And he found himself singing to her softly, the words coming to him as naturally as breathing.

“Take me in your arms, my love
And blow the candle out.”
Chapter Eight

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.”…

—from Clever John

Silence woke from a dream of a singing angel. He’d been tall and stern—like an angel carved in the door of a gothic church. An otherworldly being of great virtue and little sympathy. But his voice had been low and sweet, warming her from within like hot honey, making her bones liquid with relaxation—even though she’d known that the angel was a dangerous being from another world. That she ought to keep on the alert.

For a moment she lay still in the big bed, blinking sleepily, loath to move.

And then she realized that the angel’s song hadn’t stopped on her waking.

Silence sat up. The tantalizingly beautiful voice was coming from the half-open door to Mickey O’Connor’s room.

She rose, drawing a shawl about her shoulders and glanced at Mary Darling’s cot. It was empty, but she felt no alarm. She thought she might recognize that voice. Moving as quietly as she could she crept to the connecting door.

The sight within made her draw in her breath.

Mickey O’Connor stood across the room by the fireplace, his back toward her. He was clad only in tight black breeches and jackboots, his upper body nude. His broad back was a smooth olive expanse, the muscles that delineated his shoulders and arms in firm, sensuous bunches. And he was singing, his voice a wonderful, soaring tenor. She’d never heard anything so beautiful in her life. How was it possible that Mickey O’Connor, a man with a soul as black as tar, should have a voice the angels would envy?

He half-turned suddenly and she saw that he cradled Mary Darling to his strong chest. The little girl’s pink cheek was laid trustingly against him, her eyes closed in sleep. His hand moved gently in her inky curls, stroking her soothingly.

Silence must have made some sound at the sight. His eyes flashed to hers, yet he never stopped singing.

“My father and my mother
In yonder room do lay
They are embracing one another
And so may you and I
So take me in your arms, my love
And blow the candle out.”
She felt her face heat at his words, even though they were part of his song. He didn’t mean them for her. They were merely the words to an old ballad.

She knew that, yet she couldn’t tear her gaze from his. His dark eyes seemed to be telling her something, something apart from the song he sang so beautifully. She lifted a hand to her belly and pressed to still the trembling there.

His song died on a low, liquid note and he continued to stare at her.

Silence cleared her throat, fearful her voice would come out a croak. “Is she asleep?”

He blinked as if he, too, were waking from a dream, and glanced down at Mary Darling. “Aye, I’m a-thinkin’ she is—she’s stopped fussin’ at me.”

Silence felt a huge smile of relief spread over her face. “She was fussing? Oh, how wonderful!”

He shot her a look, one eyebrow arching. “Ye’ve taught the child to bully me, too, now?”

“Oh, no,” she said hastily, embarrassed. Did he really think she bullied him? What a silly notion! “It’s just that she’d been so listless. If she’s well enough to fret, then she must be feeling better.”

“Ah.” He glanced down at the baby’s head, his look nearly tender. “Then I’ll rejoice when she starts bawlin’ again at the top o’ her lungs.”

“You should,” Silence said as she crossed to him and gently took the sleeping baby. Mary mumbled something and snuggled against her bosom. Silence examined her anxiously. Mary’s cheeks were pink, but they weren’t the hectic red of before and her little body no longer felt as if it burned. Oh, thank God.

Silence looked up grinning. “I know I will. Far better a screaming baby than one that’s too quiet.”

“Aye,” he said, watching them with a somber light in his eyes. “I can well believe ye.”

She gazed down at Mary’s sleeping head, avoiding his eyes. She should leave his room, but she was oddly reluctant to do so. “You have a beautiful voice.”

He snorted. “Do I now?”

She looked up at him, puzzled by his dismissive tone. “You must know you do.”

He grimaced. “Aye, I suppose I do at that. I spent enough time when I was a lad singin’ for me supper.” He caught her questioning look. “When there was naught in the cupboard, me mam would take me down to the street corner. She’d lay a handkerchief on the ground at our feet and we’d sing for pennies. It might take minutes or hours or all day afore we had enough to buy our supper.”

Silence swallowed. He talked of begging for food so cavalierly, yet she knew now that the experience must’ve scarred him terribly. “How old were you?”

He cocked his head as if considering. “I don’t rightly know. One o’ me earliest memories is going to the corner on a freezin’ night in winter.”

“How awful!”

He looked at her sardonically. “There be worse ways to make a penny.”

She bit her lip. There were indeed worse ways in St. Giles to make money. So many came to London from the English countryside, from Scotland and Ireland and even from the continent. There were far too many for the jobs available. She sometimes saw the women coming home in the morning after a night of walking the streets. And it wasn’t just women who walked the streets. There were children, too, of both sexes.

Silence peeked at Mickey O’Connor from under her eyelashes. He was beautiful, his eyes dark and sensuous, his mouth mobile, his hair thick and black. He would’ve been a lovely child—too lovely.

“You’re Irish,” Silence blurted out and then felt the heat rise in her cheeks. The Irish were numerous in London—and almost universally despised.

He smiled, dimples creasing the corners of his mouth. “Aye, me mam came from Ireland lookin’ for work. She was one o’ ten children to a widowed mother, or so she told me. I never met me Irish kin. She came over alone.” He bent his head as he donned the shirt he’d taken from the back of a nearby chair. “ ’Tis a far cry from yer own family, I’ll wager.”

She nodded. “My father’s family has lived in London for generations. My mother’s people came from Dorset and live there still, though we don’t often see them.”

“Ye’ve a sister and a brother, I know,” he said.

“Two sisters and three brothers, actually,” she replied, smiling a little. “I’m the youngest of six children. There’s Verity—she brought up Temperance and me when our mother died, then Concord who took over Father’s brewery on his death. Both are married with families of their own now. Asa is my next brother, but I don’t know exactly what he does—he’s something of the black sheep of the family. Temperance used to run the Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children before she married Lord Caire, and Winter is the next youngest above me.”

She stopped suddenly, a little out of breath. He probably thought her a ninny for prattling on about her family. It occurred to her that although her family was not rich, compared to his, she’d been quite well off. Further, in his world—a world of beggars and thieves—he had risen quite far. In his own way, Mickey O’Connor was a successful man.

“Ye’d a happy childhood.” The comment was a statement of fact, but she had the feeling that the idea was a foreign one for him. Dear Lord, what might his childhood have been like?

“Yes, I was happy,” she said simply. “My father was strict, but he loved all his children and made sure we each were properly educated. We may not have been rich, yet we never lacked for food or clothing.”

He nodded, unsurprised. “He was a good provider.”

“What of your family?” she asked tentatively. “What did your mother do when she came to London?”

He shrugged. “Afore I was born I’ve heard that she was a spinner for a time.”

“And then?” Silence whispered.

He looked at her, his face devoid of expression. “And then she met a monster.”

Silence covered Mary’s little head with her hand as if to shield her. How bad would a person have to be for a river pirate to consider him a monster?

Mickey’s beautiful mouth had twisted into a terrible snarl, his voice ragged and low. “She fell under his spell, this monster, for he was a silver-tongued man and knew well how to hide his evil. Hide it until she was too entangled in his web to free herself. He took her and made her his, blindin’ her so that she could never look entirely away from his dark eyes, never think without his voice in her head. He had a still and she helped him make gin. When the still wasn’t makin’ money, she’d whore herself for him, spendin’ nights on the streets and turnin’ out her pocket to him when she came home again. Sometimes he sent her out on the streets even when there was money, and she went without protest, so under his spell was she. ’Twas his way of keepin’ her firmly beneath his fist. Keepin’ her bewitched.”

“And your father?” she asked bravely. Had he been born from one of his mother’s nights walking the street?

He simply looked at her with those beautiful black eyes and did not reply.

MICK WATCHED THE color drain from Silence’s face. Was she simply repulsed by his poverty-ridden upbringing and the fact that his mother had been a whore? Or had she some little care for him? A tiny bit of sympathy for the devil himself?

She stood before him clad only in a worn chemise and equally worn shawl, cradling the baby in her arms. He’d grown enormously erect in the last few minutes, simply from staring at her. He’d donned his shirt, but left it untucked from his breeches in feeble disguise. Silence’s chemise hung only to her calves. Her lower legs were smooth and delicately shaped. He could just make out—if he squinted hard—the shadowed outline of her thighs. He fancied he could see a dark triangle as well, but that was probably the product of his over-heated brain. Still, his cock didn’t seem to care between reality and fantasy.

Did she have no sense of self-preservation? he wondered, suddenly irritable. She knew what he was, his unremorseful cruelty, and yet she stood before him only half-clad and as innocently unaware as a lamb. Except that wasn’t the entire truth. His gaze dropped to the child’s curly black hair. Silence had been worried about the baby. It was her love for the child that made her vulnerable and he had an urge to protect that—both the woman and the maternal love she held.

That love within her was more precious than all the gold in his throne room.

“I-I had no idea how awful your childhood was,” she said.

He blinked and had to think to remember the conversation they’d been engaged in. “No matter. Me tale is one that’s often told in St. Giles.”

“But it shouldn’t be. Your mother should’ve protected you.” He chanced a glance and saw she was nibbling on her bottom lip, her eyes uncertain. He nearly groaned.

He arched a mocking eyebrow. “The way of the world, isn’t it? Children are born from sin and learn to look to themselves as soon as they can walk. Why should me childhood be any different?”

“Because we aren’t animals,” she said simply. “You deserved better.”

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