wasn’t aware I need explain m’self to ye, lad.”
Bran’s face went a fiery scarlet. A muscle beneath his right eye jumped and then he turned and left the room abruptly.
Harry had been leaning on the wall in the corner, but he stirred now. “The boy’s impatient.”
“That he is,” Mick muttered.
“ ’E’s clever, is our Bran,” Harry said with an air of consideration. “But a bit rash.”
Mick cocked a sardonic eyebrow at Harry, waiting.
Harry straightened. “ ’E may not like Mrs. ’Ollingbrook,but Bran does ’ave a bit o’ a point. Are ye sure ’tis best to keep ’er ’ere?”
Mick’s reaction was immediate and gut-deep. Silence was his and he would hold her. No one was going to change that.
“Second-guessin’ me, Harry?” Mick asked with silky menace.
The big man flinched, but didn’t back down. “Now, ye know I’d never do such, Mick. But, see, she’s a soft thing, is Mrs. ’Ollingbrook, though she ’ides it be’ind a sharp tongue. She’s a lady, through and through, and easily ’urt. Ye ’ad yer way with ’er once afore. Is it necessary like to play with ’er again?”
Mick glanced down at the papers he’d picked up. They’d crumpled beneath the force of his grip.
Hazel eyes weeping in the night.
“I find m’self in a strangely good mood this evenin’, Harry, otherwise ye know I’d not be allowin’ such questionin’.”
“I know that, I do,” Harry said earnestly.
“Then ye know also that I’ll be answerin’ yer damned questions jus’ this once,” Mick said, his eyes pinning Harry. “I trust ye remember the girl found upon me doorstep jus’ last week?”
“I do.”
“She’d been in me palace only nights afore, though I didn’t take her to me bed,” Mick rasped, remembering the body of the girl. Her face had looked like it had melted off her head.
Jaysus.
That wouldn’t happen to Silence Hollingbrook, not while he still lived. “Can ye imagine what the Vicar would do to someone I might… care about?”
Harry looked away uneasily. He’d been the one to find the body. “Aye, but Mick, the Vicar don’t know ye fancy ’er, does ’e?”
“I don’t know.” Mick felt his jaw clench at the admission. “I thought the babe secret and safe as well—and she wasn’t, was she?”
Harry shook his head soberly.
“Either he knows already or he soon will—he’s not stupid is the Vicar. It’s very necessary that I keep Mrs. Hollingbrook here with me,” Mick said softly. “Do we have a problem?”
Harry swallowed. “No.”
“Good.” Mick nodded. “And Harry?”
Harry, who had turned to the door, froze. “Aye, Mick?”
Mick smiled thinly. “Whatever else I might be doin’ with Mrs. Hollingbrook, I’m not playin’.”
The information didn’t lighten Harry’s expression. He was wearing a frown on his ugly face when he left the planning room.
Mick cursed and flung himself onto a velvet settee. Months of scheming had finally born sweet, juicy fruit and yet he still had a feeling of… What? Some strange emotion, some odd sense that he hadn’t truly won. Mick snorted. And what sort of pirate felt any emotion at all? He had the wench in his grasp, held fast in his own domain where he might examine her at his leisure. Find out why the little widow Hollingbrook brought such an uncommon itch to his skin, making him as restless as a caged wolf. He’d forgotten the face of the lass he’d bedded just the night afore, yet Silence Hollingbrook’s wide hazel eyes had haunted his sleep for months.
Muttering to himself, Mick rang for his accountant, Pepper. The balding sparrow of a man came to him promptly enough and for the next hour or so Mick listened to the man drone on about ships and building materialsuntil his head fairly ached. Yet at the end of that time, had anyone asked, Mick realized he wouldn’t have been able to report what Pepper had said.
Sighing, Mick sent the accountant away again, then washed