Clever John Read online

  He nodded and left without further comment.

  Silence blew out a breath and bent to pick up Mary. There had been a tiny, niggling suspicion at the back of her mind that Mr. O’Connor had made up all his talk of enemies who might hurt Mary. Perhaps he was playing some game of his own and simply wanted her and Mary in his palace for reasons she couldn’t comprehend. That small suspicion was now laid to rest. The fear in Fionnula’s face had been too genuine, Bran’s voice too sure as he spoke of the Vicar. Whoever he was, the Vicar—and the danger he posed—would seem to be quite real.

  Well, Mickey O’Connor might be an overbearing pirate, but they were safe enough in his palace. Silence sighed and began undressing Mary Darling for her bath, her thoughts turning to another matter. “Bran seemed quite nice.”

  “Yes.” The maid was blushing still as she carefully poured the hot water into a basin and tested it with her elbow.

  “And quite handsome,” Silence said carelessly.

  Fionnula jerked and some of the water splashed on the floor. She stared at the puddle and then raised worried eyes to Silence. “He’s too pretty for me, ’tisn’t he?”

  Silence blinked. She’d meant to tease, not hurt. “Oh, no, I didn’t mean that.”

  “But he is,” Fionnula said dismally. “His eyes are so blue and he has such a handsome face. I see other girls lookin’ at him and I just want to tear their hair out.”

  “Does he look back?” Silence asked as she placed Mary into the shallow bath.

  “Nooo,” Fionnula drew out the word as if unsure.

  “Then I wouldn’t worry,” Silence said as she began to sponge Mary’s little back. Mary was still busy with her string, dipping it into the water and draping it over her tummy. “I’m sure he finds you quite pretty.”

  Fionnula nibbled her lower lip as if unsure, then brightened. She took a bundle from her apron pocket.

  “I got some more victuals for ye, ma’am,” she whispered as she handed the bundle over.

  “How kind of you,” Silence said brightly as she unwrapped her fourth meal—either her third luncheon or perhaps an early supper? It was hard to tell. At this rate she might actually grow plump while on Mr. O’Connor’s starvation diet.

  She couldn’t help but wonder if Mickey O’Connor was entirely oblivious to his people smuggling her food against his express command. She shivered at the thought.

  What was the pirate’s punishment for mutiny?

  WINTER MAKEPEACE WOKE the next morning with a groan at his aching muscles. His room was still dark—the new day wouldn’t dawn for another hour or more—yet he knew it was exactly half past five of the clock, for that was the time at which he’d trained his body to wake. He sat up in his narrow cot, feeling the twinge of thighs and buttocks, the result of spending all yesterday riding a horse.

  Since he lived in the Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children and the day school where he taught small and not very disciplined boys was only a stone’s throw away, he had no need to ride a horse usually. However, his trip to Oxford had necessitated the renting of a nag. He rubbed his legs for a half minute or so and then stood, pushing the aches from his mind. They were of no consequence and would fade soon enough.

  He had to duck his head as he bent over the washbasin to sluice his face. His room was under the eaves and the roof sloped sharply. But months of living in the cramped space had accustomed him to the irregularities of the room, so now he could move about without knocking his head on a beam, even in the dark.

  Winter dressed in white shirt, black waistcoat, black breeches, and black coat and threw open his attic window to toss the wastewater from his ablutions into the alley below. The sky was turning a pinkish gray, silhouetting the haphazard rooftops of St. Giles. He gazed at it only a moment before shutting the window firmly and lighting a candle. For the next hour he worked steadily at a narrow desk, writing and reading. Some of his work was in preparation for the day’s lessons, but he also was in correspondence with scholars of philosophy and religion both in England and on the continent. In fact, his recent trip to Oxford had been to call upon an old acquaintance—an elderly philosopher who was on his deathbed.

  When the sky had fully brightened, Winter stood and stretched before pinching the candle out. Picking up the pitcher, he locked his bedroom carefully behind him and paused for a moment to glance at his sister, Silence’s, bedroom door. No light shone beneath it. She was probably still abed. He contemplated waking her, then decided against it. Silence could use the extra minutes of rest.

  He clattered down the stairs, nearly running into a small boy lurking rather suspiciously on one of the turns.

  Winter grabbed him by the collar—he’d learned early in his career of teaching young hellions that it was best to catch and then ask. “Why are you not at breakfast with the other boys, Joseph Tinbox?”

  Joseph, his freckled face cowled by the jacket Winter held, rolled his eyes up at him. “I was jus’ now goin’ down, Mr. Makepeace.”

  “Indeed?” Winter inquired skeptically. He set down the pitcher and made a lightning fast snatch at the object Joseph had been attempting to hide behind his back. “And what plans did you have for this sling?”

  Joseph’s eyes widened in what was a very good imitation of innocence at the leather strap dangling before his eyes. “I found it on the stairs, truly I did.”

  Winter cocked his eyebrow, staring at the boy.

  Joseph’s gaze slid away from his own.

  “Joseph,” Winter said quietly. “You know that I do not condone lying in this house. A man’s word is a treasure he holds within himself no matter how poor his outer garments. To squander it recklessly is the mark of not only a fool, but a cheat as well. Now tell me. Is this sling yours?”

  The boy swallowed, his small throat working. “Yes, sir.”

  “I am displeased to hear that you’ve been playing with a sling,” Winter said calmly. “But pleased that you have spoken the truth to me. As punishment for the former, I would like you to sweep out the kitchen hearth and scrub clean the outer tiles around the fireplace.”

  “Aw!” Joseph began, but gulped back his groan at a look from Winter. “Yes, sir.”

  “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.

&nb
sp; 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.”

  She closed her eyes, feeling sick. She was letting him down, betraying his trust, but… “I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry about the home, but it’s Mary Darling, Winter. Please. She’s all that I have left.”

  “Christ.” Her brother turned and walked to a bookshelf, staring blindly at the rows of expensive embossed leather spines.

  For a moment there was quiet in the library.