Scandalous Desires (Maiden Lane #3)(85)

Mick grunted. “How did ye find me house?”

Bran shook his head. “I snuck a look in Pepper’s book.”

“And have ye told the Vicar where I am?” Mick asked, low and deadly.

“No!”

“Why come here?”

Bran opened his eyes, the tears stark upon his face. “I thought to warn you about the Vicar. He wants Mrs. Hollingbrook. He talks of nothing else now.”

Mick laughed though he felt no mirth. “And don’t ye think I know that well enough? Why did ye really come, Bran?”

“I’m sorry, Mick,” Bran whispered. “I didn’t know what he was like. If you’d told me…”

“What?” Mick sighed. “If I’d told ye he was mad ye wouldn’t have betrayed me to me own father?”

Bran stared, the color leeching from his face. “Your father? The Vicar is your father?”

“Aye.” Mick inclined his head, his mouth twisting bitterly. “Come full circle, hasn’t it? Betrayed by me father, and betrayed to me father. The old man’s probably right pleased.”

“Mick—”

Mick threw out a hand, stopping the other man’s words. “Get out o’ me sight afore I kill ye.”

Bran rose wearily. “Will you forgive me, Mick?”

His words cut a cord within Mick, letting loose the grief within. Mick drew his dagger and before Bran could move he had the knife at his throat.

Bran froze as a drop of blood welled under the dagger.

Mick looked into the face of the boy he’d held dear as a friend. “I can’t forgive ye, Bran, no. Ye banished that hope the moment ye put Silence and Mary Darlin’ in danger. They might’ve died because o’ yer stupidity. For that, for puttin’ them at risk, I should slit yer throat here and now and throw yer rotten corpse in the river.”

For a moment he stood, the knife against Bran’s neck, staring into the other man’s light blue eyes. They’d once laughed together, drunk brandy, and planned raids. Bran had been as close to him as a brother… or a son.

It could’ve been Silence with that ruined face.

Abruptly Mick swung away, putting the length of the stall between him and Bran as he strode to the stall door.

“Harry!” he roared.

The guard appeared a second later. He glanced in the stall and blinked, looking confused to see Bran still alive.

Well, and hadn’t Mick killed for far less than Bran had done to him? “Take him.” Mick jerked his head back at Bran.

“Take ’im?” Harry asked cautiously.

Mick winced. He wouldn’t put the burden of Bran’s death on Harry, either. No, Bran was his own responsibility and he’d see him out of England himself. He sighed and stretched his neck. “Take him to the cellar and lock him in well. I’ll be bringin’ him back to London and a ship bound for a distant shore tonight.”

The relief was plain to see on Harry’s face, but it was fleeting. When the big man turned to Bran his expression was as cold as Mick had ever seen it.

“Come on, then.” Harry took a firm hold of Bran’s arm and marched him from the barn.

Bran cast one helpless look over his shoulder, but Mick ignored it. He’d made up his mind.

Mick waited, listening to the retreating footsteps, then stayed many minutes longer, trying to get his anger under control. He didn’t want her to see him this way. She wouldn’t understand. She came from a foreign land where people could forgive one another, where it wasn’t weakness to let live the boy you’d taught to be a man.

Mick threw back his head and stared blindly at the dusty rafters of the stable. He couldn’t change who he was. He’d been bred from the loins of a demon in human form and there was only so much humanity in him.

“Michael?”

Her voice was soft and sweet in the stable’s still air. For a moment he wanted to hide. To not let the disease of his soul touch her. He felt filthy with sin.

But she was ever relentless was his Silence. She poked her head around the stall door. “There you are.”

He straightened from the wall. “Aye, here I am.”

She hesitated by the doorway as if aware of the blackness in his soul. Perhaps the truly good had a sort of inner compass that swiveled around when in the presence of evil.

“What did Harry come to say?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Nothing ye need worry about.”

He started for the stall door, but she didn’t move aside. Instead she hugged her arms across her chest and looked at him with those damned beautiful eyes. “What if I want to worry about it? What if I want to share your troubles?”

He stared at her nonplussed and couldn’t help thinking that he’d never had this sort of problem with any of the whores he’d taken to bed. He wanted to brush past her and leave her and her damned questions, but he had a feeling in his gut that to do so would somehow be an act not easily mended.

Mick sighed. “Harry brought Bran to see me.”

She stood immoveable and simply raised her eyebrows.

“Damn ye,” he hissed, taking her by her slim shoulders. “Why can’t ye leave it alone? ’Tis a man’s business and none o’ yer own.”

“I think it is,” she replied, bravely tilting her face to look him in the eye, stubborn thing. “I’ve given you my body and more. I think in return you can give me some small confidence.”