Scandalous Desires (Maiden Lane #3)(18)

Silence flushed and looked at her brother. His straight brown brows were drawn together in worry.

She inhaled and smoothed a hand down the apron she’d put on this morning out of habit—only now did she notice that it was a bit crooked. “I’m sorry to have left the home so abruptly. I know it must have distressed you—”

“Distressed.” Winter said the word flatly.

Silence bit her lip.

“Are you being held here against your will?”

“Oh, no,” she said.

He nodded. “I’m not a man given to hysteria. If I were, I’d be bald at this moment from having torn out my hair on the way over here. Mickey O’Connor, Silence?”

His last three words were soft, but there was a wealth of meaning behind them. Winter had seen her after she’d left Mr. O’Connor the last time. He knew what had been done to her.

And he suspected much worse.

“He’s Mary Darling’s father,” she said.

His eyebrows lifted in inquiry.

“He says that Mary must stay here because she is in danger from his enemies. But he has let me stay as well, to take care of her.”

Winter closed his eyes briefly and when he opened them again they were filled with sorrow. “If the child is truly his, then you have no hold on her. You must give her up.”

“No!” She swallowed and lowered her voice. “You don’t understand. Mr. O’Connor has promised to let me have Mary Darling—let me have her forever—once his enemies are no longer a threat. Don’t you see? I can take her away from here.”

“I think I’d rather trust the word of a snake than Mr. O’Connor.”

“But—”

He stepped forward and gently touched her on the elbow. “He’s using you, sister. Perhaps he only sees you as an amusement, perhaps his plan is far worse, but in either case you can be sure of one thing: Mickey O’Connor is interested only in pleasing himself. He cares for neither you nor Mary Darling.”

“All the more reason for me to stay,” she whispered. “I love Mary, Winter. She’s as much a daughter to me as if I’d given birth to her. I wouldn’t be able to leave her here by herself even if I had no hope of eventually bringing her home. But since I do… Well, then, it’s only a matter of hanging on.”

“Your reputation will be in tatters if you stay here.”

“My reputation already is in tatters.”

“Because of him.” Winter rarely raised his voice, rarely showed emotion of any kind, but he spat the word “him” with deep loathing.

Silence’s eyes widened. She knew Winter disliked Mr. O’Connor, but she’d had no idea of the antipathy her brother held toward the pirate.

“Winter—”

“He’ll destroy you and he’ll destroy the home because of you.” Winter’s words were tight and controlled. “We cannot afford speculation about your virtue right now, sister. Think of the home if you will not think of yourself.”

She closed her eyes, feeling sick. She was letting him down, betraying his trust, but… “I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry about the home, but it’s Mary Darling, Winter. Please. She’s all that I have left.”

“Christ.” Her brother turned and walked to a bookshelf, staring blindly at the rows of expensive embossed leather spines.

For a moment there was quiet in the library.

Silence bit her lip, watching her brother. Waiting to see if she’d broken his trust irrevocably. Winter was the youngest of her brothers, the one closest to her in age—and closest to her heart.

If she hadn’t been studying him she might not have seen his shoulders lower a fraction of an inch. “I know what Mary Darling means to you, sister. I’ve witnessed your grief and the renewal of your inner joy this last year. Much of it was due to the baby. If this is the only way to keep Mary Darling, then stay.”

She sighed, opening her mouth to thank him.

Winter swung suddenly to look at her and she saw that his normally calm eyes blazed. “But I saw what Mickey O’Connor did to you. I saw the damage in your eyes. I cannot stop you from this mad plan, but do not expect me to dance with joy at the prospect of you in Mickey O’Connor’s foul hands.”

Behind them a single clap shattered the intimacy of the library.

Silence swung around.

Mickey O’Connor lounged in a narrow doorway cleverly hidden in the carved paneling. “I appreciate yer stamp o’ approval, Makepeace. It warms the cockles o’ me heart, it does.”

Winter had gone very still next to Silence and for some reason she had the feeling he was holding himself in check, keeping himself from violence only by the thinnest of threads. Silly, really. Winter was the least violent man she knew.

But she placed a restraining hand on his arm anyway. “Please.”

“I will do as you wish,” Winter said to her, though his gaze never left Mr. O’Connor’s face. “I’m leaving today, but next time I come I’ll take you with me. Until then, if you feel yourself in peril at any time, send word to me and I will come for you—night or day.”

“Yes, Winter,” she said meekly, realizing that her brother needed to feel that he had some control over the matter.

Mickey O’Connor’s black eyes slid to hers mockingly.