Scandalous Desires (Maiden Lane #3)(37)

“She worships Bran does our Fionnula,” Mickey O’Connor said quietly, following her gaze.

“Does he worship her, as well?” she asked, sharper than she meant.

Mickey O’Connor cocked his head, considering the matter. Then he shook it once. “I very much doubt it. Bran worships power and money and little else.”

“Not so very different than you, I suppose.” She wasn’t sure why the information that Fionnula’s sweetheart didn’t love the girl as much as Fionnula did him troubled her, but it did.

“Did ye look upon yer William like she does Bran?” he asked so quietly she nearly didn’t hear him.

Silence drew in her breath. He hadn’t the right to speak William’s name—he should know that. But she lifted her chin and met Mickey O’Connor’s black eyes. “I suppose I did.”

She’d thought to provoke him, but he merely leaned his head on his hand, studying her. “How did ye meet him, this paragon o’ a husband?”

She smiled at the memory. “He saved my shoes.”

“How?”

“I was out shopping with Temperance, my sister, and I’m afraid I got caught behind—I was staring in a shopwindow.”

His lips twitched. “At gloves and lace?”

“At a cream cake, if you must know,” she said with dignity.

He breathed a chuckle and she felt a flush start on her neck. “Father didn’t approve of sweets so we only had them on special occasions—Christmas and the like.” He was still smiling so she hurried on. “Anyway, I was rushing to catch up with my sister. I mustn’t have been watching because all at once there was a great miller’s cart right in front of my nose. If William hadn’t grabbed me about the waist and pulled me back, my shoes would’ve been quite ruined.” Silence sliced off a bite of the pear. “There was a puddle, you see.”

He reached for his ruby-red wine. “Sounds more like Will saved yer life rather than yer shoes.”

“The cart wasn’t that close.” Silence wrinkled her nose, because the cart had been rather close and the first thing William had done upon setting her on her feet again was to give her a scolding. Not that she was about to tell Mickey O’Connor that.

“I thanked him,” she continued, “and went off with Temperance and thought never to see him again. But then the next day, he came calling to ask Father for permission to court me.”

“And what did yer da say?” Mickey O’Connor asked as if he were greatly interested.

“Father was not at first pleased.” Silence saw a look cross Mr. O’Connor’s face and hastened to add, “William was a bit older than me, you see.”

“How much older?”

Silence poked at the half-eaten pear. “Fourteen years.”

She looked up to see Mickey O’Connor watching her and for the life of her she could not read his black eyes.

“It’s not such a great age difference as all that,” she said and heard the defensive note in her own voice.

“How old were ye?”

“Eighteen,” she muttered, then said louder, “He sailed very soon thereafter, but before he left he brought me a posy of violets.”

“He didn’t get ye the cream cake ye were moonin’ over in the bakery window?”

“I wasn’t mooning,” she said indignantly. “And, no, whyever would he buy me a cream cake? It’s a gift for a child.”

“It’s what ye wanted,” he retorted.

“Violets are much more suitable.” She frowned. “While he was away at sea he sent me wonderful letters from his travels, with all sorts of descriptions of the foreign places he saw. Then when he came home he would call upon me. It was so lovely,” she said dreamily. “William would take me to fairs and puppet shows.”

“And then?” His voice was expressionless.

She shrugged. “I married him. I was one and twenty by that time so Father would not have been able to stop me. But I wanted his blessing and he gave it to us. He said that William had shown his devotion for three years and that he was satisfied that he’d make me a proper husband.”

She paused, but Mickey O’Connor didn’t say anything.

She looked down at her plate. She’d eaten the pear as she talked and she no longer felt hungry. The empty desperation was gone—all that was left was the vague queasiness from having overindulged. Some of the pirates were laughing now as they finished their meal, while Mr. O’Connor’s little secretary had opened a book beside his plate and was making notes as he ate.

“We were happy,” she said slowly. “We lived in Wapping, by the ships. I would go to the docks and watch the tall ships come in, looking for the Finch, even when I knew she wasn’t expected back for months. And when she did dock”—she closed her eyes, remembering—“William would come to see me first thing. I always ran into his arms. We were happy. So happy.”

“And yet when ye needed him most he didn’t believe ye,” she heard him murmur. “He didn’t listen to ye.”

“I only needed him to believe me because of what you’d done,” she pointed out, but her voice lacked heat.

He didn’t reply.

She wiped her cheeks. Where last night she’d felt rage, now all she held inside was a deep sadness. “Is that what you think? That because he didn’t believe me, because he didn’t listen to me, he must not have loved me? That our happiness was but a sham?”