Scandalous Desires (Maiden Lane #3)(52)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

That time had ended in tragedy. Would this?

She glanced up at that moment, licking the cream from her sweet lips, and frowned. “What is it?”

He sat back, looking away. He’d break in half and die if she treated him as the other had. “Nothin’.”

He felt her gaze for minutes that seemed to drag like an hour, but then, thank God, the orchestra began.

Mick hardly paid mind to the second half of the opera. It was time. Tonight he would take her to bed and end his restlessness. Once she was his, he’d no longer have this womanish worry that she’d betray him.

The decision made, he waited out the rest of the opera impatiently. Silence was hiding a yawn behind her hand by the end, so Mick gave her his arm and led her into the night air.

The carriage was around the corner and he was conscious as their footsteps echoed off the buildings on either side that this would be a grand spot for an ambush. He breathed a sigh of relief when they made the carriage and he grimaced ruefully to himself as he followed her inside. He was becoming a silly old woman it seemed.

He settled beside Silence, very aware of her smaller size and of the delicacy of her profile. Tonight he’d have her in his bed. Tonight he’d discover all that smooth, soft skin, and the woman beneath.

“Thank you,” she said sleepily. “That was the most delightful thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Ye liked it then, m’love?” he murmured.

“I did.”

He smiled in the dark. He’d had years of practice with seduction, but this was different somehow. Final and just. After tonight he’d have no need to seduce any other. “What did ye like the most?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I liked the lady singer and the dancer—imagine dancing without stays!” She stifled a yawn. “So scandalous, and yet she was terribly graceful as well, like watching swan’s down float on the wind.” She was quiet a moment. “It must be nice to see the opera or the theater whenever you might wish.”

He tilted his head toward her. “Perhaps I’ll take ye again.”

He waited like a lovesick schoolboy for her reply and it took several moments for him to realize that she’d fallen asleep. He smiled in the dark. Best she get her rest now. Still, he could not help the impulse to carefully put his arm around her and gently tilt her head so that it lay more comfortably on his shoulder.

She murmured something and snuggled into his chest.

They rode thus through the night, she fast asleep trustingly against him, he with the smell of her hair in his nostrils. He was erect and throbbing in anticipation, but oddly he was content to sit thus with her.

More than content, if truth be told.

The ride must end at last, though, and the carriage shuddered to a halt before his palace.

She stirred and looked up, her eyes suddenly wide. “Oh! I’m sorry. I must have been a terrible weight.”

“Not at all, m’love,” he murmured. “Not at all.”

He bent his head toward hers, drawn by her plump, parted lips, but the carriage door opened.

Immediately she moved away from him and he sighed. “Come inside and I’ll give ye a taste o’ some fine Spanish wine.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said as he handed her down.

“Naught but a sip, I promise ye,” he whispered into her ear.

He was so wrapped up in their gentle flirtation that it took him a moment to notice what he should’ve seen at once.

There were no guards outside the palace.

Chapter Eleven

Well, being a king was quite lovely, and for many years Clever John was happy with the arrangement. But as time went on, it became a bit… monotonous. Every morning Clever John ate his breakfast off plates of gold. He strolled his royal garden—ten times the size of his uncle’s—and then went riding about his kingdom. By afternoon he’d usually exhausted all there was for a king to do and was forced to take a nap.

So it was with more interest than trepidation that he heard the news that his neighbor had invaded his kingdom….

—from Clever John

Silence was sleepy from the carriage ride, but Michael’s sudden stillness brought her to full alertness. “What is it?”

“Get in the carriage,” he ordered quietly and drew a long, wicked-looking dagger from his sleeve.

“Michael?” she whispered. She couldn’t see anything to alarm him. The street was quiet, the moon high and full overhead. Their carriage had stopped directly in front of the palace’s nondescript door. It looked the same as usual except—

“The guards are gone,” Michael murmured. “Me palace is under attack.”

“Dear God,” Silence said. “Mary Darling—”

He turned swiftly, his eyes burning with intense emotion. “No. Don’t even think it. I’ll get her and bring her to ye alive and safe. Wait here in the carriage.”

“But—” She was suddenly filled with fear—not only for herself and Mary, but for Michael. He thought himself invincible, but he was only a man after all, made of flesh and blood and as mortal as any other.

She bit her lip, knowing that she couldn’t distract him from his task, and started for the carriage.

“No, wait,” he took her arm, halting her. “Might be this’s a diversion to separate ye from me.”

Her eyebrows drew together. Why would Michael’s enemies care particularly about her?

“Follow me close like,” Michael said, gripping her tighter for emphasis, “but not so close that ye interfere with me right arm. Understand?”

She nodded mutely, gathering her skirts in trembling hands.

He looked over her head at the coachman. “Stay behind her and guard her with yer life, ye hear?”

“Aye, Mick,” the man replied.

Then Michael opened the door to the palace.

It was dark inside, the candles that should’ve been waiting already lit, had been snuffed. The coachman retrieved one of the lanterns from the carriage and held it up high behind Silence.

The gaudy golden walls jumped out in the flickering light, the multicolored marble floor sparkling. The entry hall seemed deserted—that is until Silence noticed a smear of blood on the rainbow marble. Michael advanced swiftly and bent over the two bodies lying in the shadows behind an ornamental urn.

He straightened almost at once. “Dead.”

Silence clapped a hand over her mouth to still a cry of fear. What would the intruders do to Mary Darling?

Michael was already moving swiftly and quietly through the hall and she hurried to catch up, trying to keep the heels of her delicate embroidered slippers from tapping on the marble. Instead of taking the main, grand staircase, Michael drifted past it and pushed on a panel half-hidden in the shadows. The panel opened to reveal a narrow staircase. Swiftly he mounted the twisting steps and Silence found herself panting as she ran after him.