Chapter Six

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….

—from Clever John

Mick woke the next morning to the sound of Lad retching by the fireplace.

“Don’t ye dare!” Mick growled, lunging up.

Lad stood frozen on the hearth, tail between his legs, and tiny triangle ears flat to his head. The dog rolled his eyes at Mick.

Mick narrowed his. “Heave in me room, ye damned dog, and I’ll spit ye and serve ye to the crew tonight for supper.”

Lad whimpered and lay down.

Mick sighed and flopped back onto his pillows. A far cry this was from how he’d used to wake in his bedroom. No scented female flesh to warm his bed, only a sick mongrel on the hearth.

And the memory of his kiss with Silence Hollingbrook last night. Aye, and he hadn’t acted the gentleman, had he? No, he’d seized and taken and he would not regret his actions in the light of day, for the kiss had been sweet and hot and all that he’d imagined that a kiss with Silence would be.

Well, not quite all. In his lusty thoughts such a kiss hadn’t ended with her hitting him—nor stomping from the room. No, in his dreams, there’d been much more than that almost chaste meeting of lips. Enough to make his already stiff John Thomas twitch with interest.

He winced, feeling an ache in his arms from the unexpected swim last night. He needed to deal with the Vicar and soon, but first there was the matter of Silence Hollingbrook and her stomach. Harry had kept him informed and the maddening woman hadn’t eaten all yesterday—despite being smuggled food. Perhaps she thought she was protecting the servants or perhaps she was refusing food in some sort of ridiculous protest against living with him. Or perhaps she was simply not eating to irritate him—and if that were so, well it was certainly working.

Women were something best bought, he’d found. Pay them, fuck them, and send them away in the morning. That way avoided tears, recriminations, and feminine disappointment. Oh, and small things like being slapped across the face. Mick rubbed his jaw. But Silence wasn’t one of his whores, as Harry had pointed out. Mick couldn’t send her away. And he couldn’t let her starve herself—he wouldn’t let anyone hurt her, including herself.

Which meant that much as it went against his instincts, he would have to take the risk of drawing her closer. Letting her in, just a tad, mind.

Mick O’Connor never admitted defeat, never backed down, but he might choose to change his plans, should he come head to head with a stubborn widow bent on hurting herself for whatever reason.

The course he’d originally taken with her was not working. Time to take a different tack.

SILENCE WAS DRESSING Mary Darling for the day when the door opened behind her.

The baby looked up and frowned. “Bad!”

Which was warning enough, Silence supposed.

She inhaled and turned to face Mickey O’Connor, biting her lip against the memory of that savage kiss last night.

He had closed the door behind him and was leaning against the wall, his frown nearly identical to Mary Darling’s. “Will she ever find another name to call me, d’ye think?”

“I don’t know,” Silence said with commendable calm. If he wouldn’t mention the kiss, well, then neither would she. “It might depend on if you ever call Mary something else besides ‘she.’ ”

He grunted and shoved away from the wall. “Fair enough.”

She watched him cross to the hearth and stare broodingly into the fire. Fionnula had gone down to fetch Mary’s breakfast, so they were alone for the moment. “What did you come for?”

“Forgiveness?” he murmured.

She blinked, not sure if she’d heard him correctly. “What?”

“Yer not what I expected, ye know.” The curl of his lips seemed self-mocking. “I thought ye’d sit in yer room and knit or do needlework. Come when called, go away when bidden. Upset me fine life not at all.”

Her lips firmed in irritation, but she merely said, “You obviously haven’t seen either my knitting or my needlework.”

“No,” he said. “I haven’t. There’s much about ye I don’t know.”

She shrugged, feeling restless—and hungry. She hadn’t eaten anything since before yesterday. “Does it matter?”

“Aye,” he said slowly. “I think it does in fact.”

She stared at him, nonplussed. Why would he care to know her?

As if he’d heard her thoughts, he shook his head. “Don’t let it bother ye. ’Tis me own worry and none o’ yers. I came with two purposes. The first is to give ye this.”

He strode forward and proffered an oilcloth-wrapped bundle.

Silence took it gingerly.

“Gah!” Mary stood and grabbed her arm, looking on curiously as Silence unwrapped a fine little book with gilt edges.

“Gentle,” Silence chided as the baby grabbed for the prize. “We must be careful. See?”

She opened the book and then gasped herself when she found an exquisite little illustration. Tiny men sailed, crowded on a ship with a square crimson sail on a sea with towering cobalt waves.

“D’ye like it?” Mickey O’Connor’s voice was gruff.

“It’s lovely.” She glanced up at him and was surprised to see an expression of uncertainty on his face.

He shrugged, the expression replaced with his usual insouciance. “I thought ye and the babe might find it entertainin’.”

“Thank you.”

He nodded curtly and moved to the door. “Me other purpose in comin’ was to ask ye to attend me supper tonight. No”—he cut her off as she was about to reply—“don’t give me yer answer now. Jus’… think on it will ye? Please?”

She stared. Had Mickey O’Connor ever begged anyone in his entire life?

He grinned, quick and rueful. “Oh, aye, the pigs’ll be flyin’ today, so I’ve heard.”

And then he was gone.

“Well.” Silence looked at Mary—just in time to rescue the beautiful little book from a curious taste.

Mary was still squawking her indignation when Fionnula came in the room a minute later, laden with a heavy tray.

“Oh, ma’am,” she said, “Himself has ordered breakfast for ye!”

And while Silence watched in bemusement Fionnula began setting out a sumptuous breakfast. She’d never have thought that Mickey O’Connor would give in. He was a pirate—a cruel, unyielding pirate—and nothing else.

Wasn’t he?

ISABEL BECKINHALL, BARONESS Beckinhall, stepped from the carriage that afternoon and immediately saw a half-naked wretch lying in the gutter.

She shuddered. “Amelia, darling, are you sure this is the place?”

“Quite sure,” Lady Caire said briskly. She exited the carriage with the help of a brawny and impossibly handsome footman, then waved a hand. “Disregard the less attractive sights.”

Isabel glanced about the awful neighborhood ruefully. “If I did there would be nothing at all that I might look at. Whyever did you situate the home here?”

Amelia sighed. “The orphans come mostly from St. Giles, so the area is inescapable. The building however is not. Unfortunately, we are still waiting for the new home to be completed. We hope in another month or so it will be.”

She sailed ahead to a miserable little door in an equally miserable building.

Isabel sighed and picked up her skirts to carefully follow. This was her first time attending the Ladies’ Syndicate for the Benefit of the Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children and she was beginning to think it would be her last. But Amelia had been quite persistent that Isabel join the syndicate. Amelia herself had been, along with Lady Hero Reading, one of the first lady patronesses of the home and she was rather enthusiastic about the endeavor.

Isabel glanced fondly at her friend. They were not close in age—Amelia would die a thousand deaths before she revealed her years, but since her son was in the latter part of his thirties, she couldn’t very well deny that she was well past her fifth decade. Isabel in contrast was but two and thirty.

Despite the disparity in their ages, though, they had much in common. Both ladies had married young and subsequently buried their older husbands. It was true that Isabel suspected from small hints here and there that Amelia’s marriage had not been nearly as happy as her own to her dear Edmund, but Edmund and the late Baron Caire did have one thing in common: they’d both been quite ridiculously rich. And while both titles and estates had been inherited after their deaths—in Edmund’s case by a distant, much younger cousin—both men had left their widows very well off.

Which was why Isabel was about to attend a meeting of the Ladies’ Syndicate for the Benefit of the Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children today. There didn’t seem to be much in the way of requirements to join the Ladies’ Syndicate, but wealth was definitely encouraged.

The door to the wretched house was opened abruptly by a stern-looking child of about thirteen. She made a very nice curtsy. “Good morning, my lady.”

Amelia permitted herself a small, approving smile. “Good morning, Mary Whitsun. Isabel, this is Miss Mary Whitsun, the eldest orphan at the home and a great help to both Mr. Makepeace, the manager, and his sister, Mrs. Hollingbrook, the manageress. Mary, this is Lady Beckinhall.”

Isabel smiled. “Mary.”

“I’m very pleased to meet you, my lady,” Mary said carefully as she dipped into another curtsy. She darted a glance at Amelia who gave an encouraging nod.

With this approval, Mary smiled and suddenly her grave little face lit up. She had rich, dark hair and a lovely creamy complexion. Once she’d grown past her adolescent gawkiness, she’d be a beauty if Isabel was any judge.

“Won’t you come in?” Mary said in that same solemn voice.

They entered a hallway so narrow that the two could walk abreast only with difficulty. Isabel winced at the cracked and falling plaster on the walls. She could understand why a new building was needed.

Mary led them up two flights of stairs and into a windowless room.

“This is usually the children’s classroom,” Amelia said, “but Mr. Makepeace has graciously let us use it for our meetings once a week.”

“I see,” Isabel murmured, looking around at the cramped little room. Three other ladies were already in attendance, sitting in rather rickety chairs.

“I know,” Amelia whispered, as if reading her mind, “ ’tisn’t the most comfortable of places, but we—Lady Hero and I—thought that it best to meet where we could also immediately receive reports from Mr. Makepeace and also inspect the children, the premises, et cetera. Ah, Hero.”

Amelia broke off to press cheeks with a tall young woman. “Hero, this is Lady Beckinhall. You remember Lady Hero, do you not, Isabel?”

“Of course. Lady Hero’s cousin, Miss Bathilda Picklewood and I are friends.” Isabel dipped in a curtsy as the other lady did, as well. Lady Hero wore an elegant silver and lavender gown, setting off her gorgeous light red hair. “Congratulations on your recent nuptials, my lady.”

Lady Hero’s pale cheeks pinkened. “Thank you, Lady Beckinhall. May I introduce you to my sister, Lady Phoebe Batten?”

The girl was not much more than a child, a plump little creature with a squint. She was obviously terribly near-sighted, poor thing. Still, she smiled cheerfully as she dipped into a curtsy. “I am pleased to meet you, my lady.”

Isabel nodded to the chit with a smile.