Alas, she’d never be a good actress.
Fionnula gave her a speaking glance. “Haven’t ye noticed? He hasn’t had a strumpet in his rooms since the day after ye arrived.”
“Oh,” was the only reply Silence could think to make, but her heart leaped willy-nilly with joy.
Fionnula rolled her eyes. “He used to have at least one woman a night, sometimes more.”
“More?” Silence squeaked. “Than one? At a time?”
“Oh, yes,” Fionnula assured her. “Sometimes two or three at once.”
Silence simply gaped, her mind stopped on the thought of Michael entertaining two or three women in his bed at once. Had he… serviced them all? In a single night? How…?
But Fionnula had grown quite chatty. “I never understand it myself. I mean, if it was backwards, as it were, and a woman could have any number of men she wished… Well, I’d never have more than one, I think. Why, can ye imagine two men snorin’ in yer bed? Or three? And what about the covers? When Bran lets me spend the night—which don’t happen often, let me tell ye—he’s always pullin’ the covers off my shoulders in the middle of the night. I wake up, my shoulders numb with cold. No.” Fionnula shook her head. “No, ye couldn’t pay me to take more’n one man to me bed.”
Fionnula turned at the end of this speech—the longest she’d ever made in Silence’s presence—and looked at her expectantly.
Silence blinked and unfortunately an image of Michael, entirely nude, lounging in the middle of his huge bed came into her mind. In the image he was erect, his long penis lying hard and straight against his flat belly. It was ruddy and wide at the tip where—
Oh, dear.
She cleared her throat and said rather huskily. “No, one would be quite enough.”
Fionnula nodded as if her argument was confirmed. “Sometimes I don’t understand men at all.”
“Gah!” Mary Darling cried as if agreeing with Fionnula. She’d slept most of the afternoon as Silence and the maid had worked on the dress, taking in the waist a bit. The baby toddled over and held out her arms to be picked up.
Silence stooped and carefully lifted the baby. “Will you be good and obey Fionnula while I’m out?” she whispered into the dark curls.
“Down!” Mary said, wriggling, so Silence kissed her hastily and put her on the floor, just as a knock came at her door. It was the corridor door, so it mayn’t be Michael, but still she checked her reflection in the looking glass.
Fionnula opened the outer door.
Michael stood there in a fine deep blue coat over a white waistcoat embroidered in silver thread. Diamonds winked on the buckles of his shoes. His gaze went straight to her and something in his black eyes seemed to heat when he saw her.
She instinctively covered her décolletage with her hands.
“Don’t.”
He took three steps and was before her. Gently, he grasped her hands in his own and spread them wide, exposing her bosom framed by the low neckline of the dress. His gaze dropped to her breasts and heat flooded her cheeks.
“Don’t ever hide yerself from me eyes,” he murmured low so that only she could hear.
Her gaze darted to Fionnula by the door. “Please!” she whispered in embarrassment.
His smile was not quite kind. “Ye may cover yerself only when we’re not alone.”
Her breath caught at the sensual promise in his eyes. Did he mean to make their friendship more intimate? And if so, would she let him?
His eyes narrowed at the confusion in her face, but he didn’t comment. He’d thrown a cloak over a chair as he entered the room and now he picked it up and drew it about her shoulders. It was velvet, rich and warm and lined with rose silk. He pulled the edges together under her throat and tenderly tied the cloak closed.
“There,” he said when he was done. “A shield to hide yer modesty behind. And to hide yer identity…”
He held out a velvet half mask.
“Oh!” She’d been worrying all afternoon about appearing in public with him, though she wasn’t sure how to bring up the subject. It was not for her reputation that she worried—that was already ruined—but for the orphanage. Now she looked at him gratefully. “Thank you.”
He gave her an ironic glance and moved behind her. Gently he lowered the mask over her face and tied it behind her head. She could feel his male heat at her back and the whisper of his breath on her nape. Something warm and soft brushed her ear.
Her breathing went shallow.
Then he was beside her again, holding out his arm. His voice was husky when he said, “Come now or we’ll be late.”
She made her good-byes to Fionnula and Mary Darling and then he was taking her hand and pulling her into the hall.
“Late to what?” Silence asked breathlessly.
But he only glanced over his shoulder at her and grinned, white teeth flashing, and so handsome her heart seemed to leap into her throat.
He led her to the front door this time, nodding at the two guards standing there. Outside a carriage waited.
“Is this yours?” Silence asked, eyeing the polished lanterns hanging by the coachman.
“Aye,” Michael said as he handed her in. He leaped in beside her and knocked on the ceiling. “I don’t have much use for it, so I keep me carriage and horses at a stable.”
“And the coachman?”
She saw the flash of his teeth again as he grinned at her in the dim carriage. “One o’ me crew. He had a job as a stable lad in another life.”
“I see.”
Silence fingered the soft velvet lying over her lap, the realization suddenly hitting her that they rode in a small enclosed space together. She tried to keep her breathing even, but the feel of his broad shoulders leaning against her, the sight of his long legs stretched clear across the carriage floor, seemed to make breathing rather difficult.
“This is only my fourth carriage ride,” she said nervously into the heavy quiet that had fallen.
“Oh?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “Papa could not afford to keep one, but I once rode in a carriage belonging to a friend of his, Sir Stanley Gilpin, who helped to found the Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children. That was when he took us to a fair in Greenwich once. And when Temperance was married, her husband, Lord Caire very kindly provided a carriage for the family to ride in to the church and later the wedding breakfast.” Silence stopped suddenly having run out of breath.