Scandalous Desires (Maiden Lane #3)(20)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

As if he knew her thoughts, Lad sat and wagged his tail.

Silence placed her hands on her hips. “Well, no matter how he came here, one thing is for certain. This dog needs a bath.”

“D’YOU THINK HE’LL pay the tithe now?” Bran asked Mick that night.

They were tramping back to the palace in the company of Pat and Sean, four abreast down the middle of the street. Any they ran into in the dark made a wide berth around them.

“Aye,” Mick replied with satisfaction.

The owner of the Alexander, a large, round man with sallow, hanging cheeks, had gone a rather sickly green when he’d walked into his bedroom to find it full of pirates. He’d nodded vigorously to everything Mick had said to him, while clutching his banyan about himself like a frightened virgin.

“Then that’s done,” Bran said.

“Not quite,” Mick replied as they turned into an alley. They were nearly to the palace now, but he couldn’t help but feel that they were being trailed. Well, this was as good a place as any—and he had his men at his back. Mick flexed his arm, feeling the sheathed knife bound to his forearm. “He’s agreed to me tithe, but I don’t think he understands the error o’ his ways. We’ll be raidin’ the ship when it makes port.”

“Aye,” Bran began, nodding.

A shape suddenly dropped from above, landing just in front of the four men.

“Jaysus Christ!” Sean shouted, leaping back.

Mick had his knife already drawn and was looking around warily, watching to see where the other attackers might come from. Several yards back two shadows drifted into the entrance to an alley. Mick shifted, keeping both the attacker in front and the men behind in his sight.

The shape in front straightened and became a man. Mick squinted. The figure wore a harlequin’s motley and a wide-brimmed hat with a feather. Beneath the hat the upper part of his face was concealed by a black half-mask, the nose grotesquely long and curved.

In one hand he held a sword.

“The Ghost o’ St. Giles,” Pat whispered, crossing himself.

“We’re right honored,” Mick drawled. Pat might be superstitious, but the man before him looked real enough to him. “But yer barrin’ our path.”

The ghost cocked his head, eyes glittering behind the mask.

Mick’s eyes narrowed. “What do ye want?”

At that the ghost smiled and pointed to his eyes. Slowly his forefinger swiveled until it was pointed at Mick. The message was quite clear.

“Fuck that.” Mick lunged for him.

The ghost made an impossible leap, grabbing a balcony overhanging the alley. He swung himself up, nimble as an acrobat, and continued climbing up the side of the building.

“Jaysus,” Sean breathed. “I’d ’eard ’e could climb where no mortal man can.”

“Don’t be a fool,” Bran snapped. “Anyone with enough training and practice could do that.”

Sean looked doubtful. “Don’t think I could.”

“Nor I.” Pat backed a couple of steps, looking up the building’s side. “Couldn’t jump like that if me life depended on it. Were almost as if ’e ’ad wings, it were.”

“Aye.” Sean sounded admiring. “Right nimble ’e was, if ’e weren’t a ghost or phantom or some such. Think ’e were givin’ ye the evil eye, Mick?”

“No, I don’t,” Mick said shortly. He glanced behind him, but their followers seemed to have disappeared without making any move on them, perhaps made cautious by the Ghost. Uneasiness crawled up Mick’s spine. He could handle an attack against himself, but that wasn’t his weak point.

And the Vicar knew it.

Mick looked at Bran. “On the morrow we’re movin’ Mrs. Hollingbrook and the babe.”

Bran nodded without comment.

“Best we were back,” Mick said.

So saying he continued down the alley, though he didn’t sheath his knife again. His thoughts turned to the unexpected confrontation. The ghost wanted him to know that he was keeping a watch on Mick.

The only question was: why?

“ ’IMSELF WON’T LIKE this,” Bert growled. He’d returned from exile just in time to be caught up in Silence’s plans for Lad the dog.

Silence hitched Mary farther up her hip and tramped determinedly down the overdecorated corridor. “I can’t believe Mr. O’Connor enjoys having a filthy dog running about his house. Besides, you told me he wasn’t home.”

“Expected back any minute,” Bert said with gloomy relish.

Silence suppressed a shiver of alarm at that information. She was sticking to her guns, but all the same she wasn’t sure she wanted a repeat of this morning quite so soon.

She cast an apologetic glance at Bert. “We’ll act swiftly, then.”

She ignored Bert’s continued grumbles as she followed Harry toward what he’d assured her were the kitchens. Lad trotted along beside her, happily oblivious to his impending soapy fate, while Fionnula brought up the rear.

Silence cleared her throat. “Fionnula said that Mr. O’Connor had gone off on some kind of business.”

Harry glanced back at her. “ ’E’s talkin’ to a merchant ship owner.”

“Talking?”

Bert grunted. “More like explainin’ the facts o’ life to ’im—what?”

Harry had stopped short and turned to glare at his compatriot.

Bert shrugged, both hands palms up by his side. “ ’E’s a pirate. If she don’t know that by now she’s either a ’alf-wit or daft.”

Silence cleared her throat to get the men’s attention. “What do you mean by ‘explaining the facts of life,’ Bert?”

“ ’E gets a tithe, right?” Bert said patiently. “From every merchant ship that docks in London.”

“Every ship?” Silence raised her eyebrows.

“Used to be ’e ’ad a bit more competition,” Harry said judiciously. “But a couple o’ years ago Black Jack Wilde took a swim in the Thames—”

Bert tched. “Middle o’ winter it were, too. Didn’t find ’im ’til spring.”

“And Jimmy Barker went missin’, which meant most o’ ’is crew joined us.” Harry pursed his lips as if thinking, then cocked an eyebrow at Bert.

Who nodded. “They was about it. After that ’Imself became the biggest pirate on the Thames. So, yeah, every ship.”