Lord of Darkness (Maiden Lane #5)(74)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

“Give me some time,” he said gently. “I’ll investigate and learn more.”

She bit her lip and whispered, “I can’t stand the thought of him walking free when Roger is in his grave.”

“I’m sorry.” He held out his hands. “Come here.”

She came with slow steps like a reluctant child.

He took her hands, pulling her down to the bed with him, and he felt her slight resistance. “Shhh. I just want to lie with you, nothing more.”

He was afraid she would make an excuse and pull away. He wasn’t hurt and they weren’t about to have sex. There was no practical reason for her to lie with him.

But she did anyway, a soft weight against his side, smelling of orange blossoms and life. He couldn’t help but feel glad when she laid her hand on his chest and her breathing grew slow.

Still, he stared at the ceiling of his bedroom for long minutes, planning, calculating, trying to find a way to bring down an earl.

Chapter Eighteen

“Poor, poor souls!” Faith cried, and a single tear fell from her eye.

Her unhappiness so enchanted Loss that he forgot himself, letting go of the horse and clapping his tiny red hands. Swifter than the blink of an eye, Faith pushed the imp from the horse. He fell with a shriek and was trampled beneath the big black horse’s hooves.

The Hellequin chuckled under his breath. “Those demon imps have been my sole companions for an eternity, yet you’ve rid me of them in one day.”…

—From The Legend of the Hellequin

Late the next morning, Megs stared down at her figures and did the calculation again. For the third time. Both because she always got a bit muddled when it came to numbers and because, well, they couldn’t be correct.

Yet the result was the same: She’d missed one of her courses and was late for the second. How was that possible? She tried to scowl at the numbers on the scrap of paper, but a gleeful grin kept taking over instead. She was trying very hard to be practical, to ignore the rising tide of elation within her breast. It was much too soon, she chided herself. If she got her hopes up, she’d be terribly disappointed to find brown stains on her linen tomorrow.

But what if she didn’t? Have her courses again, that is. What if she were really, truly with child?

She giggled aloud.

The thought had her jumping up, too restless with possibility to sit still. She crossed into Godric’s room almost without thought—and then was disappointed to see he was not there.

Megs wrinkled her nose, looking around. She tiptoed to his dressing room and peeked in.

Her Grace lay on a man’s shirt—Megs truly hoped it was a castoff of Godric’s—nursing her puppies. The dog raised her head and looked inquiringly at Megs.

“It’s quite all right,” Megs whispered. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

She watched for a minute more because the puppies were making quite adorable snuffling sounds, and the chocolate one kept trying to push his paw in his sibling’s face. After a while she turned back to Godric’s room, meaning to return to her own. Something about his dresser caught her eye, though. The top drawer was pulled out, the key still inserted in the lock.

She went to look—it was a quite irresistible urge.

The key was a small one on a silver chain, and she realized, looking at it, that it was the same key that Godric wore around his neck. She touched it with one finger, making the silver chain swing gently.

Then she looked in the drawer.

At the front was a messy pile of letters. Behind it was a much neater, thin stack of letters bound in black, and in the corner of the drawer was a pretty blue and white enameled box. She picked it up and opened the hinged lid. Inside were two locks of fine hair, one brown and the other the same shade of brown but with gray mingled in the threads as well. They must’ve been Clara’s, and it struck her how long he’d known his first wife—long enough for her hair to start to gray. The thought made her melancholy. He’d had years of living and loving Clara while she—

But that didn’t matter, did it? She hadn’t come to London for Godric’s love.

She frowned and slowly replaced the enameled box.

Megs looked closer at the two stacks of letters. The one bound in black was obviously from Clara, but the loose pile …

Her heart began beating faster.

She recognized her own sprawling writing on the top. She riffled through the letters and found that they were all from her. She stared. Godric had saved every letter she’d written him. The thought made her back prickle. All those missives hastily scrawled off without any forethought, all those ramblings about Laurelwood and Upper Hornsfield and her daily life and … and kittens. Why had he ever bothered to save them?

She picked up one randomly from the pile and opened it, reading.

10 January 1740

Dear Godric,

What do you think? We have piles of snow here! I don’t know where it came from. Battlefield has been mooning about all day muttering about how he’s never seen such snow hereabouts in his lifetime, which, as you know, is extensive—some would say overly extensive—and Cook has had three revelations of the Second Coming already today and we haven’t even had Luncheon yet. Despite the possible Apocalypse, I do hope the snow stays, for it is quite lovely and ices every little tree branch and window ledge. If it snowed every winter I might come to quite like the dark season.

I’ve watched a wee robin all morning, hopping along the branches of the hawthorn tree outside my bedroom window and pausing now and again to pick out some startled insect from beneath the bark and gobble it up. Some of the stable lads and the younger footmen spent the morning in a snowball skirmish that only ended when Battlefield was accidentally hit in the back of the neck (!) and a forcible peace was enacted.

Bother! I haven’t yet asked you the question I meant to with this letter and now I’m nearly out of paper, so here it is. Sarah mentioned this morning how much you enjoyed Laurelwood when you were younger, and it gave me a nasty start. Has my presence kept you from visiting? I do hope not! Please, please, please do come visit if you have a mind to—and despite the descriptions above, which, really, would put any sane person off. Cook might be mad, but she does make the most divine lemon tarts, and Battlefield is Battlefield so we must all put up with him, and I am scatterbrained, but I will make every attempt to appear solemn and serious and … well, I do wish you would visit.

Yours,

M.

The last bit was written in a very cramped hand because she had run out of paper after all that. Megs smoothed the letter, remembering that day in winter and how happy everyone was and how she seemed to miss something. She’d already known she’d wanted a babe by that point, but there was something more that she’d needed when she’d written this letter.