Scandalous Desires (Maiden Lane #3)(78)

Her heart nearly broke.

She inhaled. “Where did you live?”

He shrugged. “On the river. At night I’d sleep wherever I could find a place to lay me head. There’re houses where ye can rent a bed for a night or part o’ a night, but they can be dangerous for a young boy, too. Often I slept on the boat if the weather was fair.”

She watched him. He sat like a king in that great bed, his olive skin shining as if burnished in the candlelight. The coverlet was bunched carelessly at his hips and for the first time she wondered if he wore anything beneath the sheet.

Hastily she raised her eyes. “And then?”

“And then one night me master and me were set upon by a bigger crew o’ river thieves. We were beaten and the haul we’d taken that night stolen from us. And I knew then, as I crawled into a corner to lick me wounds, that I couldn’t survive as I was.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

He held out his hands in front of him, palms up, weighing his long ago choice. “I could be a wolf or a rabbit, it was that simple. I chose to be a wolf. The next night I went to the crew who’d attacked us and offered me services. They beat me again, jus’ to show me that I was at the bottom o’ their pack, but I began to raid with them.”

He held her gaze and closed both hands into fists. “And when I was stronger, when I was no longer at the bottom and had learned to use a knife, I challenged the leader o’ the gang and beat him so badly he never walked straight again. I was fifteen and the leader o’ that river crew then.”

He lowered his fists to the coverlet and looked at them. “In another couple o’ years I was the most feared river pirate on the Thames. I moved me crew to St. Giles and met up with Charlie again. He’d recovered from the burns to his face, but he wasn’t nearly at his peak. I could’ve killed him then, but I didn’t.”

“Why not?” Silence whispered.

He looked up at her, but she knew it wasn’t her he was seeing. His dark eyes were haunted. “She… she begged me. I hadn’t seen her for seven years and she got on her knees to beg for his worthless life.”

Silence drew in her breath. What must he have felt to see his mother on her knees begging for the life of the man who had abused her—had abused Michael?

“I let him go, more fool I, because of her, and he went and made his home in Whitechapel, schemin’, plannin’, buildin’ his power until he became the Vicar o’ Whitechapel.” Michael shook his head as if disgusted. “I should’ve squashed him like a bug.”

“Your mother would never have forgiven you,” Silence said and she wanted to weep for him.

He looked up. “She never forgave me anyway. I never saw her again alive.”

“You tried to?” she asked gently.

He snorted bitterly. “Many a time. He wouldn’t let me near her and I knew ’twould only bring her trouble if’n I saw her in secret. She loved that bastard until the end.”

She’d loved Charlie more than her own son. Michael didn’t say the words, but Silence knew he thought them.

She looked down at her hands and found that she’d squeezed her chemise into hopeless wrinkles in her fists. Carefully she opened her hands and smoothed the fabric.

“When did she die, your mother?”

“Four weeks ago.”

Her head jerked up. “That recently?”

He nodded. “It’s why I had to bring Mary and you to the palace. Once me mam was gone, there was nothin’ to hold him back from makin’ me pay. I knew he’d try and draw his blood price from anyone close to me, particularly a woman. He’s always liked hurtin’ lasses.”

“Your mother held Charlie Grady back from attacking you?”

He looked away and nodded.

She held out her hands urgently. “Then she did care for you, didn’t she?”

He glanced back at her, his eyes raw.

“She must’ve,” Silence whispered. “Even if she never saw you, she still loved you enough to keep your father from hurting you again.”

He shook his head, and she could see that he was having trouble believing her. It would be hard, after a lifetime of seeing only one truth, to open oneself to another.

His deep voice interrupted her thoughts. “You said you had two questions.”

She looked up and saw that he was watching her intently, his black eyes hooded. She felt her face heat. Had he known what she was thinking?

“Yes.” She clasped her hands together in her lap, trying to look calm. This was important. How he answered might change everything. “Why did you tell me all this?”

He blinked as if the question wasn’t the one he’d been expecting. One corner of his wide sensuous mouth curved up ever so slightly. “Oh, love, I think ye know the answer to that one well enough.”

Did he mean what she thought he meant? That he wanted her to know about him? Wanted to let her into his life? Her breath caught on the possibility. On the hope that he wanted from her what she wanted from him.

And while she thought, he got up from the bed and answered the question she’d asked only in her mind.

No, he wasn’t wearing anything at all.

He was tall and broad and everything that was male, from the mounded muscles of his shoulders to the faint black hairs on his feet. And he was proudly erect.