bits of bone. They seemed to wink up at him slyly. “All bets are off and Charming Mickey O’Connor would do well to look after his females.”

He looked up in time to catch Freddy’s horrified gaze directly.

“Best have our spy find out how much the lady means to Mickey, hadn’t ye?”

Chapter Two

The king had a palace, naturally, and beside the palace was a large and lovely garden. Every morning it was the king’s habit to stroll about his garden and inspect the fruit trees, which were his pride and joy. Imagine then, the king’s shock when one morning he came upon his favorite cherry tree and found the ground underneath littered with cherry pits….

—from Clever John

It was dusk by the time Silence, Harry, and Bert made it back to Mickey O’Connor’s gaudily opulent “palace.” The moment they stepped inside Silence heard the screams.

She knew that angry shriek.

Silence took the stairs two at a time, not even slowing at Harry’s worried, “Oi!” from behind her. The screams were growing louder the nearer she got to Mr. O’Connor’s throne room. She pushed open the great double doors and swept right past Bob, the skinny guard, and marched to where Mickey O’Connor stood in the middle of the room with a bawling Mary Darling in his hands.

No wonder the little girl was crying! The pirate held his screaming daughter out at arm’s length as if she were a stinking chamber pot.

“What have you done?” Silence demanded and snatched the baby from his hands.

Mary Darling had stopped shrieking at the sight of Silence, but she still cried, her little face red and swollen, her shoulders shuddering with uncontrollable sobs. Silence recognized this state of affairs: Mary had been wailing for quite some time.

She kissed the baby’s damp cheek, murmuring soothing nonsense and then turned an accusing eye on Mickey O’Connor.

He threw up his hands. “Don’t be lookin’ at me like that. I didn’t touch the brat and no one could get her to stop wailin’!”

Silence covered Mary’s ears. “How dare you?”

Mickey O’Connor scowled, for once looking less than charming. “She started bawlin’ the moment ye left. Like a great, barmy banshee, she was. Near to deafened me, I tell ye.”

“Well, perhaps she doesn’t like it here.” Silence tucked Mary’s still shaking head under her chin and cuddled the baby. “Perhaps she doesn’t like you.”

Mr. O’Connor snorted. “I don’t like her, and that’s a fact, no perhaps about it.”

Silence gasped. “But she’s your daughter!”

“And what does that have to do with the matter?” Mickey asked with a sardonic twist to his lips. “Her dam was a whore I kept for less than a sennight. The first I was hearin’ o’ the babe was when the wench died and left a note that I was the father. An old bawd came and dumped the babe on me, but not afore demandin’ a guinea for the pleasure. For ought I know her mam lied and the babe is none o’ me flesh at all.”

Silence stroked a hand over Mary’s soft curls, truly shocked. Had he no feelings at all? “Is that what you truly think?”

“Matters not at all, does it?” He turned away, one wide shoulder shrugging elegantly. “Daughter or not, flesh or not, like her or not, she’s me own now, so don’t be a-gettin’ any ideas to the contrary. Now follow me like a good lass and I’ll be showin’ ye to yer room.”

He strode away as if he did indeed expect her to follow like “a good lass.” Had Silence any choice she would’ve remained where she was. But since Mary was already half-asleep on her shoulder, she tramped after the awful man with Harry and Bert bringing up the rear.

He led her out through the double doors—Bob ran to open them as Mickey O’Connor approached so he didn’t have to stop. Mr. O’Connor didn’t acknowledge the courtesy, merely striding past like a king, but Silence nodded her thanks to the skinny guard as she hurried after.

Mickey O’Connor stalked down a short hallway and then through another door that led to the back of the house. A big man stood guard here as well. The gold walls and marble floor stopped at the door, but that didn’t mean this area of the house was any less richly appointed. The carved wood panels of the walls shone richly with beeswax and the floor beneath their feet was thickly carpeted. Mr. O’Connor mounted a set of stairs, Silence panting behind, trying to tamp down the frisson of dread remembrance. Mickey O’Connor had taken her this way once before, and she hadn’t emerged again entirely whole.

The sound of the pirate’s heels as he led her and the smell of fresh beeswax on the panels suddenly made the memory of that night rise up, overwhelming her like water closing over her head.

William, her dear husband, had been accused of stealing the cargo from his ship—the cargo that Mickey O’Connor had taken.

So Silence had come to St. Giles, wrapping herself in foolish bravery, love for William, and a fatal naïveté. She’d pleaded with Mickey O’Connor for William. She’d thrown herself on the mercy of a wolf, forgetting that wolves didn’t understand even the idea of mercy.

Mr. O’Connor had told her that he would replace the cargo—but that in return she’d have to spend the night with him. He’d stood up from his throne and led her from the throne room and through these very hallways.

By that time she’d been very nearly in a panic. She was a good woman—a virtuous woman—and she had no choice but to think that he would debauch her. Instead, he’d brought her to his magnificent bedroom, seated her by the fire, and called for supper. Servants had brought the most beautiful meal she had ever seen. Sweets and rich meats and hothouse fruits. He’d insisted she eat and she’d obeyed him, though the food had tasted like ashes in her mouth.

Afterward, he’d bid her lay in his big bed, stripped the shirt from his body… and then he’d ignored her, reading papers by the fire, half unclothed. When she couldn’t stand it any longer she’d sat up. “What do you mean to do with me?”

He’d glanced up in feigned surprise, the shadows the firelight had cast across his face making him look nearly demonic. “Why, nothin’, Mrs. Hollingbrook. What did ye think I’d do with ye?”

“Then why did you bring me here?”

He’d smiled—not a nice smile. No, this was a smile such as a wolf would give just before he tore into the doe’s throat. “What will ye tell yer husband when ye return to his arms tomorrow?”

“Tell him? I’ll tell him the truth: that we dined together, but that nothing else happened.”

“And he’ll believe ye?”

“Of course!” She’d been outraged. “William loves me.”

He’d nodded. “If he loves ye, he’ll believe ye.”

His words had been like a curse. Even then—sitting on that ridiculously lush bed, just beginning to feel the relief that she wouldn’t have to sacrifice her pride to this man—even then, she’d shivered with foreboding.

The next morning Mickey O’Connor had made her undo the front of her dress until her breasts were nearly revealed. He’d had her take down her hair and tousle it about her face. And then he’d made her promise to walk up the street like that.

As if she were a common whore leaving his bed.

It had been hard—until then the hardest thing she’d ever done in her life—but she’d walked up that street, past the catcalls of the whores returning home for the night. She’d found her sister, Temperance, waiting for her at the end of the street, worried sick about what had happened to Silence over the night. Silence had collapsed in her sister’s arms, hoping that the terrible spell was over.

But that walk up the street in disarray had not been the worst—not by a long shot. For after that night she’d found that no one believed her. Not Winter, not Temperance, not the butcher on the corner, not her neighbors in Wapping.

No one.

Not even her darling husband, William. They all had thought Charming Mickey O’Connor had raped her. William had hardly been able to look at her before he left on that last voyage. He’d turned his head aside as if the sight of her shamed him—or as if she repelled him. And as she had watched her love leave, that last time on a ship that in six months’ time would be lost at sea, Mickey O’Connor’s words had echoed in her mind:

If he loves ye, he’ll believe ye.

Silence blinked and saw that they were climbing past a wide landing. She caught sight of familiar gilded double doors and glanced hastily away. Mickey O’Connor led her to the next floor up and then to the first door in the hallway there. He opened it with a flourish to reveal a neat bedroom with pink walls and white trim. Silence stopped short in astonishment. A bed with embroidered flowered hangings stood in one corner. Beside it was a cot with spindled rails all around the outside—obviously a child’s bed. There was even a small sitting area with a settee before the fireplace. Harry was already placing her trunk at the foot of the bed while Bert took a chair outside the door.

All in all the room was very nice—and terribly out of place in this den of iniquity.

Silence turned to Mr. O’Connor with a frown. “Who usually resides in this room?”

He’d leaned a broad shoulder against the fireplace mantel as he watched her examine the room. “Why, no one, darlin’. Did ye think I kept a passel o’ virgins here to sacrifice to me wicked lust?”

She could feel herself color at his mocking words. “I merely wondered.”

“Ah, well, wonder no longer. This room is for ye and ye alone.” He arched one satanic eyebrow. “Have ye any other questions?”

“Um… no.”

“Then I’ll leave ye to make yerself at home. Supper’s at eight o’clock. Sharp, mind. Harry’ll show ye the way.” He’d straightened from the mantel as he spoke, and now he strode out the door without so much as a backward glance.

Silence stared, rather stunned, as the door closed softly behind the river pirate. “Wretched man!”

There was a soft gasp from near the bed and Silence noticed for the first time that a girl sat by the cot. It was the same maidservant who had brought Mary Darling into the throne room.

Behind Silence, Harry cleared his throat with a sound like boulders rubbing together. “This ’ere’s Fionnula, ’oo’s been set to carin’ for the babe.”

“Ma’am.” Fionnula dipped in an awkward curtsy, abandoned halfway down. She was a pretty girl, perhaps no more than eighteen, her fair skin freckled, her hair a lovely reddish blond, springing out from its pins in a cloud of curls about her face.

“Mrs. ’Ollingbrook is goin’ to stay ’ere with the little lassie, Fionnula,” Harry said. “Orders o’ ’Imself, so mind what she says, ’ear?”

Fionnula nodded, apparently struck mute by Harry’s instructions.

“Well, then,” Harry said after an awkward pause. “Ah… I’ll jus’ push along. ’Imself ’as given orders that me and Bert’ll be watchin’ after ye while yer ’ere, Mrs. ’Ollingbrook, so if’n ye need anythin’, jus’ give us a ’oller. We’ll be outside the door.”

And Harry left, as well.

Silence scowled at the door through which the men had disappeared. “Sometimes I suspect that men are great idiots.”

Fionnula gave a surprised giggle, hurriedly muffled.

Silence smiled sheepishly at the girl. It was hardly Fionnula’s fault that Mr. O’Connor was such an autocratic pirate.

“The babe’s fair worn out,” Fionnula said, nodding at Mary still in Silence’s arms. Her Irish burr was pronounced.

“She is, isn’t she?” Silence whispered. She carried Mary to the cot and gently laid her down, hovering a moment to see if the toddler would wake.

But Mary was exhausted from her crying bout and slept deeply.

Silence straightened and moved to the fireplace, motioning Fionnula to follow. “So you were looking after Mary today?”

“Aye,” the maid said shyly. “She was fair mad to’ve been taken from her home. She’s a handsome lass, though. The spittin’ image of Himself.”

“That she is,” Silence murmured as she sank into the settee. She hadn’t had a moment to rest since she’d discovered Mary missing and weariness was making her limbs liquid. “Is this your room now, too?”

Fionnula’s eyes widened. “Oh, no, ma’am. ’Tisn’t anyone’s as far as I know, savin’ yerself. I have a cot in the attic, same as the other maids, but Himself has said I’m to sleep through there now.” She gestured to a small door on the wall.

“Oh, yes?” Silence got up to peek into Fionnula’s room. It was barely big enough to hold a cot and a row of pegs on the wall. Certainly it was far more Spartan than Silence’s and Mary’s room. She came back and flung herself down on the settee again and looked at the maid curiously. “When did you come to work for Mr. O’Connor?”

“A bit more’n a month ago.” Fionnula’s fair face suddenly flamed. “I… I have a friend who lives here.”

By the blush on the maid’s face, Silence thought the “friend” must be a man. “Surely not Harry?”

Fionnula giggled. “Oh, no, ma’am!”

“Or Mr. O’Connor?” Silence asked with a strangely heavy heart. Had he sent his kept woman to watch over her?

“Goodness, no,” Fionnula said. “The ladies that Himself entertains are fancy pieces, quite lovely like. I’m not nearly as beautiful or as high in the instep as they.”

“Oh. Of course.” Silence got up to unpack her meager trunk.

The reality of her situation swept over her. She’d placed herself entirely in the power of an evil man—a man whose only use for women was to have them “entertain” him. This wasn’t what she wanted for Mary Darling—or herself. Once again she’d let Mickey O’Connor get the upper hand. For a moment panic rose in her chest, nearly suffocating her.

“Are ye all right, ma’am?” Fionnula asked hesitantly.

Silence glanced up and saw the little maid watching her worriedly. “Oh, yes. Just a little tired.”

She rose to put away a pile of stockings, but as she did she came to a decision: she might be in Mickey O’Connor’s palace again, but that didn’t mean this time had to end like the last. This time the pirate would find that Silence Hollingbrook had a mind and a spirit of her own.

And she would never blindly obey him again.

THE LITTLE WIDOW’S presence in his palace gave him an odd itch ’tween the shoulder blades, Mick mused later that evening as he spread out a great map upon a table. ’Twas a crawling feeling, two parts curiosity, one of lust, with a dram of uneasy wariness stirred in.

Strange, that, since he’d spent the last year slyly planning to get Silence Hollingbrook exactly where she was—under his power and under his roof. It’d been a whim in the beginning. He’d eyed the squalling babe held in the greedy old bawd’s arms, and known at once that the babe would have to be hidden from the Vicar. And why not her? he’d thought. Why not the righteous Mrs. Hollingbrook? Perhaps it was a way to claim some of that pure virtue she’d blazed at him in his own throne room. To steal by proxy what he could never earn. It had given him a bittersweet satisfaction: to hide the flesh of his flesh with the woman he’d harmed most in the world. To tie Silence to him with bonds of her own maternal love.

Aye, and now at last he’d brought her back to his palace and by rights he ought to be feeling a triumphant bit of glee, hadn’t he?

Not an odd, crawling sensation instead.

“She seems content enough.” Harry’s broad, ugly face wrinkled as if he were thinking on whether “content” was really the word he wanted. “I left ’er with Fionnula.”

Mick shot him a sardonic glance before returning his gaze to the map spread upon a great gilded table before him. Rumor had it that the table had been meant for a royal palace. But that was before Mick had demanded it in tithe from a captain who’d tried to wriggle out from his just obligations to Mick and his crew. Made it all the sweeter to have it in his own planning room, then.

“Left her alone?” Mick asked with an edge to his voice. Silence was in his palace now—a treasure he’d protect like any other.

“Naw,” Harry said hastily. “Bert’s guardin’ ’er.”

“Good,” Mick grunted. “I’d be best pleased if’n she and the babe were within eyesight o’ one o’ ye at all times. She’s to be guarded well, mind.” He spread the map, leaning on it with both arms outstretched and studied it. “Where’s this dock yer contemplatin’?” he asked the third man in the room.

“Down here,” Bran Kavanagh said, waving his hand over the lower Thames. “It’s rumored that the owners are in debt. They’ll sell cheap.”

The lad leaned forward eagerly, forgetting that he liked to pretend an air of sophistication. Bran had been with Mick for the last six years or more. He was a pretty lad of twenty or so, all light blue eyes and red-brown hair pulled back into a queue. Made the girls quite swoon over him—much to Bran’s discomfort, for the lad was a solemn one.

Except as now when he had a scheme brewing in his brain.

Mick examined the area Bran had indicated. “What’re ye thinkin’ we can do with it?”

“We can buy the docks and charge for the use of them,” Bran said at once. He’d been contemplating his plan for a while, it seemed. “Or sell them again at a higher price in the future. It’s a bit of insurance against lean times.”

“Mmm,” Mick murmured. He hadn’t told Bran, but he already had “insurance.” “I do like the idea o’ insurance.”

Bran grinned, quick and hopeful. “Then you’ll buy the docks?”

Mick sighed, hating to disappoint the lad, but business was business. “If I go a-buyin’ docks and such, then I’ll be havin’ to hire secretaries and managers and the like to run the damn things. Might be more expense than profit.”

The corners of Bran’s mouth turned down—the boy hadn’t yet learned to hide his emotions properly. “If you wait, they’ll sell to someone else. We’ll have lost the docks and another mayn’t come up for sale for years.”

“And if I jump too soon, I’ll lose me money,” Mick said. “It’s an interestin’ idea, Bran, me lad, but I’ll have to think on it a bit.”

“But—”

Mick shook his head once, staring at the boy sternly. “And besides, I’ve other matters to settle first—ones involvin’ the Vicar.”

Bran looked away. “As you like.”

“I do like,” Mick said mildly as he rolled up the map. “What have ye found out for me?”

Bran sighed. “I saw his men lurking around the orphans’ home this afternoon after Mrs. Hollingbrook left. You got the babe out just in time, I’m thinking.”

“Lurkin’ in plain sight?”

“Aye,” Bran replied. “The Vicar’s men have become quite bold. They tramp about St. Giles in packs of four or five without a care in the world.”

“Fuck ’em,” Mick growled. “St. Giles is mine and I’ll see those bloody whoresons run out.” He stretched his neck. “And how did the Vicar find out about the babe in the first place is what I’m wonderin’.”

“You did have men watching her,” Bran pointed out.

Mick looked up, eyes narrowed, only to find Harry nodding thoughtfully.

“Might’ve led the Vicar straight to the babe,” Harry said.

Mick grunted. He didn’t like the thought that ’twas his own error that had led the Vicar’s men to the orphanage and the babe. There was another possibility, too: Had one of his men betrayed his secret to the Vicar?

“Then he knows that I have the babe within me palace,” Mick said slowly.

Bran nodded grimly.

Mick sighed. “Well, ’twas never me plan to hide the fact that I had her safe. He knows he must attack me palace to get to her—and that, I’m thinkin’, he’ll be loath to do.” He looked at Bran. “What have ye found out about the Vicar himself?”

“The Vicar’s got dozens of men around him at all times,” Bran replied. “He guards himself better than you, come to that. It’ll be a right job to get to him.”

“Ah, but get to him we must,” Mick said. “ ’Tis near the end o’ winter and he’ll be runnin’ low on grain for his damned gin stills. Have some o’ me men find out who’s supplyin’ him. I’ll offer the suppliers an incentive to quit doin’ business with the Vicar.”

“Very well.” Bran hesitated, then blurted out, “But I don’t see why you two are at war. He has his gin distilling and you have the river. How do your interests cross?”

Sad brown eyes rose up in his inner mind, the lilt of an Irish voice, Me darlin’ Mickey.

Mick grimaced, pushing the memories aside. “It’s a personal matter. One ye needn’t worry about.”

Bran frowned as Mick put away the map. “That’s your own affair, but we’re spending time on the Vicar and getting no money in return.”

“Aye, and I’m aware o’ it,” Mick said. “If I could end this, I would. But I’m afraid the Vicar isn’t such a reasonable gent as m’self.”

“Then you’ll have to kill him.” Bran’s light blue eyes were young—and utterly ruthless.

“I would, but as ye’ve pointed out, the man guards himself well.” Mick tapped the table for a moment in thought, then came to a decision. “We’re better off takin’ the round-about way. Cut off his grain, starve him, and run him out o’ St. Giles for good. In the meantime, send some o’ me men about to roust any o’ his crew they find in St. Giles.”

Bran nodded. “As you wish.”

Mick arched an eyebrow. The boy was still lingering though he’d been given his orders. “Somethin’ else on yer mind?”

“What about this Mrs. Hollingbrook?” Bran’s upper lip curled. “I can see keeping the child—if you think she’s truly yours—but why insist the wench stay, as well? She’s a distraction.”

Mick’s jaw tightened. “Pardon me, but I wasn’t aware I need explain m’self to ye, lad.”

Bran’s face went a fiery scarlet. A muscle beneath his right eye jumped and then he turned and left the room abruptly.

Harry had been leaning on the wall in the corner, but he stirred now. “The boy’s impatient.”

“That he is,” Mick muttered.

“ ’E’s clever, is our Bran,” Harry said with an air of consideration. “But a bit rash.”

Mick cocked a sardonic eyebrow at Harry, waiting.

Harry straightened. “ ’Emay not like Mrs. ’Ollingbrook, but Bran does ’ave a bit o’ a point. Are ye sure ’tis best to keep ’er ’ere?”

Mick’s reaction was immediate and gut-deep. Silence was his and he would hold her. No one was going to change that.

“Second-guessin’ me, Harry?” Mick asked with silky menace.

The big man flinched, but didn’t back down. “Now, ye know I’d never do such, Mick. But, see, she’s a soft thing, is Mrs. ’Ollingbrook, though she ’ides it be’ind a sharp tongue. She’s a lady, through and through, and easily ’urt. Ye ’ad yer way with ’er once afore. Is it necessary like to play with ’er again?”

Mick glanced down at the papers he’d picked up. They’d crumpled beneath the force of his grip. Hazel eyes weeping in the night. “I find m’self in a strangely good mood this evenin’, Harry, otherwise ye know I’d not be allowin’ such questionin’.”

“I know that, I do,” Harry said earnestly.

“Then ye know also that I’ll be answerin’ yer damned questions jus’ this once,” Mick said, his eyes pinning Harry. “I trust ye remember the girl found upon me doorstep jus’ last week?”

“I do.”

“She’d been in me palace only nights afore, though I didn’t take her to me bed,” Mick rasped, remembering the body of the girl. Her face had looked like it had melted off her head. Jaysus. That wouldn’t happen to Silence Hollingbrook, not while he still lived. “Can ye imagine what the Vicar would do to someone I might… care about?”

Harry looked away uneasily. He’d been the one to find the body. “Aye, but Mick, the Vicar don’t know ye fancy ’er, does ’e?”

“I don’t know.” Mick felt his jaw clench at the admission. “I thought the babe secret and safe as well—and she wasn’t, was she?”

Harry shook his head soberly.

“Either he knows already or he soon will—he’s not stupid is the Vicar. It’s very necessary that I keep Mrs. Hollingbrook here with me,” Mick said softly. “Do we have a problem?”

Harry swallowed. “No.”

“Good.” Mick nodded. “And Harry?”

Harry, who had turned to the door, froze. “Aye, Mick?”

Mick smiled thinly. “Whatever else I might be doin’ with Mrs. Hollingbrook, I’m not playin’.”

The information didn’t lighten Harry’s expression. He was wearing a frown on his ugly face when he left the planning room.

Mick cursed and flung himself onto a velvet settee. Months of scheming had finally born sweet, juicy fruit and yet he still had a feeling of… What? Some strange emotion, some odd sense that he hadn’t truly won. Mick snorted. And what sort of pirate felt any emotion at all? He had the wench in his grasp, held fast in his own domain where he might examine her at his leisure. Find out why the little widow Hollingbrook brought such an uncommon itch to his skin, making him as restless as a caged wolf. He’d forgotten the face of the lass he’d bedded just the night afore, yet Silence Hollingbrook’s wide hazel eyes had haunted his sleep for months.

Muttering to himself, Mick rang for his accountant, Pepper. The balding sparrow of a man came to him promptly enough and for the next hour or so Mick listened to the man drone on about ships and building materials until his head fairly ached. Yet at the end of that time, had anyone asked, Mick realized he wouldn’t have been able to report what Pepper had said.

Sighing, Mick sent the accountant away again, then washed his face and hands and headed to supper.

The dining room was a cavernous hall—Mick liked to have all his people eat the evening meal together—and thus the room was usually quite loud. But as Mick entered tonight, what conversation there’d been quickly quieted.

He looked about. Bran was seated next to Fionnula. Pepper was across from him, a book open on his empty plate. A couple of Mick’s current women tittered together in the corner, while Bert glared at them from across the way. And a dozen or so of Mick’s night crew took up the far end of the long tables set end to end. To a man they were a dangerous, shifty lot—and yet not a one could meet his eye. Even the sweetmeats boy, Tris, was seated behind Mick’s chair, ready to serve him.

Everyone was there in fact, except Mrs. Hollingbrook.

Mick strode to Fionnula. “Where is she?”

The girl trembled. “She said that she couldn’t come down to sup.”

Mick bent and whispered softly, “Couldn’t or wouldn’t?”

The girl gulped and said bravely, “Wouldn’t”

Mick inhaled, feeling rage boil within his breast. He turned heel and left the room without a word. No one ignored his summons to supper—a fact Mrs. Hollingbrook was about to learn the hard way.

SILENCE HAD JUST finished feeding Mary Darling her dinner when Mickey O’Connor burst into the bedroom without so much as a knock. She glanced up, startled, and then stiffened at the grim set of his mouth.

Mary Darling frowned sternly, looking quite a bit like her sire at the moment. “Bad!”

Mickey O’Connor narrowed his eyes at the baby and then turned to Silence. “ ’Tis supper time—or hadn’t ye heard?”

She lifted her chin. “Yes, I’d heard. Fionnula informed me.”

“Then why aren’t ye downstairs with everyone else, darlin’?” he asked much too gently.

He stood preternaturally still, his head cocked as if listening to her breathing.

Silence found herself licking her lips nervously. She reminded herself of the promise she’d made just this afternoon: she would not blindly obey this man again. Refusing to dine with Mickey O’Connor might seem like a small defiance, but it was the only one she had. “I prefer to eat in my room with Mary.”

“All those who live under me roof dine together downstairs.”

She tilted her chin. “Do they?”

“Yes, they do,” he said. “Get up.”

His tone was so commanding that she almost did just that. Silence exhaled carefully and lifted Mary from her lap. She set the toddler on the floor and Mary immediately began exploring the room, holding on to the settee seat as she went.

She met his eyes. “No.”

“What?”

He’d heard her well enough so Silence merely folded her arms in answer. The posture also served to hide the trembling of her hands.

He stared at her a moment and there was anger on his handsome face, but there was also a kind of animal curiosity as well. “Why not?”

She inhaled, trying to calm the rapid beat of her heart. “Maybe I don’t want to break bread with pirates. Maybe I don’t want to dine with you. Maybe I simply prefer my quiet room. Does it matter? Whatever my reasons I will not obey you.”

He’d stilled and she found herself holding her breath, as if waiting for an attack. He stood in front of the fire, the light limning the tight fit of his breeches on muscled legs, his hands fisted by his sides, his big shoulders bunched and ready. His face was absolutely motionless, and she thought again how beautiful he was—beautiful and dangerously feral.

“Well, then, Mrs. Hollingbrook,” he finally drawled, “that’s yer choice sure enough, but ye’ll not be eatin’ at all until ye grace me supper table.”

Her mouth dropped open in outrage. “You’ll starve your own child?”

He sliced the air with the blade of his palm, his rings winking in the firelight. “I never said the babe won’t be eatin’. I’ll have enough victuals sent up for her, but not yerself, me darlin’. Feast on that fact, why don’t ye?”

And with that he stalked from the room.

Of all the absurd, autocratic commands! For a moment Silence stared at the closed door, shocked. He couldn’t just order her starved, could he? Except, of course, he could. Mickey O’Connor lived like some primitive king and like a king he was obeyed absolutely in his own home. Her gaze darted to the small tray that had been sent up earlier with Mary’s supper. A few bits of cheese, and a bowl smeared with the remains of stewed apples still sat there. Silence could nibble on that, but Mary often decided to have a snack before bedtime. Silence would never deprive the baby of her food.

She blew out a frustrated breath. Why did Mr. O’Connor care anyway where she chose to dine? If he truly was surrounded by his gang and a bevy of beautiful females, he’d hardly notice if she were there or not. The whole thing came down to control: Mr. O’Connor wanted to have her at his supper table simply to show that he could make her do as he wished. Well, it would do such a dictatorial man good to find that he couldn’t always have his way.

Besides, he wouldn’t truly starve her, would he?

On that rather disquieting thought Silence finally roused herself to ready Mary for bed. Mary only fussed a little bit as her hands and face were washed and a clean chemise was pulled over her head. Halfway through their bedtime game of patty-cake Mary yawned and by the time she was settled in her little cot she was nearly asleep. Silence sat by the cot, quietly rubbing Mary’s back until the little girl’s knuckle crept to her mouth and her rosebud lips pursed in sleep.

Silence smiled ruefully. Mary was so angelic in sleep. One would never realize the tyrant the toddler could be when awake. And Silence had come so close to losing her today. Her breath caught on the thought and she leaned down to carefully brush a kiss against the tiny flushed cheek.

She rose then, and went to look at the tray before the fireplace. The last bits of cheese had been eaten before the game of patty-cake, but there was still a puddle of stewed apples in the bowl. Silence rubbed her stomach. She’d missed luncheon in the frantic search for Mary and now her stand against Mr. O’Connor’s despotic ways seemed a bit… shortsighted.

She was reaching for the bowl when the door to the room opened. Silence snatched back her hand guiltily and whirled to find Fionnula creeping into the room.

“Oh!” the maid said, gasping softly at Silence’s sudden movement. “I didn’t mean to startle ye, ma’am.”

“That’s all right.” Silence exhaled. “I was just preparing for bed.”

“Of course, ma’am,” the maid said shyly. “I’ll just tidy up, shall I?”

Silence watched wistfully as Fionnula picked up the tray and brought it to the door, handing it to a servant outside.

“Thank you,” Silence murmured.

“Not at all,” Fionnula replied. “Will ye be needin’ anythin’ else tonight?”

“I don’t think so,” Silence began.

But Fionnula hastily answered. “Oh, but I fetched ye a fresh cloth with which to refresh yerself. I knew ye’d use the one here to wash the wee babe.”

The maid had come closer as she said this and she now handed Silence a bundled cloth. Silence took it and immediately realized that something was hidden in the folds. Her gaze darted to Fionnula’s face in question. The maid’s eyes widened in warning as she glanced significantly toward the still-cracked door.

“If that’s all, I’ll just be biddin’ ye good night.”

“Yes.” Silence hastily set the bundle on a table. “Thank you, Fionnula.”

The maid went into her own bedroom and Silence crossed to the outer door. Bert was sitting in a chair against the wall on the opposite side of the hall.

Silence nodded to him. “Good night, Mr…. er, Mr. Bert.”

Bert scowled, but nodded grudgingly.

Silence closed her bedroom door very firmly. Goodness! She was beginning to wonder if the guards were there to ensure her and Mary’s safety or to keep them from wandering. Shaking her head, she went to the bundle on the table and carefully unwrapped it. There lying on the pristine cloth was a slice of seedcake and a bit of roasted beef. Her stomach growled at the sight. What would Mr. O’Connor do if he learned of Fionnula’s disobedience? Silence would have to talk to the maid tomorrow—tell Fionnula that she must not risk herself on Silence’s behalf. But for now…

Well, right now she was very grateful for the supper.

She ate the cake and meat and washed it down with water from a pitcher on the table by the bed. Then she bathed as best she could. She doused the candles and removed her clothes in the dark. Clad only in her chemise, she climbed into the big canopied bed.

For long moments Silence lay, staring sightlessly in the dark. This morning she’d woken to a usual, chaotic day at the home. Tonight she lay cut off from all her family and friends. As she listened to the soft whisper of Mary Darling’s breathing she made this vow: she would endure whatever she must for the baby’s sake.

And whatever happened, she would not break under Mickey O’Connor’s rule.

MICK WOKE IN the darkest part of night, the time when men forgot their bravery of the day and wonder if their souls still lived upon this lonely earth. He stared into the blackness, listening to the breathing of the wenches in his bed, thinking about the dream that had disturbed his sleep.

Her hazel eyes had been weeping, great teardrops of sorrow and accusation, which was a damned funny thing considering she’d never wept on that night over a year ago now. Why she should haunt his dreams so, he could not fathom. He’d killed men, some so young they still grew only down upon their cheeks. If he were to be haunted, surely it was those ghosts, long consigned to hell, that should be drifting through his sleep.

Not the color-shifting eyes of a woman who yet lived.

She was a part of him now somehow, whether he wanted it so or not. He’d not felt so close to a female since his mam—his mind skidded away from the thought. The heat and the stink of sex from the girls on either side of him suddenly made his stomach turn. Mick rose silently, padding on bare feet to pull on a pair of breeches. He left his room and stole through the darkened corridors of his palace until he reached Silence’s door. Harry watched as Mick approached, though the guard didn’t say a word. Carefully Mick turned the door handle. The door opened without squeaking for he’d ordered the hinges oiled well.

Her room was smaller than his, but somehow the air seemed fresher, less close. He could hear the sound of the child’s heavy breathing in sleep and softer, slower, the woman’s. He went to stand next to the bed and even though the room was unlit, he could make out, faintly, her slight form beneath the covers. The sight somehow calmed his soul. She lay in his bed, in his house, and no matter what bargain she thought she’d made with him, he knew the truth.

He had no plans to let her go—ever.

Chapter Three

The king roared with royal rage and called his three nephews.

“Whomever of you can find this nighttime thief shall be my heir!” cried the king.

Well the nephews all looked at each other and then they each gathered weapons and settled themselves beneath the cherry tree to wait for night and the thief….

—from Clever John

Silence’s third meal of the day came just after two of the clock the next afternoon and from a quite unexpected source.

“Mum’s the word, mind,” Bert said gruffly, laying his finger aside of his nose.

Silence didn’t even have time to thank the guard before he hurriedly stomped from the room.

She blinked, rather bemused at the bounty she’d received from Mickey O’Connor’s servants. She’d never thought that the pirate’s own people would defy him to bring her food. Uneasily she wondered what Mr. O’Connor would do if he found out about the underground rebellion against his orders not to feed her.

Shaking her head, she opened the rather grimy handkerchief Bert had thrust into her hands and contemplated the contents: three walnuts, a crumbled bit of pigeon pie, and a smashed cake with pink icing. Earlier she’d been given a slice of gammon and a muffin from Fionnula, and a scandalously out of season plum and a duck’s wing from Harry.

The outer door to the room began to open and Silence hastily shoved the kerchief and its contents beneath a pillow on the bed. She turned, half-expecting to see the pirate himself, but it was a younger man who faced her. He was quite good-looking—nearly as handsome as Mickey O’Connor, but much more solemn, a bit shorter and only about twenty years old, if that.

The young man looked startled to see her as well. “Ah… er, I was looking for Fionnula.”

“Oh,” Silence said. “You must be her friend.”

He blushed at her blurted words and looked suddenly even younger.

“I’m Mrs. Hollingbrook,” she said to set him at ease. “Fionnula has gone down to fetch some hot water for Mary Darling’s bath.”

He nodded curtly. “I’ll just be going.”

“She’ll be back soon,” Silence said. He really did seem ill at ease. Perhaps he wasn’t overly used to talking to outsiders? “Why don’t you wait?”

“Ah…” He blinked, glancing past her. “Well, I—”

Suddenly he darted around Silence and scooped Mary Darling up. “Mind the hearth, lass. ’Tisn’t safe for pretty little fingers.”

“Goodness!” Silence hadn’t noticed Mary near the fire, but the toddler had been quite inquisitive this afternoon. Mary had soon bored of remaining in one room and had been fretful and restless since noon.

Silence looked at the young man gratefully. “Thank you, er…”

“Bran,” he said, smiling down at Mary Darling. “Bran Kavanagh.” The little girl usually protested mightily at strangers, but she seemed charmed by Bran, looking curiously into his face.

Silence had to admit that when he smiled he was quite dashing. “She likes you.”

“Aye.” He fished a bit of string from his pocket and tied it in a loop before deftly threading it through his fingers and showing Mary the resulting cat’s cradle. “The little ones often do. My mother had a dozen children and I looked after the ones younger than me.”

“You’re Irish?” His accent wasn’t nearly as strong as Fionnula’s or Mr. O’Connor’s.

He glanced up warily, a lock of auburn hair falling over his forehead. “Bred and born right here in London, but, aye, both my mother and my father were from Ireland. Father was a weaver in Spitalfields.”

“What happened—” Silence started, but Fionnula came in the room carrying a kettle of steaming water at that moment.

The maid stopped short on sight of Bran, her face lighting up. “Oh! I didn’t know you were here.”

“I just came to tell you I’d be gone tonight.” Bran set Mary gently down by the settee and gave her the loop of string. “I thought you might want to know.”

Fionnula knit her eyebrows, looking worried. “Is it the Vicar again?”

Bran frowned, darting a glance at Silence.

“What vicar?” Silence asked, looking between the two. “You have pirate business with a man of the cloth?”

“No, no,” Bran said hastily. “The Vicar of Whitechapel isn’t part of any church. He’s a gin maker and he’s…” Bran paused as if trying to find the word that wouldn’t offend Silence’s delicate ears.

“He’s evil,” Fionnula said. She crossed herself. “Pure evil.”

Silence shivered at the solemn dread in Fionnula’s voice and glanced at Mary, happily playing on the settee. “He’s Mickey O’Connor’s enemy, isn’t he? One of the people Mr. O’Connor thinks might hurt Mary.”

Bran didn’t reply, but his grim glance at Mary was answer enough.

“Ye’d best be off, then,” Fionnula said softly.

He nodded and left without further comment.

Silence blew out a breath and bent to pick up Mary. There had been a tiny, niggling suspicion at the back of her mind that Mr. O’Connor had made up all his talk of enemies who might hurt Mary. Perhaps he was playing some game of his own and simply wanted her and Mary in his palace for reasons she couldn’t comprehend. That small suspicion was now laid to rest. The fear in Fionnula’s face had been too genuine, Bran’s voice too sure as he spoke of the Vicar. Whoever he was, the Vicar—and the danger he posed—would seem to be quite real.

Well, Mickey O’Connor might be an overbearing pirate, but they were safe enough in his palace. Silence sighed and began undressing Mary Darling for her bath, her thoughts turning to another matter. “Bran seemed quite nice.”

“Yes.” The maid was blushing still as she carefully poured the hot water into a basin and tested it with her elbow.

“And quite handsome,” Silence said carelessly.

Fionnula jerked and some of the water splashed on the floor. She stared at the puddle and then raised worried eyes to Silence. “He’s too pretty for me, ’tisn’t he?”

Silence blinked. She’d meant to tease, not hurt. “Oh, no, I didn’t mean that.”

“But he is,” Fionnula said dismally. “His eyes are so blue and he has such a handsome face. I see other girls lookin’ at him and I just want to tear their hair out.”

“Does he look back?” Silence asked as she placed Mary into the shallow bath.

“Nooo,” Fionnula drew out the word as if unsure.

“Then I wouldn’t worry,” Silence said as she began to sponge Mary’s little back. Mary was still busy with her string, dipping it into the water and draping it over her tummy. “I’m sure he finds you quite pretty.”

Fionnula nibbled her lower lip as if unsure, then brightened. She took a bundle from her apron pocket.

“I got some more victuals for ye, ma’am,” she whispered as she handed the bundle over.

“How kind of you,” Silence said brightly as she unwrapped her fourth meal—either her third luncheon or perhaps an early supper? It was hard to tell. At this rate she might actually grow plump while on Mr. O’Connor’s starvation diet.

She couldn’t help but wonder if Mickey O’Connor was entirely oblivious to his people smuggling her food against his express command. She shivered at the thought.

What was the pirate’s punishment for mutiny?

WINTER MAKEPEACE WOKE the next morning with a groan at his aching muscles. His room was still dark—the new day wouldn’t dawn for another hour or more—yet he knew it was exactly half past five of the clock, for that was the time at which he’d trained his body to wake. He sat up in his narrow cot, feeling the twinge of thighs and buttocks, the result of spending all yesterday riding a horse.

Since he lived in the Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children and the day school where he taught small and not very disciplined boys was only a stone’s throw away, he had no need to ride a horse usually. However, his trip to Oxford had necessitated the renting of a nag. He rubbed his legs for a half minute or so and then stood, pushing the aches from his mind. They were of no consequence and would fade soon enough.

He had to duck his head as he bent over the washbasin to sluice his face. His room was under the eaves and the roof sloped sharply. But months of living in the cramped space had accustomed him to the irregularities of the room, so now he could move about without knocking his head on a beam, even in the dark.

Winter dressed in white shirt, black waistcoat, black breeches, and black coat and threw open his attic window to toss the wastewater from his ablutions into the alley below. The sky was turning a pinkish gray, silhouetting the haphazard rooftops of St. Giles. He gazed at it only a moment before shutting the window firmly and lighting a candle. For the next hour he worked steadily at a narrow desk, writing and reading. Some of his work was in preparation for the day’s lessons, but he also was in correspondence with scholars of philosophy and religion both in England and on the continent. In fact, his recent trip to Oxford had been to call upon an old acquaintance—an elderly philosopher who was on his deathbed.

When the sky had fully brightened, Winter stood and stretched before pinching the candle out. Picking up the pitcher, he locked his bedroom carefully behind him and paused for a moment to glance at his sister, Silence’s, bedroom door. No light shone beneath it. She was probably still abed. He contemplated waking her, then decided against it. Silence could use the extra minutes of rest.

He clattered down the stairs, nearly running into a small boy lurking rather suspiciously on one of the turns.

Winter grabbed him by the collar—he’d learned early in his career of teaching young hellions that it was best to catch and then ask. “Why are you not at breakfast with the other boys, Joseph Tinbox?”

Joseph, his freckled face cowled by the jacket Winter held, rolled his eyes up at him. “I was jus’ now goin’ down, Mr. Makepeace.”

“Indeed?” Winter inquired skeptically. He set down the pitcher and made a lightning fast snatch at the object Joseph had been attempting to hide behind his back. “And what plans did you have for this sling?”

Joseph’s eyes widened in what was a very good imitation of innocence at the leather strap dangling before his eyes. “I found it on the stairs, truly I did.”

Winter cocked his eyebrow, staring at the boy.

Joseph’s gaze slid away from his own.

“Joseph,” Winter said quietly. “You know that I do not condone lying in this house. A man’s word is a treasure he holds within himself no matter how poor his outer garments. To squander it recklessly is the mark of not only a fool, but a cheat as well. Now tell me. Is this sling yours?”

The boy swallowed, his small throat working. “Yes, sir.”

“I am displeased to hear that you’ve been playing with a sling,” Winter said calmly. “But pleased that you have spoken the truth to me. As punishment for the former, I would like you to sweep out the kitchen hearth and scrub clean the outer tiles around the fireplace.”

“Aw!” Joseph began, but gulped back his groan at a look from Winter. “Yes, sir.”

“Good.” Winter let him go, pocketed the sling, picked up the pitcher, and gestured for the boy to precede him down the stairs.

They descended in silence, but as they made the bottom step, Joseph hesitated.

“Sir?”

“Yes?” Winter glanced at Joseph. He was shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“We all make mistakes, Joseph,” Winter said gently. “It is how one acts afterward that distinguishes the righteous man from the dishonest one.”

Joseph’s brow crinkled as he contemplated that statement. Then it cleared. “Yes, sir.”

The boy walked into the kitchen, his habitual jaunty step nearly restored.

Winter felt his lips twitch in amusement as he followed. This was not the first such talk he’d had with Joseph, and he did not expect it would be the last, but at heart the boy was a good lad.

The home’s kitchen was bright and loud with the chatter of children. Two long tables took up the center of the crowded room, one for the boys, one for the girls. Joseph Tinbox went to the boys’ table and hopped onto one of the long benches.

“Good morning, Mr. Makepeace,” Alice, one of the home’s maids said, pausing as she hurried by.

“Good morning to you, Alice,” Winter said, handing her the pitcher.

“Oh, thank you, sir, for saving me the trip upstairs.” Alice flashed a smile that lit up her rather careworn face before rushing to catch a spilled cup of milk.

“Children,” Nell Jones, the head maidservant at the home, raised her voice above the cacophony. “Please bid Mr. Makepeace good day.”

“Good morning, Mr. Makepeace!” a ragged chorus immediately responded.

“Good morning, children,” Winter said as he sat on a bench.

Nell hurried over with a bowl of porridge and a teapot.

“Thank you,” Winter murmured as he sipped the scalding tea. He glanced across the table to a small dark-haired boy sleepily picking his nose. “Did you sleep well, Henry Putman?”

All the boys at the Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children were christened Joseph and all the girls Mary—except for Henry Putman. When Henry had come to the home—at the advanced age of four—he had urgently argued to keep his own name. And since unlike most of the orphans he’d been old enough to speak, his wish had been granted.

At Winter’s greeting, Henry hastily dropped his hand. “Yes.”

The older boy sitting next to Henry elbowed him.

Henry glanced at the older boy in outrage.

“Sir!” hissed the older boy.

“Oh!” Henry exclaimed. “Yes, sir. I slept good. ’Cept for a dream.”

Winter, well aware that the subject of children’s dreams could take up most of breakfast, only murmured an, “Indeed?”

But Henry had found his voice. “ ’Bout frogs, it was. Big frogs. Big as cows.”

Henry spread wide his arms to demonstrate the size of the mythical frogs, nearly upsetting his neighbor’s bowl of porridge.

Winter caught the bowl with the ease of long practice.

The older boy had other concerns. “Frogs can’t grow that big. Everyone knows that!”

Winter addressed the elder boy mildly. “Joseph Smith, perhaps you can inform Henry of your thoughts regarding the relative size of dream frogs in a more polite manner.”

For a moment both boys were silent as they worked through his statement and Winter was able to take a bite of his porridge in near peace.

Then Joseph Smith said, “I don’t believe frogs grow as big as cows.”

To which Henry Putman replied, “They do in my dreams.”

Which seemed to settle the matter.

A sudden squeal made Winter glance at the girls’ table and he noticed that Silence still hadn’t come down for breakfast. He caught Nell Jones’s eye and motioned her over.

“I believe it may be time to wake my sister.”

Nell’s blue eyes shifted down and away and Winter felt a vague sense of unease. “Um, well, as to that sir…”

“Yes?” he prompted when the maidservant seemed to have trouble finding her words.

Nell screwed tight her eyes. “She’s not here.”

Winter blinked. “What?”

“Mrs. Hollingbrook left the home the day before yesterday,” Nell said rapidly as if to get a nasty task over as quickly as possible. “And Mary Darling is with her.”

The children had begun to quiet, sensing with the animal instinct of the young when danger or excitement was around.

“Where,” Winter asked very softly, “is my sister?”

Nell gulped. “She’s gone to live at Charming Mickey O’Connor’s palace.”

SILENCE HAD JUST finished feeding Mary Darling a small bowl of porridge that morning when she heard the faint sounds of male shouting. Fionnula glanced up. Silence paused, a spoonful of the last scrapings from the bowl still held outstretched toward Mary. The toddler had lost interest in her breakfast and was busy fingering the sticky bowl, studiously ignoring the spoon.

Silence tapped her on the shoulder. “Mary, finish your porridge.”

The shouts rose again, one of them sounding familiar.

A chill went through Silence. She dropped the spoon and ran to the door.

“Ma’am, ye can’t—” Fionnula called behind her as Silence yanked open the door.

The scowling face of Bert met her gaze.

“Who is below?” she demanded.

He opened his mouth, but she was already shoving past him.

“Oi!” Bert yelled in indignation.

Silence ran down the stairs, fearful of the quiet below. What had they done with him?

She made the lower hall, skidded through the doors, and ran into a large male back, blocking her way.

“Oof!” she muttered, trying to dodge around Mickey O’Connor’s form. She just caught sight of Winter—standing very still in the middle of a pack of pirates—then Mr. O’Connor hauled her back against his chest and set his hands on her waist to hold her.

Silence inhaled sharply at his touch. The exotic scent of frankincense surrounded her. She hadn’t seen him since their argument the night before last over supper and already she seemed to have forgotten the intensity of his presence.

Winter’s mouth flattened. “Unhand my sister.”

“Eager as I am to bow to yer smallest command, Mr. Makepeace,” Mickey O’Connor drawled above her, his chest rumbling against her back, “I can’t in all good conscience do so when the lady herself hasn’t asked me.”

Winter looked at her. “Silence?”

She swallowed. Winter looked like thunder. He stood clad in his habitual somber clothes, his empty hands fisted by his side, a round, black hat on his head. Like all her brothers he preferred his dark brown hair undressed and tied back simply. The armed pirates circling him were almost comically more dangerous looking. Yet somehow he’d made it past the front door and this far into Mickey O’Connor’s well-guarded palace.

Perhaps it was a measure of Winter’s quiet authority that the pirates hadn’t stopped him.

Silence turned within the circle of Mr. O’Connor’s arms and looked up into his face. He was so close she could see each individual inky eyelash and notice the tiny wrinkles fanning from the corners of his deep brown eyes. “Let me talk to him.”

Those perceptive eyes narrowed at her—the pirate didn’t look at all happy.

“Please,” she whispered.

“As ye wish.” Mickey O’Connor spread wide his arms and looked over her head. “Five minutes, Mr. Makepeace. No longer. Ye can talk to yer lovely sister in me library.”

Mickey O’Connor has a library? For a second, Silence was distracted by the thought of this outrageously virile man bent studiously over dusty books.

The image was dashed the moment they were shown into the library, however. Naturally Mr. O’Connor would have a library like no other she’d ever imagined. It was a middling-sized room, but from the carved rosewood ceiling overhead to the thick Persian carpet underfoot, the entire place was fantastic. Ancient statuary stood about the room, no doubt plundered from ships. Here there was a Diana in flight, her hunting hounds bounding beside her. There a bust of some ancient bearded dignitary. And the books! Every surface held open books, each one fabulously illustrated. From a folio of exotic animals to a tiny prayer book, delicately illuminated in gold.

“Goodness!” Silence breathed in awe, looking around the exquisite room. “Have you ever seen such a wonderful place, Winter?” She frowned. “Though it could do with some comfortable chairs.”

“At the moment I’m a bit more interested in you than in the room, sister,” Winter said drily.

Silence flushed and looked at her brother. His straight brown brows were drawn together in worry.

She inhaled and smoothed a hand down the apron she’d put on this morning out of habit—only now did she notice that it was a bit crooked. “I’m sorry to have left the home so abruptly. I know it must have distressed you—”

“Distressed.” Winter said the word flatly.

Silence bit her lip.

“Are you being held here against your will?”

“Oh, no,” she said.

He nodded. “I’m not a man given to hysteria. If I were, I’d be bald at this moment from having torn out my hair on the way over here. Mickey O’Connor, Silence?”

His last three words were soft, but there was a wealth of meaning behind them. Winter had seen her after she’d left Mr. O’Connor the last time. He knew what had been done to her.

And he suspected much worse.

“He’s Mary Darling’s father,” she said.

His eyebrows lifted in inquiry.

“He says that Mary must stay here because she is in danger from his enemies. But he has let me stay as well, to take care of her.”

Winter closed his eyes briefly and when he opened them again they were filled with sorrow. “If the child is truly his, then you have no hold on her. You must give her up.”

“No!” She swallowed and lowered her voice. “You don’t understand. Mr. O’Connor has promised to let me have Mary Darling—let me have her forever—once his enemies are no longer a threat. Don’t you see? I can take her away from here.”

“I think I’d rather trust the word of a snake than Mr. O’Connor.”

“But—”

He stepped forward and gently touched her on the elbow. “He’s using you, sister. Perhaps he only sees you as an amusement, perhaps his plan is far worse, but in either case you can be sure of one thing: Mickey O’Connor is interested only in pleasing himself. He cares for neither you nor Mary Darling.”

“All the more reason for me to stay,” she whispered. “I love Mary, Winter. She’s as much a daughter to me as if I’d given birth to her. I wouldn’t be able to leave her here by herself even if I had no hope of eventually bringing her home. But since I do… Well, then, it’s only a matter of hanging on.”

“Your reputation will be in tatters if you stay here.”

“My reputation already is in tatters.”

“Because of him.” Winter rarely raised his voice, rarely showed emotion of any kind, but he spat the word “him” with deep loathing.

Silence’s eyes widened. She knew Winter disliked Mr. O’Connor, but she’d had no idea of the antipathy her brother held toward the pirate.

“Winter—”

“He’ll destroy you and he’ll destroy the home because of you.” Winter’s words were tight and controlled. “We cannot afford speculation about your virtue right now, sister. Think of the home if you will not think of yourself.”

She closed her eyes, feeling sick. She was letting him down, betraying his trust, but… “I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry about the home, but it’s Mary Darling, Winter. Please. She’s all that I have left.”

“Christ.” Her brother turned and walked to a bookshelf, staring blindly at the rows of expensive embossed leather spines.

For a moment there was quiet in the library.

Silence bit her lip, watching her brother. Waiting to see if she’d broken his trust irrevocably. Winter was the youngest of her brothers, the one closest to her in age—and closest to her heart.

If she hadn’t been studying him she might not have seen his shoulders lower a fraction of an inch. “I know what Mary Darling means to you, sister. I’ve witnessed your grief and the renewal of your inner joy this last year. Much of it was due to the baby. If this is the only way to keep Mary Darling, then stay.”

She sighed, opening her mouth to thank him.

Winter swung suddenly to look at her and she saw that his normally calm eyes blazed. “But I saw what Mickey O’Connor did to you. I saw the damage in your eyes. I cannot stop you from this mad plan, but do not expect me to dance with joy at the prospect of you in Mickey O’Connor’s foul hands.”

Behind them a single clap shattered the intimacy of the library.

Silence swung around.

Mickey O’Connor lounged in a narrow doorway cleverly hidden in the carved paneling. “I appreciate yer stamp o’ approval, Makepeace. It warms the cockles o’ me heart, it does.”

Winter had gone very still next to Silence and for some reason she had the feeling he was holding himself in check, keeping himself from violence only by the thinnest of threads. Silly, really. Winter was the least violent man she knew.

But she placed a restraining hand on his arm anyway. “Please.”

“I will do as you wish,” Winter said to her, though his gaze never left Mr. O’Connor’s face. “I’m leaving today, but next time I come I’ll take you with me. Until then, if you feel yourself in peril at any time, send word to me and I will come for you—night or day.”

“Yes, Winter,” she said meekly, realizing that her brother needed to feel that he had some control over the matter.

Mickey O’Connor’s black eyes slid to hers mockingly.

Fortunately, Winter didn’t seem to see the look. He bent to kiss Silence on the cheek, murmuring as he straightened, “Remember: any time.”

She nodded, unable to speak because of the lump that suddenly clogged her throat. She’d known that Winter was fond of her, but his actions today had spoken of real brotherly love: he’d stormed Mickey O’Connor’s palace by himself for her. She’d never realized that he loved her so, and suddenly she felt the paradoxical loss of something she’d not known she’d had before now. He was leaving her here—only because she asked it of him. Only because he truly loved her.

“Me men will be showin’ ye out, Makepeace,” Mr. O’Connor said, “Jus’ to make sure ye don’t get lost ’tween here and me front door.”

Winter glanced at the pirate and for a moment Silence held her breath as the men exchanged some kind of unspoken communication.

Then Winter turned and left the room.

Silence glared at Mickey O’Connor. “You didn’t need to goad him.”

“No?” The pirate straightened away from the doorway, ambling closer to her.

“No.” Silence frowned at him. “We’ve already made our bargain and I have no intention of reneging on it. Winter has only my best interests at heart. By goading him, you could’ve started a rather nasty argument.”

He shrugged. “But see, me darlin’, that’s where ye and I must disagree. Yer brother is a hard man. Had I not stood upon me principles, he’d’ve had ye out o’ here before ye could blink.”

Winter a hard man? What a very strange notion. Silence shook her head. Men could be very odd at times. She watched as Mr. O’Connor brushed his fingers idly over a huge volume of colored maps, his many rings flashing.

“I never would’ve guessed you had a room such as this,” she said.

His black eyebrows winged up his forehead in cynical amusement. “Yer sayin’ these things are too refined for a crude pirate?”

“No,” she exclaimed, although of course that had been what she meant. “I… I just thought…”

Her voice faded as she watched him trail a long finger over the tip of Diana’s nude breast.

He turned and caught her staring. “Aye, Mrs. Hollingbrook?”

Her face was aflame, but she met his gaze. Winter hadn’t backed down from this man and neither would she. “There’s no need for a room such as this.”

“No need?”

She struggled to put her thoughts into words. “Your throne room is outrageously ostentatious, but you let others see it. It’s almost a public place because you receive visitors there. The ostentation has a purpose. You intimidate with it. But this library…”

“Aye?”

“There’s no need for it because you don’t use it to impress others.”

His head was cocked as he stared at her curiously. “What a very interestin’ women ye are, Mrs. Hollingbrook. If I don’t use me library to impress, then what do I use it for, if ye don’t mind me askin’?”

“That’s just what I wondered,” she said. “Why have this library?”

The stark question seemed to catch him by surprise. He watched her a moment, hesitating, then seemed to come to a decision. He crossed to where another big book lay. Silence followed curiously, looking over his elbow as he opened the book.

An emerald beetle was revealed, perched on the stem of some exotic plant. The color was so startling, so vivid, the insect looked ready to crawl off the page.

Mickey O’Connor traced the edges of the page lightly. “One night maybe eight years or so ago, I found a book like this one in a chest taken off a ship comin’ from the West Indies.”

“You mean you stole it,” Silence said severely.

Mickey grinned at her, flashing strong white teeth. “Belonged to one o’ them plantation owners over there, I hear. Man who owned hundreds o’ slaves laborin’ to grow his sugar and make him his fortune. Aye, I stole from one such as he, and not a night’s sleep have I ever lost over it.”

Silence looked back down at the illustrated book. She certainly didn’t approve of thieving, but then again she didn’t approve of the trade of human beings, either. “You said you, uh, found a book like this one eight years ago.”

“Aye,” he said, returning his own gaze to the emerald beetle. “Found it, and opened it, and was amazed. I’d never seen such, ye understand. It was filled with pictures o’ butterflies. Butterflies aren’t exactly plentiful in the parts o’ London I grew up in, and butterflies such as these”—his elegant fingers caressed the page as if remembering—“well, it almost makes a man believe in God, it does.”

Silence swallowed. She’d been raised in London as well, but there had been trips to parks and outings to Greenwich and other towns. She’d seen butterflies and more—tame deer, wild birds, lovely gardens, and flowers. What kind of boyhood had he had never to have seen a butterfly?

“Where were you raised in London?” she asked softly.

“St. Giles,” he said, still tracing the gilt pages. “Not more’n a stone’s throw from here.”

She tried to picture him as a boy. He’d have been beautiful, of course, lean and graceful. The thought made her uneasy. Beautiful youths didn’t last long in St. Giles. “You lived with your family?”

“Me mam… and him.”

She frowned at the emphasis on the last word. Was he talking about his father—or another man? She glanced at him, but ended up asking the easier question. “Do your parents still live in St. Giles?”

He gave her an ironic look and closed the big picture book. Obviously he had no intention of answering her.

Irritating man. She looked around the little library. “Which book is it?”

“What?”

She gestured to the overflowing bookshelves. “Where is your butterfly book?”

He shook his head. “I don’t keep it here.”

“But then—”

“What a curious thing ye are.” He turned to place the book on a shelf.

She inhaled, feeling frustrated. “What is it you want from me?”

When he turned, his face had gone blank. “What makes ye think I want anythin’ from ye, me darlin’?”

But she wasn’t going to let him slide away from this question. She took a step closer and he made a movement almost as if he would retreat from her. “You didn’t have to give Mary Darling to me. Didn’t have to involve me in your life at all. What is it you’re doing?”

He glanced away from her, a muscle clenching in his jaw. “I’m protectin’ ye and the babe, nothin’ more. All ye have to do is stay in yer rooms and be content.”

Stay in her rooms? Be content? Silence’s eyes widened incredulously. “Do I look like a doll to you?”

His eyelids lowered, his beautiful black lashes sweeping his cheeks before he glanced back up at her again. “Nay, yer a lovely woman, ye are. I’d not be mistakin’ ye for any playthin’.”

Her lips parted at his intimate tone.

His sensuous mouth curved at her confusion. “Supper’s early tonight—seven o’ the clock, mind. I trust we’ll be graced with yer lovely presence.”

Silence stiffened. He wouldn’t catch her off guard so easily. “On the contrary, I have no intention of dining with you, Mr. O’Connor.”

The smile was abruptly gone from his face, leaving it rather frighteningly grim. “Then ye’ll fast in yer rooms, me darlin’, until ye can see fit to change yer mind.”

And with that he pivoted and strode from the room.

Contents

FRONT COVER IMAGE

WELCOME

ENCHANTED BY FAIRY TALES

CLEVER JOHN

A Preview of SCANDALOUS DESIRES