Scandalous Desires (23 page)

“Mo’!” Mary urged as soon as Silence paused in the bouncing game. “Mo’! Mo’!
Mo’!
”

“Oh, sweetheart, I think the horsey is quite tired out,” Silence said as she put Mary down.

Mary fretted and then began making her way along the stuffed chair Silence sat on. She was heading to the fireplace, knowing full well that she was forbidden the alluring delights of the fire.

Silence pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes and cast about for a distraction. “Here, Mary. What do you think of this?” She opened her sewing kit on the floor.

The baby quickly dropped to her hands and knees and crawled over.

“Yer lettin’ her play with yer needles?” Fionnula asked doubtfully from the door.

Silence looked up gratefully. “Oh, thank goodness, you brought tea. I was running out of things to do with her.”

“I can see that,” the maid said as she set down the tea tray.

“Well, it was better than the fireplace,” Silence muttered, extracting Mary’s busy fingers from a small skein of mending thread.

The thread was hopelessly tangled. Silence stared at it as Fionnula set the baby down and gave her some toast and a small cup of milk.

“Mary’s just so bored here,” Silence murmured. She was bored as well, she realized. Silence had spent the last several months running a busy orphanage, work that kept her occupied from sunup to well past sundown. She simply wasn’t used anymore to sitting and doing nothing.

On that thought she looked at Fionnula hopefully. “Is Mr. O’Connor at home today, do you know?”

“Saw him goin’ into his room just now.” Fionnula nodded at the connecting door.

“Really?” Silence rose and crossed to the connecting door and knocked.

The door was opened almost at once.

Michael leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb, a wicked smile playing about his sensuous lips. He was so very big this close—every time it surprised her and made her breathless. “Well, now, and when did ye decide to start knockin’ at me door?”

Silence fought to keep her face from flaming as she remembered the
last
time she’d peeked through Michael’s door.

She swallowed. “We’re bored.”

“Is that so?” Michael glanced down.

Silence followed his gaze and saw that Mary had crawled over to investigate. The baby grabbed a handful of her skirt and stood up. She kept one hand on Silence’s skirt and popped two fingers from the other into her mouth as she stared solemnly at Michael.

“She looks a rare treat,” Michael said softly, watching the toddler.

Silence smiled down at Mary. “She does indeed.”

She glanced up and her heart squeezed at the gentle look on Michael’s face.

As if she understood she was the subject of conversation, Mary lifted her arms—to Michael. “Up!”

Michael arched an eyebrow. “Mouthy little thing, ain’t she?”

But he bent and lifted the toddler.

Mary Darling looked so small in his arms. The pirate cradled her body against his chest, her face on a level with his.

Mary stared into his eyes and then took her fingers out of her mouth and poked him in the chin.

Silence caught her breath, but Michael merely laughed. “Bored, sweetin’? We’ll have to do somethin’ about that, won’t we?”

He turned and started back into his room.

“Where are you going?” Silence asked as she hurried to catch up.

“Always demandin’ answers, isn’t she?” Michael murmured to the baby.

Mary looked back over his shoulder. “Mamoo.”

“Aye, yer mamoo,” Michael drawled as he opened the door to the corridor. “A lovely lady, I must admit, but a worrier, too, wouldn’t ye agree?”

Mary had her fingers back in her mouth, listening to this blather very seriously, but she took out her fingers to point to Harry and Bert, standing guard in the corridor. “ ’Ert!”

For some reason Mary had taken a liking to the cantankerous man.

“Aye, Harry and ‘’Ert’ shall come with us, as well,” Michael said to her, nodding to the two men.

The guards looked at each other and then fell into step behind Silence.

She lifted her skirts to lengthen her stride—Michael’s long legs were eating up the corridor.

“Now, I always find a bit o’ fresh air quite invigoratin’,” Michael continued. “Mind, we can’t have ye out in the open—too many bad men about, see? But we do have a bit o’ fresh air at the back of the house.”

He came to a stairs and clattered down them, the trailing parade following. The stairs opened up into the
kitchen and Archie the cook turned in surprise at their entrance.

But Mary Darling wasn’t paying attention to the cook. “Goggie!” she exclaimed, holding both hands out urgently to Lad, who’d been dozing by the fire.

“By all means,” Michael replied amicably, as if he and Mary were having a conversation. “Let’s bring the mutt with us, as well. He’s almost presentable now that he stinks o’ roses.”

The whole procession—Lad included—tromped into a small courtyard.

Silence looked around. The courtyard was paved excepting for a lone patch of dry earth in the middle. On all four sides it was bordered by tall brick buildings. Opposite the door to the kitchen was an ancient arched tunnel through the lower part of one of the buildings.

“Where does that lead?” Silence asked.

Michael glanced at the tunnel. “It lets out on an alley. No need to worry. There’s a gate on the other and two guards in the tunnel.”

Silence nodded, watching as Michael placed Mary down next to a wooden bench set against a wall. “Have you always had to live like this?”

“Like what?” he asked.

Mary was already making her way determinedly toward Lad.

“This.” Silence waved a hand about the courtyard. “With guards and high walls and constant vigilance?”

He straightened and looked at her. Bert and Harry had followed Mary like lumbering nursemaids, attempting to keep her from poking Lad in the eye. She and Michael were, for a moment, by themselves in a corner of the courtyard.

“No.” Michael turned his face up. It was near noon and the sun was straight overhead, shining down into the little courtyard. But in an hour or so, the tall walls on either side would shield the sunshine. Only in the middle of the day was the courtyard lit thus.

“What happened?” she asked softly.

He shrugged restlessly. “The more power a man has, the more enemies he takes on, as well, I’ve found.”

“Really?” She frowned down at the cobblestones beneath her feet. “Have you ever thought that it may not be worth it? Your stealing?”

He cast an ironic glance her way. “And will ye be reformin’ me now, me darlin’?”

She pursed her lips at his mockery, but lifted her chin to look him in the eye. “You have piles of riches—I’ve seen them.”

“A man may never have too many riches.” His mouth firmed irritably.

“Of course he may,” she said. “You have enough to feed and clothe and house yourself and your men, what more do you need?”

His eyes narrowed. “Easy for one who’s never been without to say.”

She paused at that. It was true that she’d never gone hungry. But Mickey O’Connor had riches stacked in his palace! “Surely you no longer need to steal?”

“I could become a fat farmer, d’ye mean?”

“No.” She couldn’t even picture him as a country squire, fat or otherwise. “But there must be some other work you could take up?”

“Such as?” he asked silkily. “Would ye make me a shipbuilder?”

Well, that was a ridiculous idea.

“I don’t know!” She planted her hands on her hips in exasperation. “But the life you lead is dangerous. Surely you realize this. It’s only a matter of time before one of your enemies finds you—or you’re brought before a magistrate for thievery. Why not leave this life while you can?”

“Worried about me, darlin’?” His words were flippant, but his look wasn’t. For a moment Silence thought she saw vulnerability deep in those black eyes. Then he looked away. “Ah, best not to worry for me, m’love. I’m a pirate and a pirate has but one end in this world.”

“What’s that?” she whispered, feeling dread.

A corner of his mouth kicked up. “Why, the end o’ a rope, what else?”

Silence shivered, though the sun’s rays were warm in the courtyard. She imagined him swinging from a hangman’s rope, his strong, lean body jerking in the throes of death. Something inside her couldn’t bear the thought. Michael O’Connor had once been her enemy. No one had ever hurt her as deeply as he had. What he’d done to her—to William and their marriage—could never be forgiven.

But that was before. Before she’d come to know him, before he’d come to know her, for that matter. She knew that he might be a very dangerous pirate at the present, but once upon a time he’d been only a boy, small and vulnerable and with no one to take care of him.

The fact was that some part of her would wither away should Michael O’Connor leave this world.

Silence wrapped her arms about herself. “That’s it, then? You’ll simply wait to be caught and hung?”

Michael cocked his head. “Oh, there’s no waitin’ about
it, love. I’m livin’ a full and happy life, in case ye haven’t noticed.”

“Are you?” She watched as Harry threw a wooden ball he’d produced from somewhere on his person. Both Mary Darling and Lad started after the ball. “You have your men and your riches, but you have no family, do you? Is that all that you want out of life?”

He didn’t answer.

She turned to find him watching her intently.

Silence lifted her chin. “Well, do you?”

He shrugged. “ ’Tis well enough for many a man.”

“It seems very lonely to me.”

“Does it?” He stepped closer. “What about yerself, Silence, m’love? Ye talk about me family but what family d’ye have o’ yer own?”

She looked at him in astonishment. “What do you mean? I have quite a large family. My sisters, my brothers, and my nephews and nieces.”

Michael nodded. “Ye’ve brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews. But ye don’t have a husband or children.”

Silence tilted her chin. “I have Mary Darling.”

“Is she enough?” He leaned over her until she could feel the heat from his body. “Someday she’ll grow up. She’ll find a man o’ her own and live apart from ye. Ye’ll be alone. Is that what ye want?”

Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes and she looked away. “I had a man—a dear, good husband.”

“And now ye do not.” There was no trace of compassion in his voice. “Will ye mourn him forever? Wear this dingy black until ye die yerself?”

He reached out and flicked the starched white collar of her gown.

She hunched a shoulder against him. He was too close, asking questions that made her too uncomfortable. “I loved William. You cannot understand it, I think, but he was my true love. The love of my life. I don’t hope to ever find another love such as he in this lifetime.”

She’d said the words so many times, the syllables were worn into her soul. She didn’t even have to think what they meant anymore. But were they still true? She shook her head in confusion. She didn’t want to be having this conversation with anyone, let alone Michael.

But his deep voice was relentless. “And without this true love ye’ll let yerself wither away, is that it, darlin’?”

“As I said, I don’t expect you to understand—”

“And I don’t,” he cut in. “Ye ask how I can live a life that I know will end with the hangman’s noose. Well, at least I
am
alive. Ye might as well have climbed inside yer husband’s coffin and let yerself be buried with his corpse.”

Her hand flashed out before she’d thought about it, the smack against his cheek loud in the little courtyard.

Silence had her eyes locked with Michael’s, her chest rising and falling swiftly, but she was aware that Bert and Harry had looked up. Even Mary and Lad had paused in their play.

Without taking his gaze from hers, Michael reached out and grasped her hand. He raised her hand to his lips and softly kissed the center of her palm.

He looked at her, her hand still at his lips. “Don’t take to yer grave afore yer time, Silence, m’love.”

Her heart was beating so fast that she was breathless. She could feel each exhale he made on her palm.

“He has no grave,” she whispered inanely. “He died at sea and his body lies there beneath the waves.”

“I know, love,” he said tenderly. “I know.”

Then the tears overflowed her eyes, there in the sunlight in the little courtyard. Silence squeaked, embarrassed and helpless, and felt him pull her against his chest.

“There, there, sweetin’,” he murmured into her hair.

“He loved me, he truly did,” she gasped.

“I know he did,” Michael said.

“And I loved him.”

“Mm-hmm.”

She raised her head, glaring angrily. “You don’t even believe in love. Why are you agreeing with me?”

He laughed.

“Because”—he leaned down and licked at the tears on her cheeks, his lips brushing softly against her sensitive skin as he spoke, “ye’ve bewitched and bespelled me, my sweet Silence, didn’t ye know? I’ll agree that the sky is pink, that the moon is made o’ marzipan and sugared raisins, and that mermaids swim the muddy waters o’ the Thames, if ye’ll only stop weepin’. Me chest breaks apart and gapes wide open when I see tears in yer pretty eyes. Me lungs, me liver, and me heart cannot stand to be thus exposed.”