Scandalous Desires (Maiden Lane #3)(3)

“But she thinks me her mother,” Silence hissed. “How can you separate us when—”

“And who said anythin’ about separatin’?” Mr. O’Connor asked with feigned surprise. “Why, darlin’ I said the babe had to stay with me, I never said ye couldn’t as well.”

Silence inhaled and then found she had trouble letting the breath out again. “You want me to come live with you?”

Mr. O’Connor grinned as if she were a pet dog that had finally learned a trick. “Aye, that’s the way o’ it, sweetin’.”

“I can’t live with you,” Silence hissed furiously. “Everyone would think…”

“What, now?” Mickey O’Connor arched an eyebrow, his black eyes glittering.

She swallowed. “That I was your whore.”

He tutted softly. “Oh, and we can’t be havin’ that, now can we, what with yer reputation bein’ all snowy white and all?”

Her hand was half-raised, the fingers balled into a fist before she even realized it. She wanted to hit him so badly, wanted to wipe that smirk from his face with all her soul.

Except he was no longer smiling. He watched her, his face expressionless, his eyes intent, like a wolf waiting for the hare to break from cover.

Trembling, she let her hand fall.

He shrugged, looking mildly disappointed. “Ah, well, it’d be a great inconvenience to have ye livin’ under me roof anyway. I ’spect ye’ve made the right decision.”

He turned away from her, sauntering smoothly toward his throne. She’d been dismissed, it seemed. He no longer found her interesting enough to play with.

In that moment, with rage and grief, and yes, love, swirling all inside, Silence made her decision.

“Mr. O’Connor!”

He stopped, still turned rudely away from her, his voice a rumbling purr. “Aye?”

“I’ll stay.”

AH, BUT VICTORY felt so f*ckin’ lovely. Mick smiled, his back still toward the little widow. She was so outraged, her dusty black feathers all ruffled, she probably didn’t even feel the net tangled about her prim little feet. And yet, how easy it’d been to make her walk into his palace of her own volition, simply by kidnapping the babe.

He turned, eyebrows arched as if surprised. “Ye’ll be stayin’ with me, is that what yer sayin’, Mrs. Hollingbrook?”

Her pointed chin was raised as if to challenge him in his own palace, poor foolish wench. She was an odd creature, Silence Hollingbrook, pretty, of course—or he’d not have looked twice at her in the first place—but not his usual type, oh no. She didn’t flaunt her charms, didn’t try to lure a man with titties overflowing from a low bodice or a wicked wink. She didn’t try to lure at all, come to think of it. She held her womanliness locked up tight like a miser, which, on the whole, was a bit irritating.

Irritating and alluring at the same time—made a man want to find the key to her locks, truth be told.

Mud was splashed on the hem of her plain black frock; her shawl and cap were tattered, and yet her eyes stared at him all defiant like. Ah, but what eyes they were—large and wide, and a glorious hazel—made of golden brown and grass green and even a bit of gray blue. Hers was a face that might haunt a man’s dreams, make him wake in the night sweating and lonely, the flesh between his legs heavy with longing. Why, it made him think of those ghost tales his mam used to tell him when he was but a wee lad, crying for lack of a dinner and the burning from the welts upon his back. Wailing women, dripping water in the night, searching for their lost loves.

Mind, the tales might’ve been lovely, but his belly had still ached with hunger, his back had still stung with pain when he’d woken in the morning.

“Yes,” Mrs. Hollingbrook said, her nose tilted proudly in the air, “I’ll come and live in this… this place. Just to take care of Mary Darling, nothing else.”

Oh, it was hard not to grin at those words, but he was strong, keeping his expression as solemn as a judge’s. “And what ‘else’ might ye be thinkin’ about?”

The color flew high into her pale cheeks, making her eyes sparkle. Making his cock twitch. “Nothing!”

“Yer sure now, Mrs. Hollingbrook?” He took a step closer, testing, watching for her to flee, for despite his enjoyment of this sparring, ’twas a serious matter that she stay beneath his roof. Her very life might depend upon it.

But she stood her ground, his little widow. “I’m quite certain, Mr. O’Connor—”

“Oh, do call me Mickey, please,” he murmured.

“Mister O’Connor.” Her eyes narrowed on him. “Despite what the rest of St. Giles thinks, you and I both know that my honor is quite intact, and I’ll thank you to remember that fact.”

She was a brave one, was Silence Hollingbrook. Her small chin outthrust, her hazel eyes steady, her pale lips trembling. Any other man might’ve felt a twinge of guilt, a trickle of remorse for the sweet innocence he’d taken and smashed to the ground like a fine china dish.

Any other man but he.

For Mick O’Connor had lost any vestige of guilt, remorse, or soul on a winter’s night sixteen years before.

So now he smiled, without any conscience at all, as he lied to the woman he’d hurt so cruelly. “Oh, I’ll be sure and remember, Mrs. Hollingbrook.”