The oilcloth fell away in his hands to reveal a slim volume, the leather dark with age, gilt decorating the cover, but no title. Mick turned the book over in his hands before opening it. Within were finely written pages—in a language he could not decipher. He turned a couple of pages and came upon a tiny, exquisite illustration.
Mick’s eyebrows arched and he smiled.
He rewrapped the little book carefully and stuck it into an inner pocket in his coat. Then he continued looking about the room.
Ten minutes later he’d found nothing more interesting than an amazing array of clay pipes. Mick left the captain’s quarters and went up on deck. He’d taught his men to be swift when they went raiding and he wasn’t disappointed now: Bran stood overseeing the removal of several barrels into the waiting boats.
“Almost done?” Mick asked as he came up to Bran.
“Aye.” The boy turned to grin. “We got nearly all the tobacco.”
“Good.” The Fairweather’s captain would pay a steep price for his greed. Mick tossed another small bag to the waiting guards. They looked none too bright, but if they had any sense they’d be gone by the time the captain came on board tomorrow. “Then let’s away.”
Bran nodded and was over the side and down the ladder in two blinks. Mick followed, feeling the boat dip under his weight as he stepped in. He gestured and the wherrymen shoved away from the Fairweather.
The puny moon shed little light on the water and they rowed in near darkness, the only sound the dip of the oars into the river. Still, as Mick neared the dock, something made him peer intently into the gloom. All looked the same as when they’d left it only a half hour before—a few barrels squatted together in the shadows, a tumbling-down warehouse looming behind. There was nothing to alarm him, yet he felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck.
Then something moved behind one of the barrels.
“Ambush!” Mick roared as he drew one of his pistols.
His shot coincided with one from the dock and the wherryman in front of him slumped over the oars, blood pouring from a hole in his head. Suddenly the night was lit with the sparks of gunfire. Mick fired his other pistol, then took the dead man by the arm and threw his body out of the boat.
He shoved one of his own men into position. “Row for shore, hard as ye can!”
A shout and a splash as one of his pirates went into the Thames. God willing, the man was already dead, for most of Mick’s men couldn’t swim—and drowning was a hard way to go. Mick growled and drew one of his daggers, sticking it between his teeth. Then he threw off his boots and coat and slipped over the side of the wherry like an eel.
The water was as icy as a dead woman’s kiss and smelled of the sewers that emptied into the river. No matter—he’d swum the Thames before and tasted her foul brew. Mick glided through the water, only his eyes breaking the surface, his face going numb. He made the wharf before the boats and could see now clearly their attackers. One man crouched near the water’s edge, firing from two long guns, another loading for him.
The gunman was the first to go into the river.
There was a splash and a gurgle and then the man was lost below the fetid surface. His mate stared as Mick swarmed the dock.
“Fuck,” the gun loader cried. “It’s Charmin’ Mickey ’imself!”
“How de do?” Mick grinned and stuck his knife between the man’s ribs.
The gun loader’s eyes widened a moment, but Mick hadn’t time to watch. He shoved the man—dead or alive—into the Thames’s cold embrace. When he turned back, his boats were almost at the dock, some of his men still shooting. The attackers fled into the dark.
All but one.
He was only a silhouette, standing without fear even in the midst of gunfire, and Mick sensed more than saw who he was.
“Charlie Grady,” he whispered.
“Charming Mickey.” The shadow dipped his head as if in acknowledgment. “How long will you stay in business if you lose a man or two every time you go out on a raid?”
“Fuck ye,” Mick breathed.
“The same to you,” Charlie murmured. “Oh, the same to you, Mickey O’Connor.“
Then the pirates were on the docks and Charlie Grady was gone.
“Who was that?” Bran panted by Mick’s side. “I couldn’t see in the dark. Did you know him?”
“Aye,” Mick said, his chest expanding and falling as he gulped air. “That was the Vicar o’ Whitechapel.”
BY THE TIME Mick and his men made it back to the palace, he was gritting his teeth to keep from chattering.
“Who was it?” he asked Bran as they came in the doors, trying to get a reckoning on the men he’d lost tonight. He’d sent the rest of his crew to store the barrels of tobacco and sugar. “I saw Pat Flynn, but didn’t make out the other.”
“Two others,” Bran said grimly. “Sean Flannigan went over the side and didn’t come back up again, and Mike O’Toole caught one in the face. Was dead at once.”
“Damn me,” Mick said, grimacing. Losing three of his best men in one night was enough to make him want to howl. “Pat had family, didn’t he?”
Bran nodded as they tramped through the dark halls toward the kitchen at the back of the palace. “Pat had a woman and two little girls.”
Mick shuddered, the cold shaking his bones. He’d taken off his wet shirt at the docks and put on his dry coat and boots, but the chill of the Thames seemed to have seeped to his very core. “Make sure Pat’s woman has enough to live on until she can find another man.”
Bran looked at him doubtfully. “That might take years.”
Mick shot him an evil look. “And if it do?”
Bran shrugged uneasily. “Makes no matter to me, but you’re throwing good money away—Pat’s woman would be happy with ten pounds and a pint of gin.”
Mick halted in the middle of the hall and swung on Bran. He thrust his face into the younger man’s and growled, “Pat Flynn died obeyin’ me orders. He was a good man. They all were. I’ll see them buried proper with black gloves and mourners and all. And if I want to keep his woman and children in enough style that they dine upon beef and sugarplums every night for the next three years, I’ll damn well do so.”
Bran had flushed under Mick’s diatribe. “Of course,” he said without any inflection in his voice at all. “We’ll do exactly as you wish.”
Mick narrowed his eyes. If ever he’d have a rebellion on his hands it would come from Bran. The lad was the canniest of all his men, and a natural leader as well—a fact that had made Bran Mick’s second-in-command at such a young age. Soon, Mick would have to give him more to do, guide Bran’s restless, clever mind.
But not tonight. The Vicar had made his intentions plain and Mick couldn’t afford any show of weakness—not even with Bran. The boy had to be reminded who was in charge.
“Good. See that it’s done,” Mick said, and turned to continue toward the back of the house.
Archie the cook was mopping the floor when they entered the kitchens.
“Start me some water boilin’.” Mick strode to the fire and began stripping off his wet clothes. “I want a hot bath and a fire roarin’ in me room.”
He was down to his smallclothes now and Mick took a ladle of water and began sluicing his body and hair to get the worst of the river stink out. He felt tainted, as if he stank not only from the river, but from contact with the Vicar, as well. Mick shuddered, pouring water over his head. He couldn’t let the Vicar destroy another woman. Her brown eyes had been haunted as she’d turned her tear-stained face from his. He shook away the phantom.
He wouldn’t let that happen with Silence.
Mick threw aside the ladle, caught up his coat again, and turned to the hall. God, he was tired and cold.
Cold to his very soul.
SILENCE LISTENED TO the commotion in the next room as she lay in bed that night. She and Mary Darling had been moved early this morning into a room that had a prominent door connecting it to Mickey O’Connor�
��s own room. She’d half-expected to see him all day—but apparently the pirate had been too busy with his own affairs. Only now, late at night, had Mickey O’Connor returned home.
Mary Darling was asleep in the corner, her railed cot having been brought with them. The new room was bigger and much finer than the rooms Mickey O’Connor had originally placed them in. The walls were a soft, feminine blue gray that suited her much better than the pink of the room upstairs, and an elegant arrangement of chairs stood before the fireplace.
Silence sighed and rolled over, fussing with the pillow under her head. Truth be told, she hadn’t been able to sleep because her belly was aching. She’d again refused the food that Fionnula and the guards had tried giving her today. It simply wasn’t right to put others at risk for her own needs.
Which might be true, but that lofty ideal didn’t help her hunger tonight. Silence pressed her palms to her aching stomach. She was so hungry that she’d even contemplated sneaking down to the kitchen to steal food. Her eldest sister, Verity, who had raised Silence and Temperance after Mama died, would be appalled.
Actually, Silence was appalled. Here she sat in the near dark cowering from Mickey O’Connor.
Was she a coward?
On that thought she rose and was across the room toward the connecting door almost before she could think. The sounds from the other room had stopped a while ago. Mr. O’Connor had either left or he was alone—perhaps enjoying an after-raid snack.
The thought made her stomach grumble.
Silence took a deep breath and opened the connecting door.
And then she had trouble exhaling.
Mickey O’Connor the pirate king was in the huge bath that they’d used the night before for washing Lad the dog. One arm dangled over the side of the tub, a goblet of amber liquid held carelessly in long elegant fingers. His ebony hair was wet and curling against his neck and shoulders. Those shoulders were broad, covered in smooth, olive skin, and spanned the width of the tub and more. And where before she’d thought that his chest was entirely devoid of hair, now she saw that small whirls circled his brown nipples and a thin line of hair trailed just below his naked navel, disappearing into the water where no doubt it led to other naked things.
Well, of course he was naked, Silence thought, trying to pull herself together. He was in his bath. Who took a bath fully clothed?
She had some vague idea of backing out of the room again, but he’d already seen her.
“Mrs. Hollingbrook,” the pirate drawled, taking a sip from his goblet. “I was jus’ sittin’ here wonderin’ if ye’d spent the day powderin’ and curlin’ Lad’s fur and here ye are. To what do I owe the pleasure?” His voice had suddenly assumed an upper crust English accent on the last sentence, making the words even more mocking.
Silence lifted her chin. She wasn’t going to turn tail and run from a pirate—even if he was naked. She darted a look at Lad—snoring in front of the fire—and decided it was best not to answer Mr. O’Connor’s mocking inquiry. “I’ve come to demand you tell me what is going on.”
He looked at her from under heavy eyelids. “Have ye, now?”
“I have.” She set hands upon hips. “It’s positively medieval, locking me up, refusing me food, never bothering to ask what I want or need.”
“Need,” he mused, his gaze slowly examining her form in a manner that caused her to go hot all over, “now that I’m thinkin’ we might not agree upon—what ye need—but do tell me what ye might be wantin’.”
She threw her hands up. “I want—and need—to eat!”
“Ah, but I’ve said more than once that yer welcome to sup with me.”
She was shaking her head. “You know—”
“I know that Fionnula and Harry and half me staff o’ bloody servants have seen fit to go against me by smugglin’ food to ye.” His voice suddenly held a nasty edge.
She froze, her eyes widening in fear for the others. “You can’t—”
“I can’t what?” he drawled. There was something dark in him tonight—something she’d not seen before. “I can’t turn them off, can’t toss them into the street, can’t make them disappear? The Thames is an easy place to lose a body. A man can slip beneath those dark, cold waters and sink without a trace.”
“Why are you doing this?” she whispered.
He shrugged one elegant shoulder, making the water ripple in the tub.
She took a step closer. “What happened on your raid tonight?”
He turned his face away, taking a sip from his goblet. “What a perceptive little thing ye are, Mrs. Hollingbrook. The raid went quite well, actually, thank ye for inquirin’. Got a load o’ tobacco and sugar and the only cost was the lives o’ three o’ me men.”
“My God,” she breathed. “What happened?”
He waved a hand, rings flashing. “Nothin’ to concern yerself with, I do assure ye.”
Surely it wasn’t usual for him to lose three of his men in one night? If it was, he’d be constantly recruiting more pirates. Something was wrong.
“Who were they?”
“What?”
“The pirates.” She winced and gestured rather helplessly with one hand, her voice softer. “Your men. Who were they?”
For a moment she thought he wouldn’t answer.
Then he took a long swallow from his goblet. “Pat and Mike and Sean. Not the brightest o’ me men, sure, especially Pat, but he had a family and he was always quick with a joke, was Pat.”
She waited, but he didn’t say more.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
He grimaced. “Sorry three pirates are dead? Why, Mrs. Hollingbrook, ye surprise me, ye do.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t—”
He didn’t stop to listen to her, talking over her instead. “Now then, tell me: shall I have the honor o’ yer company tomorrow night at me supper table? Shall ye dine upon sweetmeats with me, Silence, mine?”
His words sounded obscene somehow. She frowned, frustration rising in her. He wasn’t listening; it was as if she couldn’t be heard. “I’m not yours and I never gave you leave to use my Christian name.”
“Oh, but do I need leave, now?” Mickey O’Connor whispered. “Yer in me room—and not for the first time, love.”
She inhaled sharply. How dare he remind her of that night? Suddenly it was too much: the hunger, the edge of darkness in his voice, and this room—this too familiar room. No one had believed she’d been untouched after that night.
No one had heard her.
She looked at the pirate luxuriating in his bath and a great rage swelled up in her, a mixture of hunger, frustration, lost love, and fear for Mary Darling.
And scorn. Oh, there was plenty of scorn, as well.
“Do you know what you cost me?” she demanded, her voice low and trembling. “When you played your cruel game with me?”
He looked at her, but didn’t say a word. His black eyes reflected no light, fathomless and without expression. Was his heart made of stone that he could play with lives—her life—so carelessly and not feel a thing?
Silence balled her fists, trembling. “It was as if I became a cipher after that night. No one I loved believed me. You silenced me. What you did to me cost me everything I valued in life—my family’s respect, my marriage, my love.”
“And was yer marriage so perfect before ye came to me?”
She gasped, the breath catching in her breast in rage. Of course her marriage had been perfect, hadn’t it?
Hadn’t it?
“We had true love,” she said, drowning out the tiny voice of doubt in her mind.
He turned his face from her, which only made her angrier. In four strides she was beside him, kneeling on the rug next to the tub of water. She reached out and took his face in her palms, turning it so he had to look at her, his lean cheeks cool and a little rough beneath her hands.
“Yes, love.” She hissed the word like a curse. “I loved my husband, my William, and he loved me. T
hat is until that night you kept me here. You destroyed what we had as thoughtlessly as a boy pulling the wings from a butterfly.”
His wickedly sensuous upper lip pulled back in a sneer. “What is love?”
She leaned close to him. “Something you will never have. Something you’re incapable of feeling. I pity you, Mickey O’Connor, for I may have lost my true love, but at least I had him for a time. You’ll never feel love.”
His sneer had grown and his voice was low and terrible. “I may not feel love, but I do feel this.”
He grabbed her hand and thrust it beneath the bathwater.
She struggled so violently that the water splashed over her bodice and the rug, but he was stronger than she. He forced her palm down against his male part, hard and thick, and held it there as he grasped her hair with his other hand. He yanked, pulling her hair, arching her neck, and suddenly his mouth was on hers, cruel and merciless. He ground her lips against her teeth, used his hold on her hair to angle her head for his greater access. She felt the push of his tongue against her lips. For a moment she stopped fighting. She opened her mouth and let him in, hot and searching. She could taste the heady liquor on his tongue, feel the sudden gentling of his mouth as he got what he wanted. His kiss was overwhelmingly masculine. Overwhelmingly dominant.
Something clenched inside her—something primitive and needy, something that had nothing to do with love.
He groaned.
And she lurched back. Her hand came out of the water and she hit him as hard as she could across the face. The sound of the blow was loud in the room.
“No!” she cried, her heart pounding, her breasts aching. “No. You don’t have the right.”
He watched her retreat, his eyes lazy, and his body unmoving. A trickle of blood seeped slowly from the corner of his mouth. He let her get nearly out of the room before he spoke, “I may not have the right, Silence, me love,” he drawled so soft she nearly didn’t catch the words. “But I would’ve listened to ye. I would’ve believed ye.”
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….