Wicked Intentions (Maiden Lane #1)(11)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

He cocked his head, his blue, blue eyes asking the question.

She sobbed, fury and sorrow welling up from that place where she carefully controlled all the emotions she couldn’t afford to feel. Temperance trembled as she tried to beat her passion down. Trap it and conceal it.

He shook her as if to dislodge the answer he waited for.

“Winter was right,” she gasped. “The baby girl was safe, but two months later, Mother Heart’s-Ease came to us again with another baby, a boy this time. And his price was twice what the girl’s had been.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing.” She closed her eyes in defeat. “The price was too high; we hadn’t the money. We—I—could do nothing. I begged, I got on my knees and pled with that witch, and she sold him anyway.”

She bunched the edges of his cloak in her fists, shaking them as if to impress the awfulness of the memory on him. “She sold that sweet baby boy, and I could do nothing to save him.”

One moment she was crying in fury up at him and the next he’d swooped down and caught her mouth. Hard, with no mercy. She gasped at the shock. He ground his mouth against her soft lips. She felt his teeth, tasted his hot tongue, and that part of herself, that wretched, sinful, wrong, part broke free and went running. Reveling in his savagery. Rejoicing in his blunt sexuality.

Completely out of her control.

Until he raised his head and looked down at her. His lips were wet and slightly reddened, but otherwise he showed no sign of that devastating kiss.

He might’ve just relieved himself against a wall for all the emotion he displayed.

Temperance tried to pull from his grasp, but his hands held strong.

“You are such a passionate creature,” he murmured, examining her from beneath half-lowered eyelids. “So emotional.”

“I am not,” she whispered, horrified at the mere notion.

“You lie. I wonder why?” He raised his eyebrows in amusement and let her go so suddenly she stumbled back a step. “She was my mistress.”

“What?”

“The murdered woman, the one gutted like a pig at the butcher’s. She was my mistress of three years.”

She gaped at him, stunned.

He inclined his head. “Until tomorrow evening. Good night, Mrs. Dews.”

And he walked away, disappearing into the night shadows.

Temperance turned, her mind whirling, and saw it, not twenty steps away. The door to the foundling home.

Lord Caire had brought her safely home after all.

Chapter Three

King Lockedheart lived in a magnificent castle that sat on the top of a hill. In his castle there lived hundreds of guards, a swarm of courtiers, and a multitude of servants and courtesans. The king was surrounded day and night, and yet none were close to his heart. In fact, the only living thing that was important to the king was a small blue bird. The bird lived in a jeweled golden cage, and sometimes it would sing or chirp. In the evening, King Lockedheart fed the bird nuts through the bars of its cage….

—from King Lockedheart

The sun never seemed to shine in St. Giles, Silence Hollingbrook reflected the next morning. She glanced up and caught sight of only a handspan’s width of blue amongst the overhanging second stories, signs, and roofs. St. Giles was far too crowded, the houses built one on top of another and the rooms divided and then subdivided again until the people lived like rats in warrens. Silence shivered, glad for her own neat rooms in Wapping. St. Giles was a terrible place to live one’s life. She wished her elder brother and sister could find another place for the Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children. But then St. Giles was where Father had founded the home, and St. Giles was where the poorest of the poor lived in London.

She stopped before the worn stoop and knocked loudly on the thick wooden door. The foundling home had had a bell until last Christmas, when someone had stolen it. Winter had not had a chance to replace it yet, and sometimes she knocked for several minutes before being heard.

But today the door was opened almost at once.

She looked down into scrubbed pink cheeks, black hair scraped back from a wide forehead, and sharp brown eyes. “Good morning to you, Mary Whitsun.”

Mary bobbed a curtsy. “Good morning, Mrs. Hollingbrook.”

Silence entered the narrow hall and hung up her shawl. “Is my sister about?”

“Ma’am is in the kitchen,” Mary said.

Silence smiled. “I’ll find her, then.”

Mary nodded solemnly and marched up the stairs to whatever work she’d been interrupted at.

Silence hoisted the flat-bottomed basket she’d brought and walked back to the kitchens. “Good morning!” she called as she entered.

Temperance turned from a huge pot boiling over the fire. “Good morning, sister! What a nice surprise. I didn’t know you were to call today.”

“I wasn’t.” Silence felt her cheeks heat guiltily. She hadn’t been to the home in over a week. “But I bought some dried currants at market this morning and thought I’d bring some over.”

“Oh, how thoughtful! Mary Whitsun will like that,” Temperance said. “She has a fondness for currant buns.”

“Mmm.” Silence set the basket on the old kitchen table. “She seems to have grown another inch since I last saw her.”

“She has indeed.” Temperance wiped at the sweat on her temples with her apron. “And she’s quite lovely, though I don’t tell her so to her face. I don’t want her to become vain.”

Silence smiled as she uncovered the basket. “You sound proud.”

“Do I?” Temperance asked absently. She’d turned back to the steaming pot.

“Yes.” Silence hesitated a moment before continuing apologetically. “She’s of age to apprentice out, isn’t she?”

“Yes. Almost past the age, in fact.” Temperance sighed. “But she’s of such use about the home. I haven’t begun looking for a position for her yet.”

Silence took the items from her basket without comment. Temperance knew better than she that becoming too fond of the foundling children could only lead to hurt.

“You’ve got more than currants there,” Temperance said, coming to the table.

“I brought some stockings I made as well.” Silence shyly presented her workmanship—three pairs of tiny stockings. True, none of them were quite the same size as the other, but at least they matched in shape. More or less. “I was making a pair for William and some wool remained.”