“Good.” Winter let him go, pocketed the sling, picked up the pitcher, and gestured for the boy to precede him down the stairs.
They descended in silence, but as they made the bottom step, Joseph hesitated.
“Sir?”
“Yes?” Winter glanced at Joseph. He was shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“We all make mistakes, Joseph,” Winter said gently. “It is how one acts afterward that distinguishes the righteous man from the dishonest one.”
Joseph’s brow crinkled as he contemplated that statement. Then it cleared. “Yes, sir.”
The boy walked into the kitchen, his habitual jaunty step nearly restored.
Winter felt his lips twitch in amusement as he followed. This was not the first such talk he’d had with Joseph, and he did not expect it would be the last, but at heart the boy was a good lad.
The home’s kitchen was bright and loud with the chatter of children. Two long tables took up the center of the crowded room, one for the boys, one for the girls. Joseph Tinbox went to the boys’ table and hopped onto one of the long benches.
“Good morning, Mr. Makepeace,” Alice, one of the home’s maids said, pausing as she hurried by.
“Good morning to you, Alice,” Winter said, handing her the pitcher.
“Oh, thank you, sir, for saving me the trip upstairs.” Alice flashed a smile that lit up her rather careworn face before rushing to catch a spilled cup of milk.
“Children,” Nell Jones, the head maidservant at the home, raised her voice above the cacophony. “Please bid Mr. Makepeace good day.”
“Good morning, Mr. Makepeace!” a ragged chorus immediately responded.
“Good morning, children,” Winter said as he sat on a bench.
Nell hurried over with a bowl of porridge and a teapot.
“Thank you,” Winter murmured as he sipped the scalding tea. He glanced across the table to a small dark-haired boy sleepily picking his nose. “Did you sleep well, Henry Putman?”
All the boys at the Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children were christened Joseph and all the girls Mary—except for Henry Putman. When Henry had come to the home—at the advanced age of four—he had urgently argued to keep his own name. And since unlike most of the orphans he’d been old enough to speak, his wish had been granted.
At Winter’s greeting, Henry hastily dropped his hand. “Yes.”
The older boy sitting next to Henry elbowed him.
Henry glanced at the older boy in outrage.
“Sir!” hissed the older boy.
“Oh!” Henry exclaimed. “Yes, sir. I slept good. ’Cept for a dream.”
Winter, well aware that the subject of children’s dreams could take up most of breakfast, only murmured an, “Indeed?”
But Henry had found his voice. “ ’Bout frogs, it was. Big frogs. Big as cows.”
Henry spread wide his arms to demonstrate the size of the mythical frogs, nearly upsetting his neighbor’s bowl of porridge.
Winter caught the bowl with the ease of long practice.
The older boy had other concerns. “Frogs can’t grow that big. Everyone knows that!”
Winter addressed the elder boy mildly. “Joseph Smith, perhaps you can inform Henry of your thoughts regarding the relative size of dream frogs in a more polite manner.”
For a moment both boys were silent as they worked through his statement and Winter was able to take a bite of his porridge in near peace.
Then Joseph Smith said, “I don’t believe frogs grow as big as cows.”
To which Henry Putman replied, “They do in my dreams.”
Which seemed to settle the matter.
A sudden squeal made Winter glance at the girls’ table and he noticed that Silence still hadn’t come down for breakfast. He caught Nell Jones’s eye and motioned her over.
“I believe it may be time to wake my sister.”
Nell’s blue eyes shifted down and away and Winter felt a vague sense of unease. “Um, well, as to that sir…”
“Yes?” he prompted when the maidservant seemed to have trouble finding her words.
Nell screwed tight her eyes. “She’s not here.”
Winter blinked. “What?”
“Mrs. Hollingbrook left the home the day before yesterday,” Nell said rapidly as if to get a nasty task over as quickly as possible. “And Mary Darling is with her.”
The children had begun to quiet, sensing with the animal instinct of the young when danger or excitement was around.
“Where,” Winter asked very softly, “is my sister?”
Nell gulped. “She’s gone to live at Charming Mickey O’Connor’s palace.”
SILENCE HAD JUST finished feeding Mary Darling a small bowl of porridge that morning when she heard the faint sounds of male shouting. Fionnula glanced up. Silence paused, a spoonful of the last scrapings from the bowl still held outstretched toward Mary. The toddler had lost interest in her breakfast and was busy fingering the sticky bowl, studiously ignoring the spoon.
Silence tapped her on the shoulder. “Mary, finish your porridge.”
The shouts rose again, one of them sounding familiar.
A chill went through Silence. She dropped the spoon and ran to the door.
“Ma’am, ye can’t—” Fionnula called behind her as Silence yanked open the door.
The scowling face of Bert met her gaze.
“Who is below?” she demanded.
He opened his mouth, but she was already shoving past him.
“Oi!” Bert yelled in indignation.
Silence ran down the stairs, fearful of the quiet below. What had they done with him?
She made the lower hall, skidded through the doors, and ran into a large male back, blocking her way.
“Oof!” she muttered, trying to dodge around Mickey O’Connor’s form. She just caught sight of Winter—standing very still in the middle of a pack of pirates—then Mr. O’Connor hauled her back against his chest and set his hands on her waist to hold her.
Silence inhaled sharply at his touch. The exotic scent of frankincense surrounded her. She hadn’t seen him since their argument the night before last over supper and already she seemed to have forgotten the intensity of his presence.
Winter’s mouth flattened. “Unhand my sister.”
“Eager as I am to bow to yer smallest command, Mr. Makepeace,” Mickey O’Connor drawled above her, his chest rumbling against her back, “I can’t in all good conscience do so when the lady herself hasn’t asked me.”
Winter looked at her. “Silence?”
She swallowed. Winter looked like thunder. He stood clad in his habitual somber clothes, his empty hands fisted by his side, a round, black hat on his head. Like all her brothers he preferred his dark brown hair undressed and tied back simply. The armed pirates circling him were almost comically more dangerous looking. Yet somehow he’d made it past the front door and this far into Mickey O’Connor’s well-guarded palace.
Perhaps it was a measure of Winter’s quiet authority that the pirates hadn’t stopped him.
Silence turned within the circle of Mr. O’Connor’s arms and looked up into his face. He was so close she could see each individual inky eyelash and notice the tiny wrinkles fanning from the corners of his deep brown eyes. “Let me talk to him.”
Those perceptive eyes narrowed at her—the pirate didn’t look at all happy.
“Please,” she whispered.
“As ye wish.” Mickey O’Connor spread wide his arms and looked over her head. “Five minutes, Mr. Makepeace. No longer. Ye can talk to yer lovely sister in me library.”
Mickey O’Connor has a library? For a second, Silence was distracted by the thought of this outrageously virile man bent studiously over dusty books.
The image was dashed the moment they were shown into the library, however. Naturally Mr. O’Connor would have a library like no other she’d ever imagined. It was a middling-sized room, but from the carved rosewood ceiling overhead to the thick Persian carpet underfoot, the entire place was fantastic. Ancient statuary stood about the room, no doubt plundered from ships. Here there was a Diana in flight, her hunting hounds bounding beside her. There a bust of some ancient bearded dignitary. And the books! Every surface held open books, each one fabulously illustrated. From a folio of exotic animals to a tiny prayer book, delicately illuminated in gold.
“Goodness!” Silence breathed in awe, looking around the exquisite room. “Have you ever seen such a wonderful place, Winter?” She frowned. “Though it could do with some comfortable chairs.”
“At the moment I’m a bit more interested in you than in the room, sister,” Winter said drily.
Silence flushed and looked at her brother. His straight brown brows were drawn together in worry.
She inhaled and smoothed a hand down the apron she’d put on this morning out of habit—only now did she notice that it was a bit crooked. “I’m sorry to have left the home so abruptly. I know it must have distressed you—”
“Distressed.” Winter said the word flatly.
Silence bit her lip.
“Are you being held here against your will?”
“Oh, no,” she said.
He nodded. “I’m not a man given to hysteria. If I were, I’d be bald at this moment from having torn out my hair on the way over here. Mickey O’Connor, Silence?”
His last three words were soft, but there was a wealth of meaning behind them. Winter had seen her after she’d left Mr. O’Connor the last time. He knew what had been done to her.
And he suspected much worse.
“He’s Mary Darling’s father,” she said.
His eyebrows lifted in inquiry.
“He says that Mary must stay here because she is in danger from his enemies. But he has let me stay as well, to take care of her.”
Winter closed his eyes briefly and when he opened them again they were filled with sorrow. “If the child is truly his, then you have no hold on her. You must give her up.”
“No!” She swallowed and lowered her voice. “You don’t understand. Mr. O’Connor has promised to let me have Mary Darling—let me have her forever—once his enemies are no longer a threat. Don’t you see? I can take her away from here.”
“I think I’d rather trust the word of a snake than Mr. O’Connor.”
“But—”
He stepped forward and gently touched her on the elbow. “He’s using you, sister. Perhaps he only sees you as an amusement, perhaps his plan is far worse, but in either case you can be sure of one thing: Mickey O’Connor is interested only in pleasing himself. He cares for neither you nor Mary Darling.”
“All the more reason for me to stay,” she whispered. “I love Mary, Winter. She’s as much a daughter to me as if I’d given birth to her. I wouldn’t be able to leave her here by herself even if I had no hope of eventually bringing her home. But since I do… Well, then, it’s only a matter of hanging on.”
“Your reputation will be in tatters if you stay here.”
“My reputation already is in tatters.”
“Because of him.” Winter rarely raised his voice, rarely showed emotion of any kind, but he spat the word “him” with deep loathing.
Silence’s eyes widened. She knew Winter disliked Mr. O’Connor, but she’d had no idea of the antipathy her brother held toward the pirate.
“Winter—”
“He’ll destroy you and he’ll destroy the home because of you.” Winter’s words were tight and controlled. “We cannot afford speculation about your virtue right now, sister. Think of the home if you will not think of yourself.”