She lifted her chin. “I want you to return the cargo.”
Mickey blinked as if bemused. “An’ why on earth would I do such a foolish thing?”
Her heart was beating so loudly she feared he must hear it, but she said steadily, “Because returning the cargo is the right thing to do. The Christian thing to do. If you don’t, my husband will be sent to prison.”
Mickey raised one black eyebrow, looking quite satanic. “Does your husband know you’re here, luv?”
Silence bit her lip. “No.”
“Ah.” He beckoned the sweetmeats boy over again and selected another.
Silence began to open her mouth, but Harry nudged her, so she took his warning and shut it again.
Mickey ate the sweet slowly while those in the throne room waited. Silence noticed that a black marble statue of some Roman goddess stood slightly behind him. She wore a tiara, and long strands of pearls were draped over her naked bosom.
“Well, this is the way of it, luv,” Mickey said so suddenly that Silence jumped. He smiled that innocent smile again. “The owner of the ship your husband captains and I have had a bit of a falling out, see. He thinks it well and good to not be payin’ me my proper tithe from his cargos, and I… well, I can’t agree with that tack. Shows a lack of respect, in me own humble opinion. So I’ve taken the liberty of confiscatin’ the Finch’s cargo, sort of to get the man’s attention, like. You might call it a drastic move, and I’d have to agree, but there it is, all the same. The man made his bed and now he must lay upon it.”
And Charming Mickey shrugged gracefully as if to say the matter was out of his hands.
That was it, then. Her audience was at an end. Harry had laid his hand on her arm to lead her away, and Charming Mickey was already tilting his head to hear something the thin little man was whispering to him. But she couldn’t give up. She had to at least try one more time. For William.
Silence took a deep breath, and even as she did so, she felt Harry’s hand tighten on her arm in warning. “Please, Mr. O’Connor. You have said yourself that your grievance is with the ship’s owner, not my husband. Can you not return the cargo for his sake? For my sake?”
Mickey slowly turned his head to look at her, no longer smiling now. His dark eyes were oddly dispassionate, and without his smile, his lips had a cruel edge. “’Ware, darlin’. I’ve let you play about me claws once and run away unharmed. If you skip back into them again, you’ll have naught to blame but yourself.”
Silence swallowed. His whispered warning made the hairs rise on the back of her neck, and for the first time she realized that she was truly in mortal danger. She wanted nothing more than to turn tail and run.
But she didn’t. “Please. I beg of you. If you will not do it for my husband’s sake or mine, then do it for yours. For the sake of your immortal soul. Do me this favor and I promise you, you will never regret it.”
Charming Mickey stared at her, cold, remote, and expressionless. The room was so silent that each breath Silence took sounded in her ears. Beside her, Harry seemed to have stopped breathing altogether.
Then Mickey slowly smiled. “You must love him very much, this Captain Hollingbrook, this wonderful husband of yours.”
“Yes,” Silence said with pride. “Yes, I do.”
“And does he love you in return, me darlin’?”
Silence’s eyes widened in surprise. “Of course.”
“Ah,” Charming Mickey murmured, “then there might be another way for us to work this matter out to our mutual benefit, yours and mine.”
Beside her, Harry stiffened.
She knew. She knew that whatever Charming Mickey proposed, it would be very bad. She knew that she might not escape this room, this wild, gorgeous house, with her soul entirely intact.
“That is, of course,” Mickey murmured like the devil himself, “if you truly love your husband.”
William was everything in the world to her. There was nothing she would not do to save him.
Silence looked the devil in the eye and lifted her chin. “I do.”
Chapter Eleven
Meg spent the rest of the day contentedly washing her person so that when she went to sleep that evening, she felt considerably neater. The next morning she was brought before King Lockedheart. He looked a bit surprised when he saw her—perhaps he did not recognize her without her layer of soot?—but his habitual scowl soon returned. In front of him stood a great company of courtiers, clad in rich furs, velvet, and jewels.
He asked the assembled dignitaries, “Do you love me?”
Well, the courtiers did not speak in one voice as the trained guards had the day before, but their answers were the same: yes!
The king sneered at Meg. “There! Confess now your foolishness.”…
—from King Lockedheart
“Then you mean to see him again?” Winter asked quietly that night.
“Yes, I do.” Temperance finished braiding Mary Little’s fine flaxen hair and smiled down at the girl. “There, all done. Now off to bed with you.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
Mary Little curtsied as she’d been taught and skipped out of the kitchen. Later, when all the children were settled in their beds, Winter would come up to hear their prayers.
“Now you, Mary Church.” The girl turned her back and Temperance took up the brush, concentrating on taming the thick, brown curls without pulling too much.
The remaining three Marys sat before the fire in their chemises, their hair drying as they bent their heads over their samplers. Bath day was always quite a chore, but Temperance enjoyed it nonetheless. There was something wonderfully soothing about all the children being clean and neat at once.
Or at least this time should be soothing.
She sighed. “I need to go tonight.”
All the girls could hear their argument, even though both she and Winter took pains to keep their voices even and polite, but the main child she worried over was Mary Whitsun. That Mary sat beside her, combing out the curls of two-year-old Mary Sweet. Mary Whitsun kept her eyes on her task, but she had a frown between her brows.
Temperance sighed. Pity she couldn’t have this discussion in private, but if she was going to attend the ball Caire had promised to take her to tonight, she would have to get the children safely to bed and then rush to dress in Nell’s lent gown. She wished it were merely for the home that she looked forward to the evening. Already her heartbeat had quickened at the thought of seeing Caire again. She glanced worriedly at the old clock on the mantel. She’d be cutting things perilously close as it was.