Lord of Darkness (Maiden Lane #5)

To that end, after she’d taken leave of her morose gardener, Megs went in search of Sarah.

“There you are,” she exclaimed rather unoriginally when she tracked down her sister-in-law in a room nearly at the top of the house.

“Here I am,” Sarah agreed, and then sneezed violently. With the help of two of the four girls from the home, she’d been taking down the curtains from the windows.

Mary Evening, a child of eleven or so with a freckled face and mouse-brown hair, giggled. Mary Little, the other girl, was rather more solemn with fine, flaxen hair.

Mary Little shot Mary Evening a chiding look before saying, “Bless you, miss.”

“Thank you, Mary Little,” Sarah gasped, then winked at Mary Evening. “Why don’t you girls finish pulling down the curtains while I chat with Lady Margaret.”

“Yes, miss!” The girls scampered over to the windows, apparently unperturbed by the quantity of dust.

“What is this room?” Megs asked, glancing around. It looked like a bedroom, but not one for a servant.

“I’m not entirely sure.” Sarah hesitated, then said, “But in any case, it needs a good cleaning.”

“That it does.” Megs watched as one of the curtains fell to the floor in a billow of dust.

“You seemed to want to talk to me when you came up,” Sarah prompted.

“Oh, yes.” Megs remembered the matter that had sent her in search of her sister-in-law in the first place. “Didn’t you say last night at dinner that we’d had a quantity of invitations?”

“Well, most of them were Godric’s,” Sarah said. “You wouldn’t credit it, but I found a great stack going back at least a year piled on his desk. I really ought to get my brother a secretary.”

“No doubt.”

“But some were indeed for you and me and your aunt,” Sarah continued, “and we’ve only been here two days! I’m not used to how fast word travels in London, I suppose.”

“Mmm. Was there one from the Earl of Kershaw?”

Sarah’s brows knit as she rubbed at a smudge of dust on the apron she’d pinned to her dress. “I believe so, but it was one of the invitations addressed to Godric. It was for a ball the earl and his countess are holding tonight.”

“Perfect!” Megs beamed. Kershaw had been a friend of Roger’s, and she’d heard in the awful months after Roger’s death that the earl had searched for the Ghost in St. Giles. She’d go tonight and see if she could quiz the earl about the Ghost. “We can take one carriage, I think. I’d better go see if Great-Aunt Elvina would like to join us. She does like a ball, you know, and even if Her Grace is close to whelping, I think—”

“But …” Sarah’s mouth had dropped open.

“What the hell are you doing?”

They both started and turned toward the quietly ominous voice.

Godric stood in the doorway, his face still—so still, in fact, that it took Megs a moment to realize he was white with rage. “I did not give you leave to enter this room.”

Oh, dear.

One of the Marys dropped the curtain she was holding with a squeak.

Sarah cleared her throat. “Girls, please carry the curtains downstairs to Mrs. Crumb. She’ll know how they should be properly cleaned.”

Godric pivoted to the side to let the subdued maids past, but his gaze never left Megs’s face. “You shouldn’t be in this room. I don’t want you in this room.”

She felt her face heat and lifted her chin, holding his burning eyes. “Godric—”

He stepped closer to her, using his greater size to loom over her. “You may think me a puppet, madam, to be jerked about at your slightest whim, but I assure you I am not. I’ve been patient with your meddling in my home, but you go too far now.”

Megs’s eyes widened, her pulse heavy and fast at her throat. She opened her mouth without any idea at all of what she would say.

But Sarah spoke before she could, her voice trembling. “I’m sorry. It’s my fault entirely—Megs just came in. We were merely cleaning out all of the rooms. We haven’t moved anything, although I can’t fathom what this room is used for.”

“It was Clara’s,” he said flatly. “And I don’t need you messing about in it.”

“Godric, I’m—”

But he’d already turned to leave. Megs took one look at Sarah’s crumpling face and ran after her husband.

He was striding down the hall, completely oblivious to the hurt he’d caused his sister.

“Godric!”

He didn’t even deign to break stride.

Megs darted around him, forcing him to stop short of the stairs and look down at her, and she saw …

God. She saw raw pain in his face.

Megs inhaled, suddenly on shaky ground. “She didn’t know.”

His lips compressed and he looked away.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and reached out to touch the cuff of his coat. She almost expected him to shake her off.

Instead he merely stared down at her fingers. “Sarah should’ve asked first.”

“Of course. We all should’ve asked before sending your house into such an upheaval. But, Godric …” She stepped closer, his cuff caught between her forefinger and thumb, her bodice nearly brushing the stiff wool of his coat. She angled her head to try to catch his eyes. “You wouldn’t have consented had we asked, would you?”

He was silent.

“You’re so self-sufficient.” She puffed a small laugh. “It’s daunting, because the rest of us aren’t. Your sisters and mother aren’t—”

“Stepmother.” His gaze slid toward hers, still unyielding, but at least he was listening.

“Stepmother, then,” she compromised. “But I know Mrs. St. John and she’s quite fond of you. All your family is. They hardly hear from you. Your letters are few and maddeningly uncommunicative. They worry for you.”

He grimaced in irritation. “There’s no need.”

“Isn’t there?”

He stared down at her, his face sagging into lines of weariness, and she abruptly understood that he’d learned to school his features into the mask of strict, unrelenting neutrality he usually wore.

“You know there is,” she whispered. “You know that those who love you have real cause for concern.”

“Margaret.”

She straightened. “So you should go back and apologize to your sister.”

He shot her a look of incredulous exasperation.

“She had no idea that was Clara’s room, and even if she did”—she threw up her hands helplessly—“what do you intend to do, keep it the way it is as a shrine to her death?”

He was suddenly too close, his head bent down, shoved in her face, and she felt herself go quite still.

“You,” he breathed very quietly, so close his lips almost brushed hers, “need to learn when not to overstep yourself.”

She swallowed. “Do I?”

For a moment she couldn’t breathe. He was too near, his body tensed as if to do … something, and the tension seemed to communicate itself to her own body until she felt strung as tight as a violin string.

He muttered something foul under his breath and stepped back. “I’ll apologize to my sister later.”

And he spun and clattered down the stairs.

Megs inhaled and thoughtfully retraced her steps to Clara’s room. One look at Sarah’s face and Megs crossed to hug her. “Gentlemen can be so hardheaded.”

“No.” Sarah sniffed and pressed a lace handkerchief to her reddened nose. “Godric was quite correct—I ought to have asked him before rearranging this room.”

Megs pulled back. “But you had no idea this was Clara’s room.”

“I had a notion.” Sarah folded her handkerchief and gestured shakily to the massive bed in the center of the room. “Why else would that be there? Who else could’ve lived here?”

“Then why—”

“Because he can’t just keep the room as some kind of macabre shrine to Clara.”

“That’s what I told him.”

Sarah’s eyes widened. “What did he say?”

Megs grimaced. “Well, he wasn’t best pleased.”

“Oh, Megs,” Sarah cried, “I’m so sorry you got drawn into this, but … come here.”

She darted away to one of the now-bare windows.

Megs followed more slowly. “What is it?”

“Look.” Sarah pointed to iron bars running on the outside of the window. Iron bars meant to keep the occupants of the room safe. “This was the nursery once upon a time. And … and I know you don’t have that kind of marriage with my brother, but I hoped with this trip to London, perhaps …” Sarah swallowed and grasped her hands together, whispering, “We’ve all worried for him so much.”

Megs nodded. “I know. And to be truthful, I’d hoped to become closer to Godric too.” She blushed but soldiered on. “It’s just … I’m not sure how. I’ve tried, but he’s stubborn. He loved Clara very much.”

“Yes, he did,” Sarah said, her voice grim. “But Clara’s dead and you’re here now. Don’t give up on him, Megs, please?”

Megs nodded, but even as she tried to smile in reassurance at Sarah, she wondered, how was she to help a man who’d given up on himself?

Chapter Five

Now, it’s rare for a mortal to be able to see the Hellequin, for being a thing of the night and death, he is usually invisible to all. But the young man’s beloved was a different matter. Her name was Faith, and she’d been born with the second sight. She knew who the Hellequin was—and moreover, she knew where he was bound. “My beloved has never hurt man nor beast in all his life,” she cried. “You cannot take his soul down to Hell to burn for eternity.” …

—From The Legend of the Hellequin

“She’s going where?” Godric stopped in the act of pulling off his neck cloth that night and glanced at Moulder.

“A ball,” Moulder repeated. “They’re all going. Should’ve seen the maids running up and down the servants’ stairs. Seems to take quite a bit to get a lady ready for a ball.”

Why hadn’t Megs mentioned that she intended to go out tonight? Of course, he realized with a wince, the last time they’d spoken they’d argued and he’d kept well away from the house since then. He’d returned only to ready himself to go out again to St. Giles. Which he was doing now. What his wife did in the evening wasn’t any concern of his.

“Whose ball?” Godric demanded.

“Lord Kershaw’s,” Moulder replied promptly. “’Tis said to be one o’ the biggest o’ the season, what with him marrying that foreign heiress couple o’ years back.”

Godric stared at his manservant for a moment. When had Moulder become such a font of gossip? He must’ve been listening at doors all day. Godric shook his head. Kershaw. That was one of the names Winter Makepeace had given him. Perhaps his investigation into the lassie snatchers would be better served at a ball. He deliberately ignored the small, dry part of his intelligence that whispered it would mean spending the evening with his beautiful wife.

“Get out my good suit and then make sure the carriage waits for me.”

“Wise o’ you, if you don’t mind me saying so,” Moulder said as he did as instructed.

Godric pulled on a fresh white shirt. “What do you mean?”

“Well, no telling who she might meet there, is there?”

“What,” he asked very slowly, “are you talking about?”