“Why not?” Silence whispered.
He looked up at her, but she knew it wasn’t her he was seeing. His dark eyes were haunted. “She… she begged me. I hadn’t seen her for seven years and she got on her knees to beg for his worthless life.”
Silence drew in her breath. What must he have felt to see his mother on her knees begging for the life of the man who had abused her—had abused Michael?
“I let him go, more fool I, because of her, and he went and made his home in Whitechapel, schemin’, plannin’, buildin’ his power until he became the Vicar o’ Whitechapel.” Michael shook his head as if disgusted. “I should’ve squashed him like a bug.”
“Your mother would never have forgiven you,” Silence said and she wanted to weep for him.
He looked up. “She never forgave me anyway. I never saw her again alive.”
“You tried to?” she asked gently.
He snorted bitterly. “Many a time. He wouldn’t let me near her and I knew ’twould only bring her trouble if’n I saw her in secret. She loved that bastard until the end.”
She’d loved Charlie more than her own son. Michael didn’t say the words, but Silence knew he thought them.
She looked down at her hands and found that she’d squeezed her chemise into hopeless wrinkles in her fists. Carefully she opened her hands and smoothed the fabric.
“When did she die, your mother?”
“Four weeks ago.”
Her head jerked up. “That recently?”
He nodded. “It’s why I had to bring Mary and you to the palace. Once me mam was gone, there was nothin’ to hold him back from makin’ me pay. I knew he’d try and draw his blood price from anyone close to me, particularly a woman. He’s always liked hurtin’ lasses.”
“Your mother held Charlie Grady back from attacking you?”
He looked away and nodded.
She held out her hands urgently. “Then she did care for you, didn’t she?”
He glanced back at her, his eyes raw.
“She must’ve,” Silence whispered. “Even if she never saw you, she still loved you enough to keep your father from hurting you again.”
He shook his head, and she could see that he was having trouble believing her. It would be hard, after a lifetime of seeing only one truth, to open oneself to another.
His deep voice interrupted her thoughts. “You said you had two questions.”
She looked up and saw that he was watching her intently, his black eyes hooded. She felt her face heat. Had he known what she was thinking?
“Yes.” She clasped her hands together in her lap, trying to look calm. This was important. How he answered might change everything. “Why did you tell me all this?”
He blinked as if the question wasn’t the one he’d been expecting. One corner of his wide sensuous mouth curved up ever so slightly. “Oh, love, I think ye know the answer to that one well enough.”
Did he mean what she thought he meant? That he wanted her to know about him? Wanted to let her into his life? Her breath caught on the possibility. On the hope that he wanted from her what she wanted from him.
And while she thought, he got up from the bed and answered the question she’d asked only in her mind.
No, he wasn’t wearing anything at all.
He was tall and broad and everything that was male, from the mounded muscles of his shoulders to the faint black hairs on his feet. And he was proudly erect.
“Now, I have a question for ye,” he drawled, low and thrillingly dangerous. “Will ye be comin’ to me bed tonight, Silence Hollingbrook?”
Silence lifted her chin, refusing to back away as Michael prowled closer, large, naked, and dauntingly male. “Yes.”
He cocked his head as if unsure that he’d heard right. “Yes, what?”
She swallowed. He was an arms-length away from her now and she could feel his heat. Could feel the responding excitement within herself. “Yes, I’ll stay.”
With one stride he was next to her, overwhelming in his nudity. “Be sure, Silence, mine. Once I take ye to me bed, I won’t be stoppin’ if ye have any sudden maidenly qualms. Right now I’ll let ye walk through that door and away. In a minute more, I’ll not.”
She reached out and did what she’d been wanting to do for weeks—she laid her palm against his naked chest. His skin was smooth and so hot she felt as if he’d branded her hand. She’d carry the mark of his flesh forever. “I may have qualms, but they aren’t maidenly, I assure you. I want this.”
The sound that came from his lips was very close to a growl as he moved swiftly and decisively. Silence found herself suddenly lifted in strong arms as Michael bore her to his big bed.
He laid her down on the soft mattress and placed a knee on the bed. Then he stilled, the muscles on his shoulders bunched and ready. He seemed to restrain himself with effort. “Am I frightenin’ ye?”
She shook her head slowly, her heart contracting at the fierce worry in his eyes. “Only in the best of ways.”
He closed his eyes and she saw that his big body was trembling. He gripped the coverlet in both fists. “Ye must tell me if anythin’ I do frightens ye. I don’t want to hurt ye. I—”
She placed her fingertips against his lips and he froze. His black eyes snapped open and he watched her, wild and dangerous.
But not to her.
Never to her. She didn’t know how she knew this, but somehow, deep in her bones, she knew now that Michael O’Connor would never hurt her physically. He might hurt her emotionally, but even that wouldn’t be on purpose. One couldn’t blame the animal for the instincts he was born with.
The thought was a little sad, so she banished it and focused on the man beneath her fingers instead.
His lips were soft. She rubbed them lightly and they parted to lick at her fingertips. She smiled and let her hands drift over his jaw, rough with a day’s growth of beard. He was very still, watching her with waiting eyes. She stroked down his neck, feeling the cords of his tendons, and over to her favorite part: his smooth chest. She flattened her hand there and pressed. The muscles of his chest were hard and strong and gave very little. Curious, she scooted closer on her back, putting herself almost under him, so that she could touch him with both hands. Why he stayed so motionless and simply let her explore, she did not know, but she was grateful. She’d always been indecently interested in what lay beneath a man’s clothes. William had been a very modest man, so her curiosity had not been assuaged.