Lord of Darkness (Maiden Lane #5)

Moulder looked doubtful. “She sure brought enough people and luggage to take up residence.”

“No matter. I don’t intend to give up being the Ghost of St. Giles. Which means”—Godric strode to the door—“my wife and all her accouterments will be gone by next week at the outside.”

And when she was gone, Godric promised himself, he could go back to his business of saving the poor of St. Giles and forget that Lady Margaret had ever disrupted his lonely life.

Chapter Two

Now mind me well: the Hellequin is the Devil’s right-hand man. He roams the world, mounted on a great black horse, in search of the wicked dead and those who die unshriven. And when the Hellequin finds them, he drags their souls to hell. His companions are tiny imps, naked, scarlet, and ugly. Their names are Despair, Grief, and Loss. The Hellequin himself is as black as night and his heart—what is left of it—is nothing but a lump of hard coal. …

—From The Legend of the Hellequin

Godric woke the next morning to the sounds of feminine voices in the room next to his. He lay in bed, blinking for a moment, thinking how foreign it was to hear activity from that direction.

He slept in the ancient master’s bedroom, of course, and the mistress of the house had the connecting room. But Clara had occupied the rooms for only the first year or two of their marriage. After that, the disease that had eventually eaten away at her body had begun to grow. The doctors had recommended complete quiet, so Clara had been moved to the old nursery a floor above. There she had suffered for nine long years before she’d died.

Godric shook his head and climbed from his bed, his bare feet hitting the cold floor. Such maudlin thoughts wouldn’t bring Clara back. If they could, she would’ve sprung alive, dancing and free from her terrible pain, thousands of times in the years since her death.

He dressed swiftly, in a simple brown suit and gray wig, and left his room while the female voices were still chattering indistinctly next door. The realization that Lady Margaret had slept so close to him sent a frisson along his nerves. It wasn’t that he ran from such signs of life, but it was only natural to be unused to the presence of others—female others—in his gloomy old house.

Godric descended the stairs to the lower level. Normally he broke his fast at a coffeehouse, both to hear the latest news and because the meals at his own home were somewhat erratic. Today, however, he squared his shoulders and ventured into the little-used dining room at the back of the house.

Only to find it occupied.

“Sarah.”

For a disconcerting second, he hadn’t recognized her, this self-possessed lady, dressed in a sedate dove-gray costume. How many years had it been since he’d last seen her?

She turned at her name, and her calm face lit with a smile of welcome. His chest warmed and it caught him off guard. They’d never been close—he was a full dozen years older than she—and he’d not even known that he’d missed her.

Apparently he had.

“Godric!”

She rose, moving around the long, battered table where she’d been seated alone. She hugged him, swift and hard, her touch a shock to his frame. He’d been in solitude so very long.

She moved back before he could remember to respond and eyed him with disconcertingly perceptive brown eyes. “How are you?”

“Fine.” He shrugged and turned away. After nearly three years, he was used to the concerned looks, the gentle inquiries, especially from women. Sadly, though, he hadn’t become any more comfortable with them. “Have you already eaten?”

“As of yet, I haven’t seen anything to eat,” she observed drily. “Your man, Moulder, promised me breakfast and then disappeared. That was nearly half an hour ago.”

“Ah.” He wished he could feign surprise, but the fact was he wasn’t even sure there was anything edible in the house. “Er … perhaps we should decamp to an inn or—”

Moulder burst through the door, carrying a heavy tray. “Here we are, then.”

He thumped the tray down in the center of the table and stepped back in pride.

Godric examined the tray. A teapot stood in the center with one cup. Beside it were a half-dozen or so burned pieces of toast, a pot of butter, and five eggs on a plate. Hopefully they’d been boiled.

Godric arched an eyebrow at his manservant. “Cook is … er … indisposed, I perceive.”

Moulder snorted. “Cook is gone. And so is that nice wheel o’ cheese, the silver saltcellar, and half the plate. Didn’t seem too happy when he heard last night that we had so many guests.”

“Just as well, I’m afraid, considering the unfortunate way he handled a joint.”

“He was overfamiliar with your wine stock, too, if you don’t mind me saying so, sir,” Moulder said. “I’ll go see if we have any more teacups, shall I?”

“Thank you, Moulder.” Godric waited until the butler left the room before turning to his sister. “I apologize for the paucity of my table.”

He held out a chair for her.

“Please don’t worry,” Sarah said as she sat. “We did descend on you without any notice.”

She reached for the teapot.

“Mmm,” Godric murmured as he lowered himself to a chair across from her. “I wondered about that.”

“I was under the impression that Megs had written to you.” His sister lifted an eyebrow at him.

He merely shook his head as he took a piece of toast.

“I wonder why she didn’t tell you of our arrival?” she asked softly as she buttered her own toast. “We’d planned the trip for weeks. Do you think she was fearful that you’d turn her away?”

He nearly choked on his toast. “I wouldn’t do that. Whatever gave you the notion?”

She shrugged elegant shoulders. “You’ve been separated since your marriage. You hardly write her or me. Or, for that matter, Mama, Charlotte, or Jane.”

Godric’s lips firmed. He was on cordial terms with his stepmother and younger half sisters, but they’d never been especially close. “Ours wasn’t a love match.”

“Obviously.” Sarah took a cautious nibble of her toast. “Mama worries for you, you know. As do I.”

He poured her tea without answering. What could he say? Oh, I’m all right. Lost the love of my life, don’t you know, but the pain’s quite bearable, considering. To pretend that he was whole, that rising every day wasn’t a chore, became exhausting. Why did they ask, anyway? Couldn’t they see that he was so broken nothing would fix him?

“Godric?” Her voice was gentle.

He made the corners of his mouth twitch upward as he pushed the cup of tea across the table to her. “How are my stepmother and sisters?”

She pursed her lips as if she wanted to prod him more, but in the end she took a sip of tea instead. “Mama is well. She’s in the midst of preparations for Jane’s coming-out. They plan to stay with Mama’s bosom-bow, Lady Hartford, for the season in the fall.”

“Ah.” Godric felt a twinge of relief that his stepmother didn’t want to stay at Saint House. Guilt followed immediately thereafter: he should’ve been aware that his youngest half sister was old enough to make her debut into society. Gads! He remembered Jane as a freckle-faced schoolgirl running about with a hoop and stick. “And how is Charlotte?”

Sarah cast her eyes heavenward. “Fascinating all the young men of Upper Hornsfield.”

“Are there many eligible young men in Upper Hornsfield?”

“Not as many as in Lower Hornsfield, of course, but between the new curate and the local squire’s sons, she has a fair coterie of young men. I’m not sure she even knows that wherever she goes, she’s followed by longing male eyes.”

The thought of little Charlotte—whom he’d last seen arguing with Jane rather heatedly over a piece of fig tart—becoming a rural femme fatale made Godric smile.

The door to the dining room opened at that moment and he looked up.

Straight into the eyes of his wife, poised in the doorway like Boudicca about to storm some poor, unsuspecting Roman general’s camp.

MEGS HALTED ON the threshold to the dining room, taking a deep breath. Godric looked different somehow than the man she remembered from just last night. Perhaps it was simply the daylight. Or it might be the fact that he was properly dressed in a well-cut but somewhat worn acorn-brown suit.

Or maybe it was the tiny smile still lingering on his face. It smoothed the lines of care and grief on his forehead and about his gray eyes, and drew attention to a mouth that was wide and full, bracketed by two deep indents. For a moment her gaze lingered on that mouth, wondering what it might feel like on her own. …

“Good morning.” He rose politely.

She blinked, hastily looking up. She’d decided last night—quite logically!—to wait until the morning to begin her planned seduction. Who would expect to jump straight into bed with one’s stranger-husband after a two-year absence, after all? But now it was morning, so …

Right. Seducing the husband.

Her silence had caused his smile to fade entirely, and his eyes were narrowed as he waited for her response. He looked altogether formidable.

Baby.

Megs squared her shoulders. “Good morning!”

Her smile might’ve been a trifle too wide as she strove to cover her lapse.

Sarah, who’d turned at her entrance, arched an eyebrow.

Godric rounded the table and pulled out a chair for her next to Sarah. “I hope you slept well?”

The room had been damp, dusty, and smelled of mildew. “Yes, very well.”

He glanced at her dubiously.

She walked toward him—and then around the table to the chair next to his vacant one.

“I’d like to sit here, if you don’t mind,” she said throatily, lowering her eyelashes in what she hoped was a seductive manner. “Close to you.”

He cocked his head to the side, his expression inscrutable. “Do you have a cold?”

Sarah choked on her tea.

Drat! It’d been so long since she’d done anything like flirting. Megs shot an irritated glance at her sister-in-law, repressing the urge to stick out her tongue.

“As you wish.” Godric was suddenly beside her, and she nearly started at his rasping voice in her ear. Good Lord, the man could move quietly.

“Thank you.” She sank into the chair, aware of his presence behind her, looming large and intimidating, and then he returned to his own seat.

Megs bit her lip, glancing at him from the corner of her eye. Should she rub against his leg under the table? But his profile was so very … grave. It seemed a bit like goosing the Archbishop of Canterbury.

And then she caught sight of breakfast and her dismal seduction attempt abruptly fled her mind.

Megs squinted at the plate in the middle of the table. It held a few burned fragments of toast and some hard-boiled eggs. She scanned the room but saw no other signs of nourishment.

“Would you care for some toast?” Sarah murmured across from her.

“Oh, thank you.” Megs widened her eyes in question at her.

“It appears the cook did a runner, as Oliver would say.” Sarah shrugged infinitesimally as she pushed the plate over. “I believe that Moulder is searching for another teacup for the tea right now, but in the meantime, do feel free to have a sip of mine.”

“Er …” Megs was saved from having to reply by the dining room door being flung open.

“My dears!” Great-Aunt Elvina swept into the room. “You’ll not credit the ghastly room I slept in last night. Her Grace was quite overcome by the dust and spent the night wheezing horribly.”

Godric had risen at Great-Aunt Elvina’s entrance and now he cleared his throat. “Her Grace?”