A knock came at the outer door.
Silence squeaked, embarrassed. “The servants—”
Michael shook his head, rising from the bed. “The servants know better than to disturb me—unless it’s important.”
He crossed to the door and cracked it without bothering to dress.
Silence couldn’t see who was outside the door, but she could hear his voice.
“A word, Mick,” Harry said.
And somehow Silence knew their imperfect idyll was shattered.
“ ’E BOLTED LAST night near midnight,” Harry said as he matched his stride to Mick’s. The two men were headed in the direction of the small stable behind the house. “We followed ’im like ye instructed, but we ’ad no notion o’ where ’e was bound until we fetched up ’ere this mornin’. Didn’t think ye’d want ’im showin’ up all unannounced, so I put a ’and on ’im and came for ye.”
Mick could feel his muscles tensing, his stride lengthening as he neared the one who had betrayed him. “Ye did well.”
They went out through the kitchens, ignoring the startled squeak of a single scullery maid bent over a mountain of dishes. Outside the day was gray as if the skies reflected this grim business. The stable was across a cobblestone yard and their boots rang on the stones. Inside the stable one of the carriage horses whickered in greeting. Bran was standing in an empty stall with Bert watching him narrow-eyed.
Mick looked at his former lieutenant. Bran no longer could be mistaken for a boy. Several days’ growth of beard shadowed his jaw. His face had new lines about his mouth and his eyes looked sunken. Bran glanced at him and then away again as if too ashamed to meet Mick’s eyes.
“Wait for me outside,” Mick said to Bert and Harry without taking his eyes from Bran’s face.
The two men left.
Mick took one giant stride forward and hit Bran in the jaw, putting all the force of his shoulder—and his pain—into the blow.
Bran staggered, struck the back of the stall and abruptly sat.
“Why?” Mick rasped.
Bran had his hand to his face. A blow like that could break a man’s jaw, make it impossible to properly eat or talk ever again.
Mick didn’t care. “I brought ye up from the streets, boy. Took ye into me own home, fed ye me food, put clothes on yer back. And this is how ye repay me? By betrayin’ me to me enemy? By lettin’ his men into me house to kill an innocent lass?”
Bran licked at the blood seeping from a split on his lip. “I didn’t know he’d kill Fionnula.” His voice cracked on her name.
Mick shook his head. “What did ye think he’d do?”
Bran shrugged, glancing about the stall vaguely. “Take you down.”
“Ye wanted me crew.”
Bran looked at him finally and Mick was surprised to see defiance still in his eyes. “You told me, over and over again, about how you’d made your way. About how you’d taken down the leader of that pirate crew when you were merely a boy. What did you expect from me but that I would do the same?”
Mick squatted on his haunches, feeling weary to his soul. “I expected loyalty.”
“Loyalty?” Bran shook his head and then winced at the movement. “You told me never to trust anyone. That any man who does so is a fool. You taught me that no one would champion me but me. That I must look out for myself and only myself. I could recite your lessons in my sleep. Not once did you mention loyalty, but now you expect it from me?”
“Aye!” Mick remembered those offhand remarks, the lessons given casually as they’d raided ships and analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of their men and of their enemies. But he’d considered Bran one of his own—his lieutenant, damn it. His friend. How could Bran have taken his words and turned them against him? “I expected loyalty from ye and every man under me command.”
“Under your command, exactly,” Bran said. “I had no way of bettering myself. I wanted to be like you.”
“Ye were like me,” Mick roared. “I took ye into me confidence, made ye a man. What the fuck were ye thinkin’, Bran?”
“I was thinking of freedom!” Bran shouted. “You kept us under your thumb, made us live in your house, eat at your table. You dealt out the spoils as you saw fit and consulted no one else. You never listened to my suggestions or plans. I was nothing but a lackey to you when what I wanted to be was your equal.”
Mick stared. He’d spent years never knowing where his next meal would come from. He’d made the palace into a fortress, not only to guard his wealth, but to guard his men. And now Bran threw back his generosity in his face?
Mick turned his head away in disgust and stood. “Try and put the blame for yer betrayal on me, but it won’t work. Fionnula is dead because o’ ye and ye alone.”
“Oh, God.” Bran squeezed shut his eyes, moaning so low Mick had to lean close to hear the words. “Oh, God, don’t you think I know that? Her pretty face was burned off. I keep seeing her in my dreams. I can’t sleep at night.”
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.”
“It that what this is? A test?” He felt the anger rise in him again, seeking a victim even if she might be innocent of any outrage against him.
“Perhaps it is,” she said slowly. “I need to know that I’m more to you than a woman in your bed, Michael.”
“Ye know full well yer more than that,” he growled in outrage. “What d’ye want from me?”
“Truth,” she whispered, powerful in her softness. “Honesty. Friendship. And perhaps love.”
The words sent icy fear through his belly. He could storm a ship, could knife a man, could lead a gang of near-feral pirates, but the things she asked of him were impossible for him to do. He was the son of Charlie Grady, a man who’d never felt compassion, let alone love in his entire life. What softness Mick had had in him had been burned away sixteen years ago as surely as Charlie Grady’s face had melted. He’d had to armor himself in layers of granite to survive, to fight to where he was now in the world. And she? She wanted him to simply strip his armor away—let it fall and stand naked and vulnerable in the sunlight.
Her gaze was clear and direct and too terrible for words as she waited for something from him—something he wasn’t sure he had in him.
“Damn ye,” he hissed again, and brought his mouth down on hers.