Fool.
LATER THAT NIGHT Silence nervously touched the ruching that decorated the neckline of her new dress. It really was lovely—the loveliest dress she’d ever worn. Before William’s death she had worn colors, but she had usually dressed in brown or gray. Sedate colors, practical colors for a woman who, when she needed to go somewhere, did so by her own feet. London was a grimy city.
Certainly she’d never worn bright indigo blue. She turned a bit before the full-length mirror that had been brought into her rooms. The silk seemed to shimmer and change, sometimes more purple, sometimes more blue.
“It’s simply grand, ma’am,” Fionnula sighed from where she sat on a footstool near the mirror.
The maid had helped her to dress and had pulled back her hair into a knot with a few locks carefully curled at her temples and nape.
“Do you think so?” Silence asked shyly. She touched again the ruched ribbon at her neckline. The bodice was round and deeply cut, highlighting her breasts pushed into mounds by the embroidered stays she wore under the dress.
“Oh, yes,” Fionnula said firmly. “Yer even more grand than the ladies that Himself used to have in his rooms.”
Silence stilled, and wet her lips before asking with feigned indifference. “Used to?”
Alas, she’d never be a good actress.
Fionnula gave her a speaking glance. “Haven’t ye noticed? He hasn’t had a strumpet in his rooms since the day after ye arrived.”
“Oh,” was the only reply Silence could think to make, but her heart leaped willy-nilly with joy.
Fionnula rolled her eyes. “He used to have at least one woman a night, sometimes more.”
“More?” Silence squeaked. “Than one? At a time?”
“Oh, yes,” Fionnula assured her. “Sometimes two or three at once.”
Silence simply gaped, her mind stopped on the thought of Michael entertaining two or three women in his bed at once. Had he… serviced them all? In a single night? How…?
But Fionnula had grown quite chatty. “I never understand it myself. I mean, if it was backwards, as it were, and a woman could have any number of men she wished… Well, I’d never have more than one, I think. Why, can ye imagine two men snorin’ in yer bed? Or three? And what about the covers? When Bran lets me spend the night—which don’t happen often, let me tell ye—he’s always pullin’ the covers off my shoulders in the middle of the night. I wake up, my shoulders numb with cold. No.” Fionnula shook her head. “No, ye couldn’t pay me to take more’n one man to me bed.”
Fionnula turned at the end of this speech—the longest she’d ever made in Silence’s presence—and looked at her expectantly.
Silence blinked and unfortunately an image of Michael, entirely nude, lounging in the middle of his huge bed came into her mind. In the image he was erect, his long penis lying hard and straight against his flat belly. It was ruddy and wide at the tip where—
Oh, dear.
She cleared her throat and said rather huskily. “No, one would be quite enough.”
Fionnula nodded as if her argument was confirmed. “Sometimes I don’t understand men at all.”
“Gah!” Mary Darling cried as if agreeing with Fionnula. She’d slept most of the afternoon as Silence and the maid had worked on the dress, taking in the waist a bit. The baby toddled over and held out her arms to be picked up.
Silence stooped and carefully lifted the baby. “Will you be good and obey Fionnula while I’m out?” she whispered into the dark curls.
“Down!” Mary said, wriggling, so Silence kissed her hastily and put her on the floor, just as a knock came at her door. It was the corridor door, so it mayn’t be Michael, but still she checked her reflection in the looking glass.
Fionnula opened the outer door.
Michael stood there in a fine deep blue coat over a white waistcoat embroidered in silver thread. Diamonds winked on the buckles of his shoes. His gaze went straight to her and something in his black eyes seemed to heat when he saw her.
She instinctively covered her décolletage with her hands.
“Don’t.”
He took three steps and was before her. Gently, he grasped her hands in his own and spread them wide, exposing her bosom framed by the low neckline of the dress. His gaze dropped to her breasts and heat flooded her cheeks.
“Don’t ever hide yerself from me eyes,” he murmured low so that only she could hear.
Her gaze darted to Fionnula by the door. “Please!” she whispered in embarrassment.
His smile was not quite kind. “Ye may cover yerself only when we’re not alone.”
Her breath caught at the sensual promise in his eyes. Did he mean to make their friendship more intimate? And if so, would she let him?
His eyes narrowed at the confusion in her face, but he didn’t comment. He’d thrown a cloak over a chair as he entered the room and now he picked it up and drew it about her shoulders. It was velvet, rich and warm and lined with rose silk. He pulled the edges together under her throat and tenderly tied the cloak closed.
“There,” he said when he was done. “A shield to hide yer modesty behind. And to hide yer identity…”
He held out a velvet half mask.
“Oh!” She’d been worrying all afternoon about appearing in public with him, though she wasn’t sure how to bring up the subject. It was not for her reputation that she worried—that was already ruined—but for the orphanage. Now she looked at him gratefully. “Thank you.”
He gave her an ironic glance and moved behind her. Gently he lowered the mask over her face and tied it behind her head. She could feel his male heat at her back and the whisper of his breath on her nape. Something warm and soft brushed her ear.
Her breathing went shallow.
Then he was beside her again, holding out his arm. His voice was husky when he said, “Come now or we’ll be late.”
She made her good-byes to Fionnula and Mary Darling and then he was taking her hand and pulling her into the hall.
“Late to what?” Silence asked breathlessly.
But he only glanced over his shoulder at her and grinned, white teeth flashing, and so handsome her heart seemed to leap into her throat.
He led her to the front door this time, nodding at the two guards standing there. Outside a carriage waited.
“Is this yours?” Silence asked, eyeing the polished lanterns hanging by the coachman.
“Aye,” Michael said as he handed her in. He leaped in beside her and knocked on the ceiling. “I don’t have much use for it, so I keep me carriage and horses at a stable.”
“And the coachman?”
She saw the flash of his teeth again as he grinned at her in the dim carriage. “One o’ me crew. He had a job as a stable lad in another life.”
“I see.”
Silence fingered the soft velvet lying over her lap, the realization suddenly hitting her that they rode in a small enclosed space together. She tried to keep her breathing even, but the feel of his broad shoulders leaning against her, the sight of his long legs stretched clear across the carriage floor, seemed to make breathing rather difficult.
“This is only my fourth carriage ride,” she said nervously into the heavy quiet that had fallen.
“Oh?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “Papa could not afford to keep one, but I once rode in a carriage belonging to a friend of his, Sir Stanley Gilpin, who helped to found the Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children. That was when he took us to a fair in Greenwich once. And when Temperance was married, her husband, Lord Caire very kindly provided a carriage for the family to ride in to the church and later the wedding breakfast.” Silence stopped suddenly having run out of breath.
She darted a look at Michael.
His face was shadowed in the dark, but he seemed to be paying close attention to her babbling. “And the fourth time?”
She remembered and had to look down at her hands in her lap. “The fourth time was on the morning after
I spent the night in your bedroom. Temperance rented a hack to come search for me. She found me at the end of the street after I’d walked it with my hair undone and…” She trailed away, unable to say the words.
But he was quite able to supply them. “And yer dress unlaced to show yer chemise and the tops o’ yer pretty titties.”
“Yes.” She looked at him. The old anger and pain was in her chest, but it was dimmer now, allowing her to think. “Why did you make me do that? Walk up the street like a whore coming home from a night of sin? Did you want to destroy my marriage?”
“No.” He shook his head sharply. “Had I thought enough to want to destroy yer marriage then me actions might be forgivable.”
She wished she could see his face. It had never occurred to her that he might think what he’d done that day unforgivable—that he might care enough to want forgiveness. The idea was a revelation.
“Then why?” she asked.
“Why not?” he replied and the simple cruelty of his statement sent a jagged shard of pain through her breast. “It was me whim, that and only that. I was bred and birthed in St. Giles. I clawed me way up to become king o’ hell and now me every wish is granted, love.” He shrugged, his expression filled with self-mockery. “If I should have a mind to crush a virtuous woman merely for me own entertainment, then I do it.”
His honest depravity took her breath away, but her eyes narrowed in suspicion. Once she might’ve taken his words as simple fact. Now she knew him better. He might think himself a devil, but he was far more complicated than that.
Far more good.
“So you have no control over your desires?” she prodded skeptically.
“Sure and I have control.” He closed his eyes as if disgusted. “Don’t harbor false illusions about me, Silence, m’love. I chose not to control me desires when I met ye—even if that meant making an innocent walk, disheveled, up a street in St. Giles to fall into her sister’s arms.”
“How do you know I fell into Temperance’s arms?” she asked. “You didn’t escort me to your door—that was Harry’s job.”
He went still. “I watched ye with a spyin’ glass from me windows. I saw yer courage—and I saw ye collapse into her waitin’ arms.”
“Why?” she whispered. “Why should you watch me?”
“Why shouldn’t I share in yer pain?”
She shook her head, looking away from him, staring blindly out the darkened windows. “You say you chose not to control your basest urges that night, yet you did not harm me physically. You could’ve taken me to your bed and destroyed me, yet you did not.” She turned and stared at him seriously. “You cannot tell me that you don’t feel true remorse for the pain you caused me.”
He looked startled for a moment and then he laughed, short and hard. “Ah, Silence, m’love, don’t mistake me for a gentleman. I am a pirate, a thief, and a killer, and nothin’ but.”
“Then you would do it again, if you had the chance?” Silence demanded. “Make that terrible bargain with me? Send me into the street, disheveled and ashamed?”
His hesitation was so slight that had she not been paying careful attention, she might’ve missed it. But she didn’t miss it. It was real.
He looked haunted—confused as if the very earth had shifted under his feet. “D’ye hope to change the stripes on a snake, darlin’? Rub as hard as ye might, they’ll not come off and yer like to be bitten for yer pains.”
“You didn’t answer me,” she whispered.
He turned to face her though she could not make out his expression in the dark. “And yer sure o’ that now?”
She drew in a wavering breath. “You can choose not to do such horrible things in the future, can you not?”
“Can I?”
“Yes,” she said firmly. “No matter what you were in the past, what you are now, you can choose to change, choose to indulge only your better desires, not your basest ones.”
He stared at her and she wished that she could see his eyes clearly. Would a devil lurk there—or a militant archangel?
She opened her mouth, but the carriage shuddered to a halt at that moment.
“We’re here,” Michael drawled.
He pushed open the carriage door, revealing blazing torches in the night, and jumped down before setting the step and offering his hand to her for assistance.
Silence took her skirts in one hand and carefully stepped down. She wasn’t used to such an abundance of skirts and she rather feared she’d drag her hems in something awful.
“Come,” Michael said and set her hand upon his arm.
She finally looked up and saw a lovely classical building. Lanterns lined the steps leading to the doors and streams of ladies and gentlemen were entering the building. At the edges of the crowd were hawkers calling their wares: oranges, walnuts, flowers, and sweetmeats. Michael led her up the steps and into the doors.
Silence looked up at the vaulted ceiling, lined with sparkling chandeliers. “Where are we?”
“Ye’ll see,” he said and mounted a curving stair.
The upper level held a corridor with doors along one side. Michael opened one and ushered her inside.
“Oh!” Silence exclaimed. “You’ve brought me to the theater.”
“Not quite,” Michael said from behind her. “This here is an opera house.”
Silence looked about excitedly. She’d never been to either the theater or the opera as Father had rather frowned upon such things as frivolous.
They were in a luxurious box with several plush chairs and a table. Velvet curtains lined the box and could be drawn to give the occupants privacy. But beyond the railing the stage blazed with lights. Below a crowd milled in the pit.
“Let me take yer cloak,” Michael said, lifting it from her shoulders.
Silence hardly noticed. She was busy peering into the pit and across the theater to the boxes on the other side.
“Take care,” Michael warned. He placed his hands on either side of her waist. “Lean too far over and ye’ll tumble out.”
“I won’t,” Silence said, blushing. She must look a rustic country lass in her excitement. She sat on a chair with careful dignity, but then couldn’t help putting a hand on the rail as she hissed, “Isn’t that the king?”
Michael had taken a seat beside her and he casually turned his head to look where she indicated. “That’ll be the king’s son, the Prince o’ Wales. He does bear a fair resemblance to his da, though ’tis said the king hates his son most strongly.”
“The king hates his own son?” Silence felt incredibly naïve. How did Michael know this and she did not?
He shrugged. “The king and the prince are never seen together.”
Silence tried not to stare at the florid man with the protuberant eyes. “Oh! And what about the lady beside him?”
“His wife, I think,” Michael murmured. “ ’Tis rumored that he’s devoted to her.”
“Really?” Silence examined the princess. She wore a very elegant silver and white gown, but she was little more than a girl.
She craned to see who was in the boxes on their side of the opera house. “Do you come here often?”
Michael shrugged. “Once or more a month.”
Silence looked at him then. She’d not thought when she asked the question that he would answer in the affirmative. “You do?”
He smiled, his face in profile to hers. He didn’t lean forward eagerly as she had done, but his attention was most definitely on the crowd, the stage, and the atmosphere of the opera house itself. “Aye, and is it that startlin’ a savage such as m’self can find pleasure in music? Or is it the elegance o’ the music I like that surprises ye?”
“I am surprised,” she admitted. She was fascinated by the beauty of his profile, the severity of the straight lines of his forehead and nose, the sensual curves of his lips, and the arrogance of his chin.
He turned and caught her watching him and the smile left his lips. His eyes grew intent, his eyelids drooping, hi
s eyebrows looking quite satanic and a little frightening.
She found him so tempting that she pressed her hand to her chest without conscious thought.
He followed the movement.
A corner of his mouth kicked up as he stared at her exposed bosom. He reached out and trailed his finger lightly across the upper slopes of her breasts. “Ye have no idea how long I’ve waited to see these.”
She caught his hand in her trembling fingers, uncertain if she was thrilled or mortified.
He didn’t try to pull away. “If I knelt right now at yer feet no one would see.”
“I…” She glanced at the low wall in front of her. It hid her from the waist down to anyone looking at the box. An image of him kneeling at her feet popped into her head and she suddenly stopped breathing. “What?”
“I could kneel there and lift yer skirts,” he murmured. “Ye’d have to be very still, mind. Very quiet. And no matter what I did ye couldn’t let it show on yer face.”
She stared at him, mesmerized by his deep, slightly rasping voice as he told her his wicked thoughts. She blinked, unable to resist asking, “What would you do?”
A corner of his mouth curled and his black eyes were intent. His hand left her lax fingers and trailed over her bosom, down her stomach, to her lap. “Do, love? Why, I’d fold yer skirts up, careful like, a little at a time, until I could see yer sweet cunny, hidin’ there between yer thighs.”
He pressed with his palm on the place that he described and it seemed to burn right through the layers of cloth.
She bit her lip, unable to look away from him.
His nostrils flared as if he could scent her arousal. “I’d part yer sweet thighs and touch ye there, where yer pink and wet. I’d slide me finger through yer softness, up until I touched that little spot at the top.” He tilted his head, watching her. “D’ye know the spot I mean?”
“I…” She swallowed, feeling the heat rising over her throat. She knew, of course.
“Tell me.”
She closed her eyes. “Yes.”
“And have ye touched yerself here?” He spread his fingers wide as if claiming possession of her femininity. “Tell me, Silence me love. Have ye touched yerself and thought o’ me?”