Lord of Darkness

She stopped dead and glared at him, her breast heaving. Dear God, she was magnificent when she was in a rage.

He cleared his throat. “Elderly?”

“Elderly?” She mimicked him in a horribly high voice, which he privately thought was a bit unfair—he didn’t sound at all like that. “That’s all you can say? I saw you kill that footpad the first night I was in London.”

“Yes, I did.”

“How many?”

“What?”

Her lower lip was trembling, the sight much more troubling to him than her anger. Megs in a rage was wonderful. Megs fearful wasn’t something he ever wanted to see. “How many have you killed, Godric?”

He looked away from that vulnerable mouth. “I don’t know.”

“How”—she stopped and inhaled, steadying her voice—“how can you not know how many people you’ve killed, Godric?”

He wasn’t a coward, so he lifted his head and met her gaze, silently letting her see the answer in his eyes.

Her throat worked as she swallowed. “But they were all bad, weren’t they?” She couldn’t hide the uncertainty in her voice. She was trying to persuade herself—and failing. “All … all the people you killed, they were like the footpad—you saved others by killing them.”

He could see in her eyes the desire to believe that he wasn’t entirely a monster. So he made it easy for her, though he knew there was no clear line in St. Giles. No true black and white. Yes, there were murderers and thieves, those who preyed upon the weaker … but those same murderers and thieves often sought to feed themselves or others.

One never knew.

Not that that had ever stopped him.

“Yes,” he said. “I’ve only ever killed those who I caught attacking the weak and vulnerable.”

There was glad relief in her eyes, which was as it should be. Megs was a creature of light and joy. She had no business contemplating the darkness that he fought night after night in St. Giles.

“I’m so glad.” She frowned for a moment, absently taking a dozen spills from the jar and stacking them messily on the mantel, but then she seemed to remember something and turned back to him, a few spills still in her hand. “That was what Griffin was blackmailing you over, wasn’t it? He knew that you were the Ghost.”

Godric’s mouth twisted. “Yes.”

“I see.” She nodded to herself rather thoughtfully and tossed the remaining spills onto the chair before the fire. Several slid off to land on the small rug underneath. “Well, I’m glad I found out, truly. I think a wife, even one so strangely married as I, should know her husband’s past, and now that it’s behind you—behind us, rather—I think—”

“Megs,” he whispered, in dawning horror.

But she didn’t seem to hear. “We’ll muddle on much better in the future. I can learn who you truly are and you …” She trailed off as she seemed to at last realize that something was wrong. “What is it?”

“I don’t intend to give up being the Ghost of St. Giles.”

She stared at him. “But … you must.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Why?”

“Because”—she threw wide her hands, nearly knocking the dish from its perch on the mantel—“it’s dangerous and … and you killed people. You just must stop.”

He sighed, watching her. He could tell her about the widow he’d saved from rape last month, the robbers he’d chased away from an elderly flower seller a week later, the orphaned girls he’d rescued on the night he’d saved Megs herself. He could tell her horror stories and brag about bravado, but in the end it hardly mattered. He knew, deep inside his crippled soul, that even if he’d never save another life, his answer would still be the same.

“No, I won’t stop.”

Her eyes widened and for a moment he almost thought it was in betrayal.

Then she tilted her chin up and glared at him, her eyes blazing. “Very well. I suppose that is your choice after all.”

He knew that she wasn’t done, that whatever she said next he truly would not like.

Still it was a blow, a hit delivered directly to the belly, when she said, “Just as it is my choice to find Roger’s murderer … and kill him.”

Chapter Eight

Faith looked up and saw before them a black, swirling river that stretched in either direction as far as the eye could see. The Hellequin never hesitated but rode his great black horse directly into the river. Faith took a firmer grip on his shoulders and looked down as the horse began to swim. There in the inky water she saw strange, white wispy forms drifting past, and the longer she stared, the more they seemed nearly human. …

—From The Legend of the Hellequin

The second time Godric woke that day it was to the sound of muffled giggles. He glanced at his window and from the angle of the light shining in estimated it to be late afternoon. Apparently, he’d slept the day away after his catastrophic argument with Megs. Remembering her avowal to traipse into St. Giles and attempt to kill the murderer of her damned dead lover made his head start to pound.

She was his wife.

It was his duty to protect her, to keep her from her own folly, and he would’ve done that even if he hadn’t grown rather … fond of her in the last several days.

The stab of pain behind his left eye at that thought was quite awful.

Godric sighed and rose carefully. Moulder had patched him up the night before, muttering all the while that the wound was but a tiny thing, hardly worth the effort. It didn’t feel tiny as all that today, though. He had trouble lifting his left arm to put on a shirt, and it took him awhile to don stockings, breeches, and shoes. Still, Godric acknowledged that he’d had much worse injuries in the past.

There’d been times when he’d not risen from bed for days.

He shrugged on his waistcoat, buttoned it, and left his toilet at that for the moment, crossing to the door that connected with his wife’s room. Another husky laugh sparked his curiosity and he knocked once before opening the door.

Megs sat on the round carpet by her bed, her skirts a pool of apple green and pink about her. The four little maids recently apprenticed from the home squatted beside her like acolytes to a particularly pretty pagan priestess, and on her lap was the cause of their mirth: a squirming, fat, ratlike thing.

Megs looked up at his entrance, her face shining. For a moment he caught his breath—it was almost like a light radiated from within her, and he was very glad that she’d apparently decided not to hold their argument against him.

“Oh, Godric, come see! Her Grace has had her puppies.” And she held out the ratlike thing—which, apparently, was a pug puppy—like a peace offering.

Godric raised his brows, sinking into a chair. “It’s quite … lovely?”

“Oh, pooh!” She retracted her arms, cuddling the tiny creature against her cheek. “Don’t listen to Mr. St. John,” she whispered to the puppy as if in confidence. “You’re the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen.”

All four maids giggled.

Godric raised an eyebrow, replying mildly, “I said it was lovely.”

His wife’s laughing brown eyes peeked at him over the soft fawn creature. “Yes, but your tone said the opposite.”

He started to shrug, but the sudden bite at his shoulder made him regret the movement.

He thought he’d suppressed the wince, but Megs’s eyes narrowed. “Thank you, girls. Mary Compassion, could you take the other Marys downstairs? I’m sure Mrs. Crumb has need of you now.”

The girls looked a bit disappointed, but they rose obediently and left the bedroom, trailing the eldest.

Megs waited until the door closed behind them. “How are you?”

She held the puppy to her face almost like a shield against him, and he wished she’d put the animal down so he could see her expression.

“Well enough,” he replied.

She nodded, meeting his gaze at last. Tears sparkled in her eyes and his chest tightened. “I’m so very, very sorry that I hurt you.”

If she wished not to speak of their earlier argument, it was fine with him. “You’ve already apologized, and besides, there’s no need. It wasn’t your fault. I suppose you thought I was attacking you.”

She looked away and he felt a sinking sensation. Had his kiss been that repulsive, then?

There was a short and, for him at least, very awkward silence.

Finally he gestured to the puppy in her arms. “Doesn’t the mother want her offspring back?”

“Oh, yes,” Megs murmured, and to Godric’s astonishment she turned and lay on her belly to place the puppy under her bed.

A squeak and rustle came from the shadows there.

Megs straightened and turned.

Godric raised his brows.

“Her Grace is under there with her puppies—three of them,” Megs answered his silent question. “We think she whelped sometime last evening, but I didn’t notice until late this morning when I heard the puppies crying.”

“Strange,” Godric murmured as he watched her rise from the floor, “that the dog chose your room to give birth.”

Megs shrugged, shaking out her skirts. “I’m just glad we found her. Great-Aunt Elvina was so worried when she realized Her Grace was missing from her room this morning.”

He nodded absently. How was he to keep her safe? How was he to save her from her own gallant heart?

She inhaled as if bracing herself. “Godric?”

He watched her warily. “Yes?”

“Can you tell me how”—she waved her hands in a fluttering gesture between them—“how this happened? How you came to be the Ghost of St. Giles?”

He nodded. “Yes, of course.”

PREHAPS IF SHE could understand why he did this dreadful thing, then she could somehow dissuade him, Megs thought.

Godric was still pale. Megs examined her husband while trying to hide her concern, but his gaze was steady, his body solid and strong in the chair. She took a moment to marvel again that at one time she’d thought this man almost infirm. She realized now that he might not be as tall or as bulky as some men, but he was solid, as if he were made of some durable, indestructible material. Granite, maybe. Or iron that would never rust. Something strong and muscular and … and masculine.

Megs glanced down at her hands in confusion at the thought of her husband’s body and nearly missed his next words.

“Have you ever heard of Sir Stanley Gilpin?”

She looked up again. “No, I don’t think so.”

He nodded as if her reply was expected. “He was a distant relation of my father’s, dead now for several years. A third cousin or some such. He was a wealthy man of business in the city, but he also had other interests.”

“Such as?”

“Theater. He owned a theater at one time and even wrote some plays.”

“Really?” She couldn’t see what this had to do with the Ghost of St. Giles, but she forced herself to sink into a chair at right angles to his, laying her hands decorously one atop the other. Fidgeting was, sadly, a particular failing of hers. “What are their titles? Perhaps I’ve seen one.”

“I very much doubt it.” His look was wry. “I loved Sir Stanley like a father, but his playwriting skills were terrible. I’m not sure any of his plays saw a stage beyond the first one, The Romance of the Porpoise and the Hedgehog.”

Megs felt her eyebrows lift, interested despite herself. “The … porpoise?”

He nodded. “And the hedgehog. As I said, simply terrible, but I’ve gotten off track.” He leaned forward, wincing a little, and set his elbows on his knees, staring at his hands clasped in front of him. “I don’t know if you know this, but my mother died when I was ten.”