Scandalous Desires

Page 24

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.”…
—from Clever John
Silence savored the exotic taste of the artichoke as she listened to Mickey O’Connor’s deep, velvet voice talk about creamy centers.
She swallowed and looked down at the artichoke petals piled neatly on the side of her plate. Her center certainly felt like it was melting, growing soft and wet just from the rasp of Mr. O’Connor’s voice. Why should a man already devilishly handsome also have a voice that could charm birds from the sky? It simply wasn’t fair. And, goodness! Surely he didn’t mean what his words conjured in her too heated mind? Silence took a hasty sip of red wine, casting about desperately for something—anything—to say.
“Did your mother name you Mickey?” she asked.
He blinked as if he were startled by the change of subject matter.
“I… I mean, well…” She inhaled, gathering her thoughts into a semblance of order. “It’s from Michael, isn’t it? Did she christen you Mickey or Michael?”
His mouth twitched as if he knew she was desperately trying to break the tension between them. “Well, now, I doubt very much that holy water ever touched me infant head, but me mam did name me Michael, sure enough.”
“It’s a lovely name, Michael.”
“Is it, now?” he asked skeptically.
She nodded, tearing apart a piece of bread. “Saint Michael is one of the archangels. He bears a sword and leads the army of God.”
“A militant fellow, then.”
She nodded. “In the Book of Revelations he battles the Devil and all his minions and they are thrown out from Heaven.”
Mickey’s lips pursed, his dark eyes sardonic. “Not so very like me.”
“I don’t know…” Silence frowned. “After all, Saint Michael must be very hard, very fierce. He’s a warrior who metes out God’s justice. He did defeat the Devil, after all. In some ways he must be not unlike the Devil.”
He chuckled.
Silence glanced up, horrified. “Is that blasphemy?”
He shrugged. “Ye ask the Devil to point out blasphemy?”
“I told you, you aren’t the Devil at all,” Silence muttered distractedly. “In fact, you may just be a very frightening angel.”
He threw back his head and laughed at her earnest statement, drawing surreptitious glances from his pirates.
He grinned at her when he’d calmed. “Don’t matter. I’m not the one to judge blasphemy.” He leaned back in his chair, cocking his head to study her. “Besides, ye know that given the chance I would’ve fought on the other side o’ yer Saint Michael.”
“Would you have?” she asked, serious despite his laughter. A week ago she wouldn’t have questioned his assertion that he was the devil. Now she wasn’t so certain. “Your mother must not have thought you so terrible. After all, she named you after a saint, not a devil.”
He frowned.
It was her turn to eye him. “Unless she was naming you after someone else? A relative, maybe? Perhaps your father?”
He snorted. “No.”
“Then who?”
“No one to me knowledge.” He looked away from her as if bored with the conversation, yet his fingers gripped the table tightly. “She mightn’t have had a reason.”
“Perhaps she named you with the hope that you would be a fierce protector like Saint Michael.”
He flinched. It was a small movement, hardly noticeable, but Silence felt as if she’d hit him. She reached out a hand to him before she could stop herself, laying it on his sleeve.
He stared down at her hand as if mesmerized by the sight.
“If that was why she named me,” he said low, “then she was sorely disappointed.”
“Michael,” she whispered, whether in apology or question, she did not know.
His Christian name was somehow terribly intimate upon her lips. It suited him much better than Mick or Mickey. An angel, both terrible and violent, but also with the possibility of redemption. Saint Michael.
His eyes narrowed and it was as if he’d pierced her with his gaze. “Don’t.” He closed his eyes, shuttering that dreadful look. “Don’t call me that.”
She withdrew her hand, but she wouldn’t back down. There was something important here. Something she very much needed to find out.
“Why not?” They might as well be alone. The rest of the dining room fell away and with it all the other people around them.
“Ye know why,” he murmured, his eyes still closed. His black eyelashes lay on his cheeks like soot on snow.
If they’d been alone she might’ve taken him into her arms.
“I know why,” she said softly, “but I have no intention of calling you anything else.”
He chuckled low, a dry, broken sound now in contrast to his earlier laughter. “O’ course ye won’t. Sweet Silence. I may be named for an archangel, but yer the one who shines with a clear, pure light.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she whispered.
“Don’t ye?” He finally opened his eyes and they were haunted. “Didn’t ye lay down yer virtue for the husband ye loved? Haven’t ye agreed to live with the devil himself for a child ye found upon yer doorstep? Ye, Silence Hollingbrook, are more awe inspirin’ than any angel.”
She didn’t know where to look. It had never occurred to her that he might think her anything out of the ordinary. Her lips parted soundlessly and she stared into his eyes as if she would drown.
His gaze grew warm and the corner of his mouth quirked. “D’ye mean to eat that bread?”
Silence looked down and saw that she’d long ago crumbled the piece of bread to bits on her plate. “I—”
Mickey—Michael—snapped his fingers and the small boy hurried over with a tray of sliced meats. Michael took the tray from him. “Bring me the bread, as well.”
The boy skipped away.
“I can’t eat all that,” Silence protested even as Michael piled savory lamb onto her plate. The platter of boiled beef seemed to have disappeared.
“Ye’ve been eatin’ like a mouse while the child was ill,” he said, still transferring tidbits to her plate.
She sampled a bite of the lamb. It was so tender it nearly melted in her mouth. She ate it a bit guiltily. Somehow Michael’s lamb was much better than her own English boiled beef—even if it couldn’t possibly be as beneficial for one’s health.
Laughter from down the table made her look up. Bran had his head thrown back and was laughing. Fionnula was gazing at him and her entire face glowed with a look of love so intimate that Silence glanced away, embarrassed. She found Michael watching her.
Silence swallowed and reached for her wineglass, avoiding his eyes. They seemed to see too much behind her face. “Fionnula certainly adores Bran.”
“She wears her affection upon her sleeve,” he said, his voice strangely flat.
She glanced at him. “Bran is very young to be so much in your esteem, isn’t he?”
Michael shrugged. “Maybe, but the lad has been with me for more’n six years.”
“Really?” She glanced again at Bran and Fionnula. He didn’t seem much older than twenty. “How did you come to know him?”
Michael sat back, a sugared grape in his fingers. “Our Bran was runnin’ the streets wild. He and his crew—a ragtag troop o’ lads, most younger than himself. They made their way by pickin’ pockets, thievin’ from chandler shops and hawkers, and general mischief. One night he’d decided to hunt bigger game.”
Michael stopped to take a drink of wine. He carefully set his glass back on the table.
“Well?” Silence asked impatiently.
His mobile lips curved. “Our Bran decided to take a ship already marked by m’self.”
Silence inhaled. She didn’t know much about the details of how Michael made his living—didn’t want to know, truth be told—but she knew he must be a ruthless competitor. “What happened?”
“We came upon the ship jus’ after Bran and his boys had swarmed it. They were fightin’ the guards when we came over the gunwales. Me and me men made quick work o’ the guards, and then I found this lad, only half me height, mind, tryin’ to shove a dagger in me gut.”
Silence swallowed and glanced at Bran under her lashes. Any man, let alone a boy, was either very courageous or very foolhardy to challenge Mickey O’Connor.
“What did you do?”
Michael toyed with his nearly empty wineglass, a smile playing about his wide mouth. “Took the dagger away from him, that’s what. And when he lunged at me with his bare hands I grabbed him by the scruff o’ the neck and shook him. I might’ve simply tossed him into the Thames, but…”
He trailed off, a thoughtful look in his eyes.
“But you didn’t,” Silence supplied. “Why not?”
He glanced at her and finished the last gulp of wine. “Truth be told, he reminded me a bit o’ m’self, once upon a time. A ragged boy, alone and fightin’ for everythin’, even his next meal.”
Silence looked at her hands. He’d said he’d had a mother—and perhaps even a father. Why had he been alone, then? Her stomach cramped thinking of him, a pretty boy, fighting for something to eat.
It was as if he heard her thoughts. “Ah, never pity me, Silence, m’love.”
She looked up and saw his black eyes, his sardonic mouth, and the haunted memories in his face.
He nodded, toasting her with his empty wineglass. “Whatever trials and tribulations I may’ve had, they were deserved. Most well deserved, mind.”
“MICKEY O’CONNOR’S THE one behind our problems with gettin’ grain,” Freddy said.
Charlie looked up slowly from his supper. “Is he now?”
The information wasn’t surprising. For the last week his grain suppliers had either been strangely reluctant to sell or had already been all sold out of their grain supplies.
Charlie grunted. “You’ll have to find me new suppliers then.”
Freddy looked unhappy at the news.
“What else have you heard?”
“There’re soldiers in St. Giles,” Freddy said gruffly.
“What of it?” Charlie said as he forked up a bite of beef. It dripped gravy as he brought it to his mouth. “Soldiers are everywhere in London.”
“ ’Tis said these have been sent to clean St. Giles o’ thieves and murderers and other crime.”
“Have they?” Charlie sat back and glanced at his man. Freddy as usual was avoiding looking at his face—his gaze was focused mostly on Charlie’s full plate of food. “That’s interesting. Who sent them?”
Freddy frowned, digging furrows into his brow, which did not help his appearance any. “No one knows. They’ve been ridin’ about in pairs, catchin’ up anyone seen loiterin’ about. ’Course the smarter ones went to ground as soon as the soldiers rode in. They get mostly the old women who sell gin and the like.”
Charlie grunted. “Still, if they’re after gin sellers they’re bound to run into my business.” He tapped his knife on the edge of his pewter plate, thinking. “Be best if we can point them in another direction. A direction we choose.”
Freddy nodded slowly. “Where?”
A sudden thought appeared, fully formed in Charlie’s brain. He took it and examined it, peering at it from all sides.