Wicked Intentions (Maiden Lane #1)(55)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

She looked at him, tragedy in her gold-flecked eyes. “Silence… Oh, God, Lazarus, Silence.”

He noted absently that she’d never addressed him by his given name before. “Tell me.”

She closed her eyes, as if to steady herself for the recitation. “She decided to try and get back William, her husband’s, cargo herself. She went to the dockyard gang lord, a man named Mickey O’Connor….”

He’d heard vague rumors of a flamboyant dockyard thief in his wanderings in St. Giles. The man was dangerous. Caire frowned. “And?”

A silver tear slipped from beneath her eyelid and dropped, sparkling, in the afternoon light, to the floor. “He agreed to return the ship’s cargo… but at a price.”

A lifetime of cynicism made him know what the price was, but he asked anyway. “What was it?”

She opened her eyes, shining gilded brown. “He made her spend the night with him.”

Lazarus exhaled at the confirmation. He’d never met this Silence, knew nothing of her, and even if he had, he would probably care not a whit for her. Except that she was Temperance’s sister.

And that made all the difference in the world.

It was a strange thing, this feeling of empathy. He’d never experienced it before. He realized that what hurt this woman hurt him as well, that what made her bleed caused a hemorrhage of pain within his soul.

He held out his arms to her. “Come here.”

She dived for his arms and he caught her against his chest, shards of exquisite pain prickling his bare skin where the banyan parted and exposed him. She smelled so sweet, of dawn and woman.

“I’m sorry,” he crooned, the words foreign on his tongue. “I’m so sorry.”

She sobbed once. “When I came home this morning, William said Silence had never returned the night before. He suspected she’d gone to O’Connor, but it was too dangerous to venture into the gang lord’s territory at night.”

Lazarus thought silently that if it had been Temperance, if he’d had knowledge that she were in a den of thieves, her person and soul imperiled, he would’ve retrieved her no matter what the cost.

“We waited until light and then rented a hack,” she whispered into his shoulder. Her breath sent shivers of unease across his skin. “We’d just come within sight of O’Connor’s house when Silence emerged from it.”

He stroked her hair. She still wore the yellow topaz pins he’d bought for her, though she’d changed her gown.

She shuddered as if remembering. “Her hair was down, Caire, and her bodice undone. He made her walk that way up the street, as if to brand her a whore. When she saw me, she started to cry.”

He closed his eyes, absorbing her pain, and repeated the only thing he knew to say. “I’m sorry.”

“She said nothing happened, that O’Connor made her stay the night in his bedroom but didn’t touch her. Oh, Caire, her protests were so pathetic that I didn’t dare press her for the truth. All I could do was hold her.”

He tightened his arms about her. “I’m sorry.”

She pulled back, looking into his eyes. “But the worst part was when we returned to the foundling home. William was waiting for us—”

“He didn’t accompany you in the hack?” Lazarus frowned.

Temperance shook her head. “He said if he was seen near O’Connor’s house, it would give credence to the claim that he was in league with the river pirate.”

Lazarus ran his hand soothingly over her back without comment. Hollingbrook sounded like a fool.

“And when we arrived, he took one look at Silence and then turned his face away. Oh, Caire”—her eyes closed wearily—“it near broke my heart.”

He bent his head then because he couldn’t not do so. His lips brushed hers gently. “I am so sorry.”

Her head sank wearily against his shoulder as she accepted his kisses. Her lips were soft and tasted of tears. He brushed his mouth over her cheeks, tasting the tears there as well, licking up her grief.

“Caire,” she sighed.

“Hmm?”

“I’m so tired,” she said, almost like a little girl. He guessed she’d not slept since he’d brought her back to her home the night before.

“Then lie with me a while,” he whispered.

He picked her up like a child and brought her to his still-unmade bed, laying her gently there before climbing in beside her. He pulled her close until her head was snuggled against his banyan-covered chest, pricking him with almost-pain.

She sighed again. “’S funny.”

“What is?” he murmured, threading his fingers through her hair. He took the yellow topaz jewels out of her coiffure and laid them on the table by his bed.

“William sent word. After he went home with Silence. After my brothers argued and Asa stormed out.”

“What did he say?” He plucked bent little pins from her hair, one by one, releasing her tresses from their confinement, combing them gently with his fingers.

“The ship’s cargo,” she said. “Mickey O’Connor kept his word. It was all there on the ship this morning. As if it had never disappeared in the first place.”

Lazarus stared at the canopy over his bed and thought about a thief’s perfidy and his honor and the price a woman might pay for the man she loved. When he looked down again, he saw that Temperance breathed slowly and evenly against him, her lush mouth slightly parted. Her mahogany hair was spread like a blanket of silk upon his shoulder and bed, and the sight gave him satisfaction deep in his soul.

He lifted one lock and watched as the strands curled adoringly around his fingers. He smiled slightly. How a man might deceive himself with such a sight.

Then he let his arm drop. He pulled her a little closer against his chest and closed his own eyes.

And slept.

SHE AWOKE IN a darkened room with the realization that something awful waited for her just as soon as she opened her eyelids.

So she didn’t.

She drifted, not thinking, not waking, trying to hold on to the peace of sleep. There was another body next to hers, large and warm and comforting, and she concentrated on that. He breathed deeply as if still asleep, and she liked the sound of his soft exhalations. It meant that she wasn’t alone. She wished she could stay here forever, in the gray warmth of half-sleep. But inevitably, wakefulness and knowledge intruded and she opened her eyes on a pained gasp.

Caire’s arm tightened about her.