Nell pulled down her apron, her face reddened and damp, her blond hair trailing from its pins. She marched up to Harry and stuck a finger in his chest. “Just you watch out for her, you hear me, you great lout? A hair on her head gets harmed and it’s you I’ll be coming after.”
The threat was ludicrous, Harry towered over Nell. Silence blinked, Bert scowled, but Harry himself was quite solemn. He took Nell’s hand gently in his big paw and spread her fingers until he could rest them on his great chest, just over where his heart might be.
“Never you fear, ma’am,” was all he said. “Never you fear.”
And then Silence was out the door, the wind whipping her skirts flat against her legs as she headed into a new life.
CHARLIE GRADY, BETTER known as the Vicar of Whitechapel, poured himself a tankard of beer. Some might find it strange—his taste for beer—seeing as how he controlled the distilling of damn near every drop of gin in Whitechapel and indeed the whole East End of London, but there it was. Charlie liked beer, so beer he drank.
And if anyone did find his taste in drink strange, well… no one was foolish enough to tell him so to his face.
“What have you found?” he asked, watching as the foam in the pewter tankard slowly subsided. He didn’t need to look up to know that Freddy, standing before Charlie’s table, was studying his own big feet.
“ ’E moved the babe into ’is palace today.” Freddy was a big bruiser, smarter than he looked, but not much for expansive talk.
Charlie grinned, only half of his face moving. “Always a smart one was Charming Mickey. He must have a real fear for what I’d do to the babe to take her out of his hiding place and move her to the palace.”
Freddy shuffled uneasily. “There’s more.”
“Aye?”
“A wench came to see ’im.”
Charlie laughed, the sound a strange sputter. “That there isn’t news.”
His gaze flicked up in time to see Freddy look hastily away.
Freddy flushed, the red mottling his pitted face. “This one is different.”
“How do you figure?”
“She’s the one ’oo lived in the orphan’s ’ome—the respectable one. The one takin’ care o’ the babe.”
Charlie cocked his head, feeling the pull of old scars on the left side of his face and neck. “Ah, but that is news. Charming Mickey don’t like the respectable ones much, now does he?”
Freddy knew better than to answer, so Charlie took a sip of his beer, the tart taste of hops washing down his throat.
He set his tankard back on the table and picked up the dice with his left hand—the one with the thumb and forefinger turned to claws. He’d had the dice for long years now and they were worn smooth, the paint gone from the carved pips, the edges rounded. They were old friends in his palm and when he threw them gently, they rolled with barely a sound on the bare plank table.
Deuce and trey. A five. Ah, now, five could be good or very good, depending. Depending.
Last fall he’d had plans to move into St. Giles. Take over the gin distilling there and become king of gin in all of London. Those plans had stumbled because of an aristocrat not afraid of blowing up his own still—and taking half of Charlie’s men with it. But Charlie’d had time to regroup since then.
And besides, he had another focus now.
“My Gracie’s dead and buried. What she wanted, what she kept me from doin’… now that’s dead, as well.” Charlie stared with fascination at the greasy bits of bone. They seemed to wink up at him slyly. “All bets are off and Charming Mickey O’Connor would do well to look after his females.”
He looked up in time to catch Freddy’s horrified gaze directly.
“Best have our spy find out how much the lady means to Mickey, hadn’t ye?”
Chapter Two
The king had a palace, naturally, and beside the palace was a large and lovely garden. Every morning it was the king’s habit to stroll about his garden and inspect the fruit trees, which were his pride and joy. Imagine then, the king’s shock when one morning he came upon his favorite cherry tree and found the ground underneath littered with cherry pits….
It was dusk by the time Silence, Harry, and Bert made it back to Mickey O’Connor’s gaudily opulent “palace.” The moment they stepped inside Silence heard the screams.
She knew that angry shriek.
Silence took the stairs two at a time, not even slowing at Harry’s worried, “Oi!” from behind her. The screams were growing louder the nearer she got to Mr. O’Connor’s throne room. She pushed open the great double doors and swept right past Bob, the skinny guard, and marched to where Mickey O’Connor stood in the middle of the room with a bawling Mary Darling in his hands.
No wonder the little girl was crying! The pirate held his screaming daughter out at arm’s length as if she were a stinking chamber pot.
“What have you done?” Silence demanded and snatched the baby from his hands.
Mary Darling had stopped shrieking at the sight of Silence, but she still cried, her little face red and swollen, her shoulders shuddering with uncontrollable sobs. Silence recognized this state of affairs: Mary had been wailing for quite some time.
She kissed the baby’s damp cheek, murmuring soothing nonsense and then turned an accusing eye on Mickey O’Connor.
He threw up his hands. “Don’t be lookin’ at me like that. I didn’t touch the brat and no one could get her to stop wailin’!”
Silence covered Mary’s ears. “How dare you?”
Mickey O’Connor scowled, for once looking less than charming. “She started bawlin’ the moment ye left. Like a great, barmy banshee, she was. Near to deafened me, I tell ye.”
“Well, perhaps she doesn’t like it here.” Silence tucked Mary’s still shaking head under her chin and cuddled the baby. “Perhaps she doesn’t like you.”
Mr. O’Connor snorted. “I don’t like her, and that’s a fact, no perhaps about it.”
Silence gasped. “But she’s your daughter!”
“And what does that have to do with the matter?” Mickey asked with a sardonic twist to his lips. “Her dam was a whore I kept for less than a sennight. The first I was hearin’ o’ the babe was when the wench died and left a note that I was the father. An old bawd came and dumped the babe on me, but not afore demandin’ a guinea for the pleasure. For ought I know her mam lied and the babe is none o’ me flesh at all.”
Silence stroked a hand over Mary’s soft curls, truly shocked. Had he no feelings at all? “Is that what you truly think?”
“Matters not at all, does it?” He turned away, one wide shoulder shrugging elegantly. “Daughter or not, flesh or not, like her or not, she’s me own now, so don’t be a-gettin’ any ideas to the contrary. Now follow me like a good lass and I’ll be showin’ ye to yer room.”
He strode away as if he did indeed expect her to follow like “a good lass.” Had Silence any choice she would’ve remained where she was. But since Mary was already half-asleep on her shoulder, she tramped after the awful man with Harry and Bert bringing up the rear.
He led her out through the double doors—Bob ran to open them as Mickey O’Connor approached so he didn’t have to stop. Mr. O’Connor didn’t acknowledge the courtesy, merely striding past like a king, but Silence nodded her thanks to the skinny guard as she hurried after.
Mickey O’Connor stalked down a short hallway and then through another door that led to the back of the house. A big man stood guard here as well. The gold walls and marble floor stopped at the door, but that didn’t mean this area of the house was any less richly appointed. The carved wood panels of the walls shone richly with beeswax and the floor beneath their feet was thickly carpeted. Mr. O’Connor mounted a set of stairs, Silence panting behind, trying to tamp down the frisson of dread remembrance. Mickey O’Connor had taken her this way once before, and she hadn’t emerged again entirely whole.