Mickey raised one black eyebrow, looking quite satanic. “Does your husband know you’re here, luv?”
Silence bit her lip. “No.”
“Ah.” He beckoned the sweetmeats boy over again and selected another.
Silence began to open her mouth, but Harry nudged her, so she took his warning and shut it again.
Mickey ate the sweet slowly while those in the throne room waited. Silence noticed that a black marble statue of some Roman goddess stood slightly behind him. She wore a tiara, and long strands of pearls were draped over her naked bosom.
“Well, this is the way of it, luv,” Mickey said so suddenly that Silence jumped. He smiled that innocent smile again. “The owner of the ship your husband captains and I have had a bit of a falling out, see. He thinks it well and good to not be payin’ me my proper tithe from his cargos, and I… well, I can’t agree with that tack. Shows a lack of respect, in me own humble opinion. So I’ve taken the liberty of confiscatin’ the Finch’s cargo, sort of to get the man’s attention, like. You might call it a drastic move, and I’d have to agree, but there it is, all the same. The man made his bed and now he must lay upon it.”
And Charming Mickey shrugged gracefully as if to say the matter was out of his hands.
That was it, then. Her audience was at an end. Harry had laid his hand on her arm to lead her away, and Charming Mickey was already tilting his head to hear something the thin little man was whispering to him. But she couldn’t give up. She had to at least try one more time. For William.
Silence took a deep breath, and even as she did so, she felt Harry’s hand tighten on her arm in warning. “Please, Mr. O’Connor. You have said yourself that your grievance is with the ship’s owner, not my husband. Can you not return the cargo for his sake? For my sake?”
Mickey slowly turned his head to look at her, no longer smiling now. His dark eyes were oddly dispassionate, and without his smile, his lips had a cruel edge. “’Ware, darlin’. I’ve let you play about me claws once and run away unharmed. If you skip back into them again, you’ll have naught to blame but yourself.”
Silence swallowed. His whispered warning made the hairs rise on the back of her neck, and for the first time she realized that she was truly in mortal danger. She wanted nothing more than to turn tail and run.
But she didn’t. “Please. I beg of you. If you will not do it for my husband’s sake or mine, then do it for yours. For the sake of your immortal soul. Do me this favor and I promise you, you will never regret it.”
Charming Mickey stared at her, cold, remote, and expressionless. The room was so silent that each breath Silence took sounded in her ears. Beside her, Harry seemed to have stopped breathing altogether.
Then Mickey slowly smiled. “You must love him very much, this Captain Hollingbrook, this wonderful husband of yours.”
“Yes,” Silence said with pride. “Yes, I do.”
“And does he love you in return, me darlin’?”
Silence’s eyes widened in surprise. “Of course.”
“Ah,” Charming Mickey murmured, “then there might be another way for us to work this matter out to our mutual benefit, yours and mine.”
Beside her, Harry stiffened.
She knew. She knew that whatever Charming Mickey proposed, it would be very bad. She knew that she might not escape this room, this wild, gorgeous house, with her soul entirely intact.
“That is, of course,” Mickey murmured like the devil himself, “if you truly love your husband.”
William was everything in the world to her. There was nothing she would not do to save him.
Silence looked the devil in the eye and lifted her chin. “I do.”
Chapter Eleven
Meg spent the rest of the day contentedly washing her person so that when she went to sleep that evening, she felt considerably neater. The next morning she was brought before King Lockedheart. He looked a bit surprised when he saw her—perhaps he did not recognize her without her layer of soot?—but his habitual scowl soon returned. In front of him stood a great company of courtiers, clad in rich furs, velvet, and jewels.
He asked the assembled dignitaries, “Do you love me?”
Well, the courtiers did not speak in one voice as the trained guards had the day before, but their answers were the same: yes!
The king sneered at Meg. “There! Confess now your foolishness.”…
—from King Lockedheart
“Then you mean to see him again?” Winter asked quietly that night.
“Yes, I do.” Temperance finished braiding Mary Little’s fine flaxen hair and smiled down at the girl. “There, all done. Now off to bed with you.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
Mary Little curtsied as she’d been taught and skipped out of the kitchen. Later, when all the children were settled in their beds, Winter would come up to hear their prayers.
“Now you, Mary Church.” The girl turned her back and Temperance took up the brush, concentrating on taming the thick, brown curls without pulling too much.
The remaining three Marys sat before the fire in their chemises, their hair drying as they bent their heads over their samplers. Bath day was always quite a chore, but Temperance enjoyed it nonetheless. There was something wonderfully soothing about all the children being clean and neat at once.
Or at least this time should be soothing.
She sighed. “I need to go tonight.”
All the girls could hear their argument, even though both she and Winter took pains to keep their voices even and polite, but the main child she worried over was Mary Whitsun. That Mary sat beside her, combing out the curls of two-year-old Mary Sweet. Mary Whitsun kept her eyes on her task, but she had a frown between her brows.
Temperance sighed. Pity she couldn’t have this discussion in private, but if she was going to attend the ball Caire had promised to take her to tonight, she would have to get the children safely to bed and then rush to dress in Nell’s lent gown. She wished it were merely for the home that she looked forward to the evening. Already her heartbeat had quickened at the thought of seeing Caire again. She glanced worriedly at the old clock on the mantel. She’d be cutting things perilously close as it was.
“I’m sorry, but I hope to see a certain gentleman tonight.”
Winter turned from staring into the fireplace. “Who?”
Temperance frowned over a tangle in Mary Church’s hair. “He’s a gentleman Caire introduced me to at the musicale, Sir Henry Easton. He seemed quite interested in our home—he asked me about apprenticing out the boys and the clothing we provide. Things like that. I’m hoping to convince him to help the home.”
Winter glanced at the girls, all avidly listening. “Indeed? And what assurance do you have that he’ll do as you hope?”
“None.” Temperance pulled overhard on Mary Church’s hair and the girl yelped. “I’m sorry, Mary Church.”
“Temperance—” Winter began.
But she spoke, quick and low. “I have no assurances, but I must go nonetheless. Can’t you see that, brother? I must at least grasp at possibilities, even if they prove to be false hopes.”
Winter’s thin lips compressed. “Very well. But be sure to stay by Lord Caire’s side. I dislike the thought of you at one of these aristocratic balls. I’ve heard”—he glanced at the girls and appeared to modify his words—“about events that can take place at such balls. Be careful, please.”
“Of course.” Temperance smiled at Winter and then transferred the smile to Mary Church. “All done.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
Mary Church took Mary Sweet’s hand, for the toddler was properly braided as well, and led her from the kitchen.
“Well, then, only three little heads and six little braids to go.” Winter smiled at the remaining girls by the fire.
They giggled at him. While Winter was always gentle, he didn’t often speak in such light tones.
“I’ll go up and begin reading the Psalm for the night,” Winter said.
Temperance nodded. “Good night.”
She felt his hand, briefly laid on her shoulder as he passed, and then she breathed a sigh of relief. She hated his disapproval more than that of her other brothers. Winter was the brother closest to her in age, and they’d become closer still by running the home together.
She shook her head and quickly finished braiding the other little girls’ hair and sent each on their way until only Mary Whitsun remained. It was something of a ritual between the two of them that Mary Whitsun was the last to have her hair braided at night. Neither spoke as she worked the comb through the girl’s hair, and it occurred to Temperance that she’d been doing this for nine years—since Mary had come to the home. Soon they’d find an apprenticeship for Mary, though, and their nights together by the fire as she braided the girl’s hair would be over.
Temperance’s breast ached at the thought.
She was tying a bit of ribbon to Mary’s braid when a knocking came at the front door.
Temperance rose. “Who can that be?” It was still too early for Lord Caire.
She hurried to the door, Mary Whitsun at her heels, and unbarred it. On the step was a liveried footman, holding a large covered basket.
“For you, miss,” he said, and thrust it into her hands before turning away.
“Wait!” Temperance called. “What is this for?”
The footman was already several yards away. He half turned. “My lord says you’re to wear it tonight.”
And then he was gone.
Temperance closed and barred the door, and then took the basket into the kitchen. She set it on the table and pulled back the plain linen covering it. Underneath was a bright turquoise silk gown embroidered with delicate posies of yellow, crimson, and black. Temperance drew in her breath. The gown made Nell’s wonderful scarlet dress look like a sack in comparison. Underneath the gown were fine silk stays, a chemise, stockings, and embroidered slippers. Nestled in the silk was a small jeweler’s box. Temperance picked it up with trembling fingers, not daring to open it yet. Surely she couldn’t accept such a gift? But, then, if she was going to a grand ball with Lord Caire, she didn’t want to shame him with the modesty of her toilet.
That decided her.
She turned to Mary Whitsun, wide-eyed beside her. “Fetch Nell, please. I need to dress for a ball.”
LAZARUS FELT THE hackles rise on the back of his neck when he entered the ballroom that night with Temperance on his arm. She was magnificent in the turquoise gown he’d sent to her. Her dark hair was piled atop her head and held with the light yellow topaz pins he’d included in the basket. Her breasts pressed against the shimmering silk bodice, mounded and tempting. She was beautiful and desirable, and every man in the room took note. And he was damnably aware of the other men taking note. He actually felt a growl building at the back of his throat, as if he’d stand guard over her like some mangy dog over a scrap.
What a fool he was.
“Shall we?” he murmured to her.
He could see the movement of her throat as she swallowed nervously. “Yes. Please.”
He nodded and began their perambulation through the overdecorated room. Temperance’s quarry was by the far windows, but it wouldn’t do to approach too eagerly.
Every notable presently residing in London was here, including, inevitably, his own mother. The Countess of Stanwicke was known for extravagant balls, and she’d outdone herself tonight. A platoon of footmen, attired in orange and black livery, attended the gathering, each attesting to the money needed for both their gaudy clothes and their time. Hothouse flowers were mounded on every surface, already wilting in the heat of the ballroom. The scent of dying roses and lilies mingled with that of burning wax, sweating bodies, and perfume, the whole both nauseating and heady.