Scandalous Desires (Maiden Lane #3)(46)

She stopped suddenly, a little out of breath. He probably thought her a ninny for prattling on about her family. It occurred to her that although her family was not rich, compared to his, she’d been quite well off. Further, in his world—a world of beggars and thieves—he had risen quite far. In his own way, Mickey O’Connor was a successful man.

“Ye’d a happy childhood.” The comment was a statement of fact, but she had the feeling that the idea was a foreign one for him. Dear Lord, what might his childhood have been like?

“Yes, I was happy,” she said simply. “My father was strict, but he loved all his children and made sure we each were properly educated. We may not have been rich, yet we never lacked for food or clothing.”

He nodded, unsurprised. “He was a good provider.”

“What of your family?” she asked tentatively. “What did your mother do when she came to London?”

He shrugged. “Afore I was born I’ve heard that she was a spinner for a time.”

“And then?” Silence whispered.

He looked at her, his face devoid of expression. “And then she met a monster.”

Silence covered Mary’s little head with her hand as if to shield her. How bad would a person have to be for a river pirate to consider him a monster?

Mickey’s beautiful mouth had twisted into a terrible snarl, his voice ragged and low. “She fell under his spell, this monster, for he was a silver-tongued man and knew well how to hide his evil. Hide it until she was too entangled in his web to free herself. He took her and made her his, blindin’ her so that she could never look entirely away from his dark eyes, never think without his voice in her head. He had a still and she helped him make gin. When the still wasn’t makin’ money, she’d whore herself for him, spendin’ nights on the streets and turnin’ out her pocket to him when she came home again. Sometimes he sent her out on the streets even when there was money, and she went without protest, so under his spell was she. ’Twas his way of keepin’ her firmly beneath his fist. Keepin’ her bewitched.”

“And your father?” she asked bravely. Had he been born from one of his mother’s nights walking the street?

He simply looked at her with those beautiful black eyes and did not reply.

MICK WATCHED THE color drain from Silence’s face. Was she simply repulsed by his poverty-ridden upbringing and the fact that his mother had been a whore? Or had she some little care for him? A tiny bit of sympathy for the devil himself?

She stood before him clad only in a worn chemise and equally worn shawl, cradling the baby in her arms. He’d grown enormously erect in the last few minutes, simply from staring at her. He’d donned his shirt, but left it untucked from his breeches in feeble disguise. Silence’s chemise hung only to her calves. Her lower legs were smooth and delicately shaped. He could just make out—if he squinted hard—the shadowed outline of her thighs. He fancied he could see a dark triangle as well, but that was probably the product of his over-heated brain. Still, his cock didn’t seem to care between reality and fantasy.

Did she have no sense of self-preservation? he wondered, suddenly irritable. She knew what he was, his unremorseful cruelty, and yet she stood before him only half-clad and as innocently unaware as a lamb. Except that wasn’t the entire truth. His gaze dropped to the child’s curly black hair. Silence had been worried about the baby. It was her love for the child that made her vulnerable and he had an urge to protect that—both the woman and the maternal love she held.

That love within her was more precious than all the gold in his throne room.

“I-I had no idea how awful your childhood was,” she said.

He blinked and had to think to remember the conversation they’d been engaged in. “No matter. Me tale is one that’s often told in St. Giles.”

“But it shouldn’t be. Your mother should’ve protected you.” He chanced a glance and saw she was nibbling on her bottom lip, her eyes uncertain. He nearly groaned.

He arched a mocking eyebrow. “The way of the world, isn’t it? Children are born from sin and learn to look to themselves as soon as they can walk. Why should me childhood be any different?”

“Because we aren’t animals,” she said simply. “You deserved better.”

He barked a laugh to cover the bloody pain her words drew from his breast. “Perhaps in yer world—”

“In yours as well!”

“A person cares about himself, and only himself,” he said, suddenly weary of this conversation, “in yer world or mine. Me mam was no better or worse than any other and I didn’t deserve more. Yer silly to think otherwise.”

“No.” He felt the touch of her hand on his arm and looked down in surprise to find her gripping his arm with feminine strength. He raised his gaze and saw that her eyes blazed greeny-brown at him. “I may not be as sophisticated as you. I may not have constant, changing lovers, I may not carelessly disregard the law and common morals, I may not live the romantic life of a river pirate, but I know this, Mickey O’Connor: all children deserve a loving mother. And a mother who truly loved her child would do anything—anything—to protect and save him.”

He looked into her fierce face, her delicate cheeks flaming with passion, her lips stained a rose red, and the small child she still held protectively in her arms and felt himself fall, tumbling helplessly, all thought stopped in his head. She took his breath away with her simple avowal: A mother should protect her child. Something came loose in his chest.