He grabbed her hand and thrust it beneath the bathwater.
She struggled so violently that the water splashed over her bodice and the rug, but he was stronger than she. He forced her palm down against his male part, hard and thick, and held it there as he grasped her hair with his other hand. He yanked, pulling her hair, arching her neck, and suddenly his mouth was on hers, cruel and merciless. He ground her lips against her teeth, used his hold on her hair to angle her head for his greater access. She felt the push of his tongue against her lips. For a moment she stopped fighting. She opened her mouth and let him in, hot and searching. She could taste the heady liquor on his tongue, feel the sudden gentling of his mouth as he got what he wanted. His kiss was overwhelmingly masculine. Overwhelmingly dominant.
Something clenched inside her—something primitive and needy, something that had nothing to do with love.
He groaned.
And she lurched back. Her hand came out of the water and she hit him as hard as she could across the face. The sound of the blow was loud in the room.
“No!” she cried, her heart pounding, her breasts aching. “No. You don’t have the right.”
He watched her retreat, his eyes lazy, and his body unmoving. A trickle of blood seeped slowly from the corner of his mouth. He let her get nearly out of the room before he spoke, “I may not have the right, Silence, me love,” he drawled so soft she nearly didn’t catch the words. “But I would’ve listened to ye. I would’ve believed ye.”
Chapter Six
Now on the third night when dusk drew near, Clever John thought long and hard about the feathers he’d found on his person and the fact that he and his cousins could not stay awake no matter how they tried. He took a bit of candle wax from the castle and stopped up both his ears. Then he took up his position beneath the cherry tree and waited for nightfall….
—from Clever John
Mick woke the next morning to the sound of Lad retching by the fireplace.
“Don’t ye dare!” Mick growled, lunging up.
Lad stood frozen on the hearth, tail between his legs, and tiny triangle ears flat to his head. The dog rolled his eyes at Mick.
Mick narrowed his. “Heave in me room, ye damned dog, and I’ll spit ye and serve ye to the crew tonight for supper.”
Lad whimpered and lay down.
Mick sighed and flopped back onto his pillows. A far cry this was from how he’d used to wake in his bedroom. No scented female flesh to warm his bed, only a sick mongrel on the hearth.
And the memory of his kiss with Silence Hollingbrook last night. Aye, and he hadn’t acted the gentleman, had he? No, he’d seized and taken and he would not regret his actions in the light of day, for the kiss had been sweet and hot and all that he’d imagined that a kiss with Silence would be.
Well, not quite all. In his lusty thoughts such a kiss hadn’t ended with her hitting him—nor stomping from the room. No, in his dreams, there’d been much more than that almost chaste meeting of lips. Enough to make his already stiff John Thomas twitch with interest.
He winced, feeling an ache in his arms from the unexpected swim last night. He needed to deal with the Vicar and soon, but first there was the matter of Silence Hollingbrook and her stomach. Harry had kept him informed and the maddening woman hadn’t eaten all yesterday—despite being smuggled food. Perhaps she thought she was protecting the servants or perhaps she was refusing food in some sort of ridiculous protest against living with him. Or perhaps she was simply not eating to irritate him—and if that were so, well it was certainly working.
Women were something best bought, he’d found. Pay them, fuck them, and send them away in the morning. That way avoided tears, recriminations, and feminine disappointment. Oh, and small things like being slapped across the face. Mick rubbed his jaw. But Silence wasn’t one of his whores, as Harry had pointed out. Mick couldn’t send her away. And he couldn’t let her starve herself—he wouldn’t let anyone hurt her, including herself.
Which meant that much as it went against his instincts, he would have to take the risk of drawing her closer. Letting her in, just a tad, mind.
Mick O’Connor never admitted defeat, never backed down, but he might choose to change his plans, should he come head to head with a stubborn widow bent on hurting herself for whatever reason.
The course he’d originally taken with her was not working. Time to take a different tack.
SILENCE WAS DRESSING Mary Darling for the day when the door opened behind her.
The baby looked up and frowned. “Bad!”
Which was warning enough, Silence supposed.
She inhaled and turned to face Mickey O’Connor, biting her lip against the memory of that savage kiss last night.
He had closed the door behind him and was leaning against the wall, his frown nearly identical to Mary Darling’s. “Will she ever find another name to call me, d’ye think?”
“I don’t know,” Silence said with commendable calm. If he wouldn’t mention the kiss, well, then neither would she. “It might depend on if you ever call Mary something else besides ‘she.’ ”
He grunted and shoved away from the wall. “Fair enough.”
She watched him cross to the hearth and stare broodingly into the fire. Fionnula had gone down to fetch Mary’s breakfast, so they were alone for the moment. “What did you come for?”
“Forgiveness?” he murmured.
She blinked, not sure if she’d heard him correctly. “What?”
“Yer not what I expected, ye know.” The curl of his lips seemed self-mocking. “I thought ye’d sit in yer room and knit or do needlework. Come when called, go away when bidden. Upset me fine life not at all.”
Her lips firmed in irritation, but she merely said, “You obviously haven’t seen either my knitting or my needlework.”
“No,” he said. “I haven’t. There’s much about ye I don’t know.”
She shrugged, feeling restless—and hungry. She hadn’t eaten anything since before yesterday. “Does it matter?”
“Aye,” he said slowly. “I think it does in fact.”
She stared at him, nonplussed. Why would he care to know her?
As if he’d heard her thoughts, he shook his head. “Don’t let it bother ye. ’Tis me own worry and none o’ yers. I came with two purposes. The first is to give ye this.”
He strode forward and proffered an oilcloth-wrapped bundle.
Silence took it gingerly.