Lord of Darkness (Maiden Lane #5)(27)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

Godric winced as he ran by.

He breathed a sigh of relief when the driver finally pulled the horses to a stop outside Saint House. He should run around back. Be sure to be in his study when she came inside—assuming she went looking for him.

Something made him pause, watching the carriage, waiting like a lovesick schoolboy for the sight of his wife again. The footman descended the carriage and placed the step, opening the door for Margaret. But instead of her emerging, the footman leaned forward as if to catch murmured words from inside. He stepped back and called something to the driver, and then he was remounting the carriage.

Damn it! What was she about?

He watched helplessly as the driver turned the carriage around and rolled away from Saint House.

Godric cursed under his breath and followed, glad now that he was in his Ghost costume. If she were going to meet a lover …

His chest squeezed at the thought. He might be a dog in a manger, as she’d accused him, but he couldn’t let her go to another man. He’d kill the bastard first.

The carriage rumbled through London, heading north and a bit to the west. Toward St. Giles, in fact.

Surely she wouldn’t? Not after being accosted that first night?

God’s balls. She would. The carriage turned into St. Giles like a calf fattened for market, all but bawling its vulnerability and rich, succulent meat.

Godric drew both swords and followed.

MEGS GAZED OUT the window of her carriage. St. Giles was dark and quiet—almost peaceful-looking, though she knew that was deceptive. This was the most violent area of London.

This was where Roger had been stabbed to death two years before. He’d lain here on a cold early spring night and his life had bled away into the filthy channel in the middle of the lane, his precious life’s blood mingling with excrement and worse.

She blinked back the tears in her eyes and inhaled, opening the carriage door.

Oliver started to climb down from the footboard of the carriage, but Megs waved him back. “Stay here.”

“Best ye take him, m’lady,” Tom rumbled worriedly from the high driver’s seat.

“I … I need a moment alone. Please.”

Megs leaned back into the carriage and withdrew one of the pistols from underneath the seat. She hesitated a moment and then took out a small dagger and carefully shoved it up her sleeve. It was mostly ornamental, but it might deter a robber long enough to call Tom and Oliver.

Not that she intended to be waylaid. She wouldn’t go far from the carriage, but she’d been honest with Tom.

She needed a moment alone … with her memories of Roger.

Perhaps it was all the male stubbornness she’d dealt with tonight: Griffin and Godric and even Lord d’Arque in a way—the man had been more interested in flirting with her than wondering why she’d sought him out in the first place. She felt blocked at every turn. Nothing she’d come to London for was working out as she’d hoped.

Especially, in a way, this.

She felt farther from Roger than she ever had before—even as she walked the streets where he’d lived his last moments.

She stopped and looked up and down the empty lane. It was darker than most London streets. The St. Giles merchants and residents either couldn’t afford to light their homes, or they didn’t care to. In either case, the area was dim and shadowed, tall buildings leaning ominously overhead. The sound of something breaking and the clatter of footfalls came from … somewhere. Megs shivered and drew her short cape closer, even though it wasn’t especially cold out tonight. Sound was hard to estimate here. The buildings and small, crooked passageways seemed to echo back whispers and swallow shouts.

This place was haunted by more than Roger’s memory.

Megs turned in a circle. Her carriage was only yards away, a lighted, reassuring presence, but she felt isolated nonetheless.

Why had Roger come here that night?

He didn’t live nearby, hadn’t, as far as she knew, anyone to visit. She had loved him and knew, deep in her heart, that he’d truly loved her in return, but she had no explanation for his last journey.

All she knew, in fact, was that he’d come to St. Giles—and that the Ghost of St. Giles had seen fit to murder him here.

Why? Why Roger of all people?

Megs tried to imagine Roger being held at sword point, deciding to fight back even if mismatched.

She shook her head. Her conjured image was blurry. She couldn’t quite set his features right. When she’d first heard the news of his murder, she’d been sure that he wasn’t the type of man to foolishly provoke a fight with a footpad. Now …

Now she’d lost part of his memory. Lost part of Roger himself. She wasn’t sure she knew who he’d been anymore, and the thought sent panic racing in her chest.

Something moved in the shadows.

She had the pistol grasped in both hands and pointed even before the Ghost of St. Giles stepped from the doorway.

The rage hit her, hot and quick. How dare he? He was sullying ground sacred to her, ground sacred to her memory of Roger.

“You shouldn’t be here, my—”

She fired the pistol … except nothing happened but a sputtering sound and a tiny spark.

Then he was on her, big and hard, wrenching the pistol from her hands and throwing it, clattering, onto the cobblestones, out of reach.

She opened her mouth to shriek her anger, but his hand clamped down on the lower half of her face, his other arm hugging her close, trapping her hands against her sides.

She went insane. Men! All telling her what to do, all unable to give her the simple courtesy of treating her like she mattered. She writhed, trying to elbow him, trying to stamp on his toes, her dancing slippers sliding harmlessly against his jackboots. She twisted, small sounds of frustration and rage pushing against his damned hand. He grunted and staggered, pulling her with him as he half fell into the shadows against a house wall. She tucked her chin into her neck and slammed the top of her head against him, missing his jaw and connecting painfully with his chest, shaking with fury.

“Damn it—” His growl was low.

He didn’t seem affected at all, this murderer, this killer of all she’d ever held dear. She raised her head and glared at him over the top of his hand, daring him to do what he might.

He met her look and his eyes narrowed behind that stupid mask, and then his hand was moving from her mouth, but before she could draw breath, he was slamming his lips over hers and he was …

Kissing her?

Her world whirled sickeningly because he was angry and she was angry and his mouth wasn’t at all gentle, but somehow, despite all of that, or maybe because all of that, she felt it: a stirring. A warmth down below where—