Lord of Darkness (Maiden Lane #5)

Which made her feel guiltier, of course. She hadn’t kept all of his letters—just the most recent ones, and those she’d tossed in a drawer at Laurelwood. “Why did you keep them?”

“I liked rereading them.” His voice was deep, and she shivered as if it were rasping over her spine.

She looked away, concentrating as she carefully folded the letter and placed it with the others. “Do you think of Clara?”

The question was too personal, too intimate, but she waited, breath held, for his answer.

“Yes.”

“Often?”

He slowly shook his head. “Not as often as I used to.”

She bit her lip, closing her eyes. “Do you feel guilty when you make love to me?”

“No.” She felt him come nearer, standing near enough that the warmth from his body reached out to her. “I loved Clara deeply and I will never forget her, but she’s gone. I’ve learned, I think, in these last weeks, to set aside what I felt for her so that I can feel something else with you.”

She inhaled, her heart beating wildly, not entirely sure she wanted to hear this. “How … how can you reconcile it, though? The love you felt? It was real, wasn’t it? Strong and true?”

“Yes, it was very real.” She felt the press of his hands on her shoulders. They were warm and steadfast. “I think had you not come into my life I would’ve stayed a celibate hermit. But that didn’t happen. You did come,” he said simply, a statement of fact.

She opened her eyes, twisting to face him. “Do you regret it? Do you hate me for forcing you to give up your memories of Clara?”

A corner of his mouth tipped up. “You didn’t force me to do anything.” He looked at her, his dark eyes grave. “Do you feel you’ve betrayed Roger?”

“I don’t know,” she said, because it was the truth—her feelings for Roger were in a muddle. She saw the wince that Godric tried to hide and she felt an answering pain at having caused him hurt. But she soldiered on because he’d asked and he deserved the truth. “I want—wanted—a baby so terribly and I think he would’ve understood that. He was a joyful man and I think—I hope—he would’ve wanted me to be joyful even after he died. But I haven’t brought his murderer to justice.” She gazed up at him, trying to convey her confused emotions.

“I told you I’ll find a way to make Kershaw pay and I will,” he said, iron hard. “I promise I’ll help you lay Roger to rest.”

“I don’t want you going back into St. Giles,” she whispered, stroking one finger along his jaw. “I owe you too much already. Everything you’ve done for me. Everything you’ve given up for me.”

“There is no debt between you and me.” He smiled. “I voluntarily chose to move beyond my grief for Clara. Life is by necessity for the living.”

She stared up into his dark eyes, something kindling and glowing in her breast, and she longed in that moment to tell him. Tell him that she suspected that she was carrying his child. Carrying life itself.

But she remembered with a shock what that would mean: she’d promised him that she would leave when she became pregnant.

She didn’t want to leave Godric. Not yet. Maybe never.

His eyebrows had knit together while she’d remained silent as if he were trying to figure out what she was thinking. It made him look stern and rather solemn paired with his usual gray wig and the half-moon spectacles pushed absently to his forehead. She found the look rather irresistible, actually, and she raised herself on tiptoe to brush her lips across his.

When she pulled back, he had a bemused expression on his face, but she smiled at him and he smiled in return. “Come. If you remember, you wanted to visit Spring Gardens today.”

She ducked her head, linking hands with him as he drew her from the room. Happiness trembled near her heart, but it was held back by the knowledge she would soon have to tell him and when she did, he would ask her to leave.

And if nothing else, she needed to put Roger to rest before she left London. Somehow.

SPRING GARDENS WAS a pleasant place, Godric thought, even if he wasn’t much interested in flowers or plants. Megs was interested, and it seemed her enjoyment of the gardens made it enjoyable for him as well.

They walked along a gravel path, edged with short boxwood trimmed with surgical severity into angular shapes. The beds themselves were mostly barren and Godric privately thought they weren’t any better than his own garden at Saint House, save for the fact that they were neater.

Megs, however, found much to exclaim over.

“Oh, look at those tiny white flowers,” she said, nearly bending in half to peer closer. “Do you know what they are, Mrs. St. John?”

His stepmother, who had been walking behind, crowded close to his elbow to look. “Perhaps a type of crocus?”

“But they’re on stems,” Megs said, straightening and frowning down at the flower, which looked quite pedestrian to Godric. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a crocus on a stem.”

“Or with green bits,” Sarah said.

“Eh?” Great-Aunt Elvina cupped one hand around her ear.

“Green. Bits,” Sarah repeated, loudly and clearly.

“I see no green bits,” Great-Aunt Elvina pronounced.

“They’re right there,” Jane said, pointing, while at the same time Charlotte murmured that she saw no trace of green either.

There followed a lively discussion on whether or not the flower sported “green bits” and if crocuses ever could be found with long stems. Godric watched in amusement.

“I’ve never seen her so happy,” his stepmother said in his ear. He turned his head to find that while he’d been watching the others, she’d been watching him. “Or you.”

He blinked, looking away, unnerved.

“Godric,” she said, taking his elbow and walking down the path a bit. “You are happy, aren’t you?”

“Can one ever really say one is happy?” he asked wryly.

“I believe so,” she replied, her round face grave. “I was very happy with your father.”

“You made him happy as well,” he murmured.

She nodded as if this wasn’t news to her. “The only thing I regret about my marriage to your father is that it made you so very unhappy.”

He felt heat rising in his face, the old shame of how he’d treated her coming to the surface. He inhaled and stopped to stare fixedly at a strange, drooping tree. “I was unhappy before you ever married Father. Your arrival only gave me a focus for my ire. I’m sorry. I treated you very badly.”

“You were still a boy, Godric,” she said softly. “I’ve forgiven you for it long ago. I only wish you could forgive yourself. Your sisters and I miss you.”

He swallowed and at last looked at her. Her eyes were crinkled with worry for him. Love for him. He didn’t understand it. She should by rights hate him. He’d been truly cruel to her for years. But if she could put the past behind them, the very least he could do for her was try to do the same.

He placed his hand over hers, lying soft and warm on his arm, and squeezed gently, hoping she’d understand what he couldn’t say.

“Oh, Godric.” Tears glittered in her eyes, but he thought they were glad tears. “It’s so good to have you back.”

He bent to kiss her on the cheek, murmuring, “Thank you for waiting.”

Behind them he could hear the rest of his family coming to meet him, still apparently arguing about green bits and stemmed crocuses. He turned and saw Jane and Charlotte, arm in arm, despite their passionate discussion. Behind them was Great-Aunt Elvina, making an overloud point to Sarah, who was attentive but had a small smile on her face. And bringing up the rear was his dear wife. Megs looked up just then, catching his eye, and he saw that her cheeks were a deep pink from the wind and the excitement. She grinned at him and something broke free in his chest, lightening, glowing, warming him internally.

He made a mental note: he’d have to bring Megs to the gardens at least once a week while she was in London, for she was truly in her element here and he found it rather a wonderful place himself.

He waited until the others had passed him and Mrs. St. John, and then offered his wife his left arm. She looked at it cautiously as if afraid to injure it again.

“Come on this side of Godric,” his stepmother murmured, and she exchanged a glance with Megs, one of those mysterious feminine ones that seemed to relate all the news of the world. “I want to stroll a bit with Sarah.”

Megs took his right arm, which had healed nicely, the bandage already off, and glanced up at him as Mrs. St. John walked ahead to catch up with the others. “I’m so glad you talked to your stepmother.”

She smiled brilliantly and he wondered—not for the first time—how women managed to know these things without speaking.

He pushed the matter from his mind, though, and smiled down at his wife, for it really was a lovely day. They strolled slowly, the others drawing farther ahead until it seemed they walked in a garden all their own, Godric thought whimsically.

But every garden has its serpent.

They were approaching an intersection with another path, the corner screened by several trees just beginning to leaf. Godric could see another couple coming closer, but it wasn’t until he and Megs were at the junction that he saw who it was: the Earl and Countess of Kershaw.

Chapter Nineteen

Faith yawned. “I’m so sleepy. Can we not rest for a bit?” The Hellequin dismounted the big black horse readily enough and lifted Faith off. She lay down in the dust of the Plain of Madness and wrapped the Hellequin’s cloak about her. Yet still she shivered. Holding out a hand, she said to the Hellequin, “Will you not lie with me?” So he lay beside her and curved his big body around hers and as she drifted into slumber, she heard him say, “I have not slept the sleep of men for a millennium.” …

—From The Legend of the Hellequin

Megs froze. Lord Kershaw had been laughing at something, his round face thrown back to the sun’s rays, his mouth wide, his eyes squinting with laughter. It felt like a knife wound to the soul. Roger had once laughed so uninhibitedly.

Had once walked in the sunlight.

“How dare you,” she said low, without any forethought, but she wouldn’t have been able to remain silent and still breathe. “How dare you?”

“Megs,” Godric said beside her. His entire body had tightened as if preparing for battle, but his voice was soft, almost sad.

She couldn’t look at him, not now. All she could see was Lord Kershaw’s dying laugh, the way his eyes narrowed with calculation, the stare he pinned on her.

“You killed him,” she said, the words righteous on her tongue. “You killed Roger Fraser-Burnsby. He was your friend and you murdered him.”

Had he denied her accusation, had he blustered and flushed, backed away, shouted that she was insane, done any of those normal, conventional things, she might’ve rethought her taunt. Might’ve come to her senses and pleaded sun poisoning or too much drink or merely the stupidity of her feminine sex.

But he didn’t.

Instead, Lord Kershaw leaned forward, his thick lips curving into a sweet smile, and said, “Prove it.”

She went wild, she knew it in retrospect, but all she felt in the moment was the hot burn of grief flooding her veins, like acid in the blood. She surged at him, arms outstretched, fingers scrabbling, and only Godric’s hard hands saved her from disgrace. He picked her up physically, carrying her even as she bucked and sobbed. Her family was around her now and she saw Sarah’s wide eyes, the muted horror on Mrs. St. John’s face, and she knew she should feel shame, but all she felt was sorrow.

Drowning, overwhelming sorrow.