Yet now she realized there were questions she should’ve asked of him—what had he done all alone at the age of thirteen? What had become of his mother?
Well, she wouldn’t get any sleep tonight wondering and thinking. Silence turned her head and looked at the door that connected her room to Michael’s. A faint light shone under it.
Impulsively, she got up and tiptoed to the door. She pushed it open as quietly as possible. If he were already asleep…
Michael was sitting bare-chested in a huge honey-colored wood bed. He had some papers scattered about the coverlet and a candelabra on the table next to the bed to give him light.
He looked up as she entered.
For a moment he stared at her, frozen.
Then he set the paper he was holding down. “Silence.”
She bunched her chemise skirts in one hand nervously. “I have two questions to ask you.”
He nodded gravely. “What?”
He hadn’t invited her in, but she came forward anyway and perched in a chair near the bed. “What happened to you after you ran away from your father?”
He began to gather his papers together. “I did what any young boy does who finds himself alone in London. I worked.”
She waited.
He squared the edges of his papers and laid them on the table by his bed before looking back at her. “I ran away from St. Giles. I knew Charlie had survived the vitriol and while he lived he was a danger to me. So I begged for a bit and stole, as well, but it’s perilous for a lad by himself. There’s gangs o’ pickpockets and thieves who don’t like others poachin’ on their territory—not to mention the danger o’ bein’ caught. After a bit I made me way to the river and hired on to a wherryman, helpin’ him row and load and unload goods. That was durin’ the daytime. At night the wherryman and me stole what we could from the cargo ships.”
He was matter-of-fact as he relayed this dangerous life. Sitting as he was now—large and fully grown, a man aware not only of his strength, but of his ability to command other men—he looked like he could handle anything and anyone.
But he wouldn’t have been like this back then. Back when he was only a boy of thirteen. She knew about young boys—she’d spent the last year taking care of them. They were tough and reckless and yet at the same time so very sweet and vulnerable. Their cheeks were soft and their eyes apologized even as they fought to assert their independence with too smart mouths.
At that age Michael’s broad chest would have been narrow and thin, his arms long and skinny. He would’ve had the same brown eyes, but they probably would’ve dominated a thinner, more youthful face. She could almost see that phantom boy, lost and alone, determined to make his way by himself, because there was no one to help him.
Her heart nearly broke.
She inhaled. “Where did you live?”
He shrugged. “On the river. At night I’d sleep wherever I could find a place to lay me head. There’re houses where ye can rent a bed for a night or part o’ a night, but they can be dangerous for a young boy, too. Often I slept on the boat if the weather was fair.”
She watched him. He sat like a king in that great bed, his olive skin shining as if burnished in the candlelight. The coverlet was bunched carelessly at his hips and for the first time she wondered if he wore anything beneath the sheet.
Hastily she raised her eyes. “And then?”
“And then one night me master and me were set upon by a bigger crew o’ river thieves. We were beaten and the haul we’d taken that night stolen from us. And I knew then, as I crawled into a corner to lick me wounds, that I couldn’t survive as I was.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
He held out his hands in front of him, palms up, weighing his long ago choice. “I could be a wolf or a rabbit, it was that simple. I chose to be a wolf. The next night I went to the crew who’d attacked us and offered me services. They beat me again, jus’ to show me that I was at the bottom o’ their pack, but I began to raid with them.”
He held her gaze and closed both hands into fists. “And when I was stronger, when I was no longer at the bottom and had learned to use a knife, I challenged the leader o’ the gang and beat him so badly he never walked straight again. I was fifteen and the leader o’ that river crew then.”
He lowered his fists to the coverlet and looked at them. “In another couple o’ years I was the most feared river pirate on the Thames. I moved me crew to St. Giles and met up with Charlie again. He’d recovered from the burns to his face, but he wasn’t nearly at his peak. I could’ve killed him then, but I didn’t.”
“Why not?” Silence whispered.
He looked up at her, but she knew it wasn’t her he was seeing. His dark eyes were haunted. “She… she begged me. I hadn’t seen her for seven years and she got on her knees to beg for his worthless life.”
Silence drew in her breath. What must he have felt to see his mother on her knees begging for the life of the man who had abused her—had abused Michael?
“I let him go, more fool I, because of her, and he went and made his home in Whitechapel, schemin’, plannin’, buildin’ his power until he became the Vicar o’ Whitechapel.” Michael shook his head as if disgusted. “I should’ve squashed him like a bug.”
“Your mother would never have forgiven you,” Silence said and she wanted to weep for him.
He looked up. “She never forgave me anyway. I never saw her again alive.”
“You tried to?” she asked gently.
He snorted bitterly. “Many a time. He wouldn’t let me near her and I knew ’twould only bring her trouble if’n I saw her in secret. She loved that bastard until the end.”
She’d loved Charlie more than her own son. Michael didn’t say the words, but Silence knew he thought them.
She looked down at her hands and found that she’d squeezed her chemise into hopeless wrinkles in her fists. Carefully she opened her hands and smoothed the fabric.
“When did she die, your mother?”
“Four weeks ago.”
Her head jerked up. “That recently?”
He nodded. “It’s why I had to bring Mary and you to the palace. Once me mam was gone, there was nothin’ to hold him back from makin’ me pay. I knew he’d try and draw his blood price from anyone close to me, particularly a woman. He’s always liked hurtin’ lasses.”
“Your mother held Charlie Grady back from attacking you?”
He looked away and nodded.
She held out her hands urgently. “Then she did care for you, didn’t she?”
He glanced back at her, his eyes raw.
“She must’ve,” Silence whispered. “Even if she never saw you, she still loved you enough to keep your father from hurting you again.”
He shook his head, and she could see that he was having trouble believing her. It would be hard, after a lifetime of seeing only one truth, to open oneself to another.
His deep voice interrupted her thoughts. “You said you had two questions.”
She looked up and saw that he was watching her intently, his black eyes hooded. She felt her face heat. Had he known what she was thinking?
“Yes.” She clasped her hands together in her lap, trying to look calm. This was important. How he answered might change everything. “Why did you tell me all this?”
He blinked as if the question wasn’t the one he’d been expecting. One corner of his wide sensuous mouth curved up ever so slightly. “Oh, love, I think ye know the answer to that one well enough.”
Did he mean what she thought he meant? That he wanted her to know about him? Wanted to let her into his life? Her breath caught on the possibility. On the hope that he wanted from her what she wanted from him.
And while she thought, he got up from the bed and answered the question she’d asked only in her mind.
No, he wasn’t wearing anything at all.
He was tall and broad and everything that was male, from the mounded muscles of his shoulders to the faint black hairs on his feet. And he was proudly erect.
“Now, I have a question for ye,” he drawled, low and thrillingly dangerous. “Will ye be comin’ to me bed tonight, Silence Hollingbrook?”
Silence lifted her chin, refusing to back away as Michael prowled closer, large, naked, and dauntingly male. “Yes.”
He cocked his head as if unsure that he’d heard right. “Yes, what?”
She swallowed. He was an arms-length away from her now and she could feel his heat. Could feel the responding excitement within herself. “Yes, I’ll stay.”
With one stride he was next to her, overwhelming in his nudity. “Be sure, Silence, mine. Once I take ye to me bed, I won’t be stoppin’ if ye have any sudden maidenly qualms. Right now I’ll let ye walk through that door and away. In a minute more, I’ll not.”
She reached out and did what she’d been wanting to do for weeks—she laid her palm against his naked chest. His skin was smooth and so hot she felt as if he’d branded her hand. She’d carry the mark of his flesh forever. “I may have qualms, but they aren’t maidenly, I assure you. I want this.”
The sound that came from his lips was very close to a growl as he moved swiftly and decisively. Silence found herself suddenly lifted in strong arms as Michael bore her to his big bed.
He laid her down on the soft mattress and placed a knee on the bed. Then he stilled, the muscles on his shoulders bunched and ready. He seemed to restrain himself with effort. “Am I frightenin’ ye?”
She shook her head slowly, her heart contracting at the fierce worry in his eyes. “Only in the best of ways.”
He closed his eyes and she saw that his big body was trembling. He gripped the coverlet in both fists. “Ye must tell me if anythin’ I do frightens ye. I don’t want to hurt ye. I—”
She placed her fingertips against his lips and he froze. His black eyes snapped open and he watched her, wild and dangerous.
But not to her.
Never to her. She didn’t know how she knew this, but somehow, deep in her bones, she knew now that Michael O’Connor would never hurt her physically. He might hurt her emotionally, but even that wouldn’t be on purpose. One couldn’t blame the animal for the instincts he was born with.
The thought was a little sad, so she banished it and focused on the man beneath her fingers instead.
His lips were soft. She rubbed them lightly and they parted to lick at her fingertips. She smiled and let her hands drift over his jaw, rough with a day’s growth of beard. He was very still, watching her with waiting eyes. She stroked down his neck, feeling the cords of his tendons, and over to her favorite part: his smooth chest. She flattened her hand there and pressed. The muscles of his chest were hard and strong and gave very little. Curious, she scooted closer on her back, putting herself almost under him, so that she could touch him with both hands. Why he stayed so motionless and simply let her explore, she did not know, but she was grateful. She’d always been indecently interested in what lay beneath a man’s clothes. William had been a very modest man, so her curiosity had not been assuaged.
Here, now, though, Michael seemed willing to let her explore as much as she wanted. And she was determined at last to discover all she could about this man—in both body and mind.
She smoothed her hands up to his shoulders, shaping the sloping muscles that led to his neck. Women didn’t have such muscles and she found it fascinating. She trailed her hands down his upper arms—and then laughed in delight when he flexed them beneath her palms, the bulges of his muscles moving under her hands.
His expression didn’t change, but somehow his eyes laughed, too, a great predator, indulgent.
She peeked up at him from underneath her eyelashes as her hands touched his wrists. How far would he let her explore?