Scandalous Desires (Maiden Lane #3)(64)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

Silence gave a kind of shuddering gasp and spoke. “You had no choice. What he wanted you to do was abominable.”

He shrugged. “Maybe. But me mam never forgave me for it. She spoke but once to me after that.”

“Why?” she cried, the outrage in her voice a balm to his soul. “Why would she take his side against yours?”

“Because,” he said low, “Charlie Grady is me father.”

Chapter Fourteen

Now Clever John’s kingdom was safe from attack. With an invincible army the people grew used to peace and prosperity. And if Clever John found his days a little dull, he amused himself by climbing to the top of his mountain and surveying all he owned and controlled. But an army has many mouths to feed, and one day Clever John found his kingdom’s coffers bare.

It was with a light step that he went to his garden and called, “Tamara!”…

—from Clever John

Michael’s greatest enemy was his father.

Silence lay in bed late that night, sleepless and thinking of the things that Michael had told her over dinner. At the time, when he’d revealed what his father had done to him—had done to the mother Michael so obviously loved—she’d been too stunned, too sickened to ask anything more. They’d finished the dinner in near quiet. Now, as she lay staring sightlessly up at the dark canopy of her bed, questions and thoughts teemed in her mind. How could a mother let anyone, even a child’s father, do such horrible things to a boy? And once the child had defended himself, how could she take the part of the adult who cared so little for his soul?

She shivered in the dark. So much about Michael was explained by his terrible history. She’d wondered how a man could become so cynical, so devoid of common pity, and now she had her answer. Pity had been seared out of him by his monster of a father. Charlie Grady might bear scars on the outside of his body, but they were nothing to the scars that lay within Michael’s soul.

Yet now she realized there were questions she should’ve asked of him—what had he done all alone at the age of thirteen? What had become of his mother?

Well, she wouldn’t get any sleep tonight wondering and thinking. Silence turned her head and looked at the door that connected her room to Michael’s. A faint light shone under it.

Impulsively, she got up and tiptoed to the door. She pushed it open as quietly as possible. If he were already asleep…

Michael was sitting bare-chested in a huge honey-colored wood bed. He had some papers scattered about the coverlet and a candelabra on the table next to the bed to give him light.

He looked up as she entered.

For a moment he stared at her, frozen.

Then he set the paper he was holding down. “Silence.”

She bunched her chemise skirts in one hand nervously. “I have two questions to ask you.”

He nodded gravely. “What?”

He hadn’t invited her in, but she came forward anyway and perched in a chair near the bed. “What happened to you after you ran away from your father?”

He began to gather his papers together. “I did what any young boy does who finds himself alone in London. I worked.”

She waited.

He squared the edges of his papers and laid them on the table by his bed before looking back at her. “I ran away from St. Giles. I knew Charlie had survived the vitriol and while he lived he was a danger to me. So I begged for a bit and stole, as well, but it’s perilous for a lad by himself. There’s gangs o’ pickpockets and thieves who don’t like others poachin’ on their territory—not to mention the danger o’ bein’ caught. After a bit I made me way to the river and hired on to a wherryman, helpin’ him row and load and unload goods. That was durin’ the daytime. At night the wherryman and me stole what we could from the cargo ships.”

He was matter-of-fact as he relayed this dangerous life. Sitting as he was now—large and fully grown, a man aware not only of his strength, but of his ability to command other men—he looked like he could handle anything and anyone.

But he wouldn’t have been like this back then. Back when he was only a boy of thirteen. She knew about young boys—she’d spent the last year taking care of them. They were tough and reckless and yet at the same time so very sweet and vulnerable. Their cheeks were soft and their eyes apologized even as they fought to assert their independence with too smart mouths.

At that age Michael’s broad chest would have been narrow and thin, his arms long and skinny. He would’ve had the same brown eyes, but they probably would’ve dominated a thinner, more youthful face. She could almost see that phantom boy, lost and alone, determined to make his way by himself, because there was no one to help him.

Her heart nearly broke.

She inhaled. “Where did you live?”

He shrugged. “On the river. At night I’d sleep wherever I could find a place to lay me head. There’re houses where ye can rent a bed for a night or part o’ a night, but they can be dangerous for a young boy, too. Often I slept on the boat if the weather was fair.”

She watched him. He sat like a king in that great bed, his olive skin shining as if burnished in the candlelight. The coverlet was bunched carelessly at his hips and for the first time she wondered if he wore anything beneath the sheet.

Hastily she raised her eyes. “And then?”

“And then one night me master and me were set upon by a bigger crew o’ river thieves. We were beaten and the haul we’d taken that night stolen from us. And I knew then, as I crawled into a corner to lick me wounds, that I couldn’t survive as I was.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

He held out his hands in front of him, palms up, weighing his long ago choice. “I could be a wolf or a rabbit, it was that simple. I chose to be a wolf. The next night I went to the crew who’d attacked us and offered me services. They beat me again, jus’ to show me that I was at the bottom o’ their pack, but I began to raid with them.”

He held her gaze and closed both hands into fists. “And when I was stronger, when I was no longer at the bottom and had learned to use a knife, I challenged the leader o’ the gang and beat him so badly he never walked straight again. I was fifteen and the leader o’ that river crew then.”

He lowered his fists to the coverlet and looked at them. “In another couple o’ years I was the most feared river pirate on the Thames. I moved me crew to St. Giles and met up with Charlie again. He’d recovered from the burns to his face, but he wasn’t nearly at his peak. I could’ve killed him then, but I didn’t.”