Lord of Darkness (Maiden Lane #5)(35)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

Godric shrugged. “No. We have similar physiques. Besides, if one is wearing an outlandish costume composed of a mask, cape, large hat, and a harlequin’s livery, well, any witnesses rarely notice what the man beneath looks like.”

Megs nodded thoughtfully. “I think your Sir Stanley must have been a very clever man.”

“Oh, he was,” Godric said softly. He bent his head, seeming to be lost in a memory. He’d turned his hand in hers, and now his thumb was moving in circles on the back of her hand.

It was a rather nice sensation, actually.

“Godric,” Megs whispered carefully.

He glanced at her. “Hmm?”

She swallowed, loath to shatter this moment. But her curiosity had always been her downfall. “Clara died three years ago, didn’t she?”

He stiffened at the mention of his first wife’s name on her lips and dropped her hand. “Yes.”

She felt strangely bereft, but she soldiered on, asking the question. “Then why are you still the Ghost of St. Giles?”

WHY WAS HE still the Ghost of St. Giles?

Godric snorted under his breath as he edged close to the corner of a crumbling brick building. He peered around it, making sure the dark alley beyond was free of soldiers before darting quickly around it. It was often easier—and safer—to travel by rooftop, but the wound to his back made that impossible tonight. Thus he was forced to make his way by foot, keeping watch for Trevillion and his soldiers all the while.

He paused at the end of the alley, listening, and remembered the look in Megs’s eyes as she’d asked the question: puzzlement tinged with worry. Worry for him.

The memory made his lips quirk. When was the last time anyone had worried for him? Not since Clara had died, surely, and even before that it’d been him worrying for her, not the other way around. Clara had never known he was the Ghost, but even so, she’d trusted that he was strong enough, smart enough, man enough never to come to harm. He supposed that he should be insulted that Megs thought him so frail that she worried over him, but he couldn’t muster any outrage.

Actually, her concern was rather endearing. His wife had a soft heart—but a strong mind. She’d been shocked that he hadn’t agreed to quit his life as the Ghost. He’d known that he’d disappointed her, and there was a part of him that wished he could give her what she wanted.

Both things that she wanted.

Godric ran across the street, whirling into the shadows again as he heard approaching footfalls. Two men reeled into the moonlit street, half propping each other up, half pushing each other down. The taller of the two tripped over his own feet and sank to the cobblestones in the strangely boneless manner of the very drunk. His companion braced himself on his knees and howled with laughter, stopping only when Godric slipped from his hiding place and continued on his way. He glanced over his shoulder to see the upright drunkard gaping after him.

The two drunkards seemed a clownish duo, but Godric’s blood froze in his veins as he considered what might have happened if Megs had encountered them. Very few in St. Giles—drunk or not—were benign when faced with the temptation of a rich, beautiful woman.

His jaw clenched at the thought. Any other woman would’ve stayed far away from this area of London after that first trip. Not Megs, though, and he hardly thought the events of last night would keep her away either. No, she’d declared that she would go back to St. Giles—and continue to do so until she found Fraser-Burnsby’s killer. It might possibly be bravado, but he didn’t think so. His wife was setting a course of suicide.

Damnation. He wouldn’t let her own stubbornness lead to her hurt—or worse. Somehow he needed to find a way to send her back to the country, and the sooner the better.

St. Giles in the Fields church loomed up ahead, the tall steeple bisecting the full moon. Godric crossed to the brick wall surrounding the little graveyard. There was a lock on the gate, but it hung open.

Carefully, he pushed open the gate.

The hinges had been oiled and he slipped inside the churchyard without sound. The wind picked up, bending the branches of a single, pathetic tree and moaning around the headstones. Some might find it eerie, but Godric knew there was far more to fear in St. Giles than where the dead slept.

A very human grunt came from near the opposite wall, and Godric smiled grimly: He hadn’t come in vain tonight. He slid from shadow to shadow around the perimeter of the graveyard, not speaking until he was within feet of his quarry.

“Good evening, Digger.”

Digger Jack, a small, hunched man who happened to be one of the most notorious resurrectionists in London, straightened with a gasp.

His companion, a brawny, lumbering lad, was less sanguine. “It’s the Devil!”

The lad threw down his shovel and sprinted for the cemetery gate with impressive agility, given his size.

Digger Jack made one abortive move, but Godric laid a heavy hand on the other man’s shoulder before he could run. “I need a word with you.”

“Awww!” Digger moaned. “Now, why’d ye ’ave to go an’ do that? Ye’ve scared off Jed. ’Ave ye any idea ’ow ’ard ’tis to find a lad wif a strong back in St. Giles? I’m gettin’ on in years, I am, an’ the lumbago’s been botherin’ me somethin’ fierce. ’Ow’m I to do me work wifout ’is ’elp?”

Godric raised an eyebrow behind his mask. “Sad as your tale of woe is, Digger, I can’t find it in myself to pity you when you’re in the very act of exhuming some poor corpse.”

Digger pulled himself up to his full height of something under five foot two. “Man’s got to make a livin’, Ghost. ’Sides,” he continued, narrowing his eyes spitefully, “leastwise I’m not a murderer.”

“Oh, let’s not start a game of name-calling.”

The other man made a rude noise.

“Digger,” Godric said low, his patience at an end, “I’m not here for your opinion of me.”

The grave robber licked his lips nervously, his eyes sliding away from Godric’s. “What yer want, then?”

“What do you know about the lassie snatchers?”

Digger’s bony shoulders lifted. “Just talk ’ere and there.”

“Tell me.”

Digger’s hard little face contorted as the man thought. “Word is, they’re back.”

Godric sighed. “Yes, I know.”

“Uh …” Digger toed absently at the edge of his half-excavated grave. Clods of earth tumbled down, making no sound. “Some say as ’ow they’ve taken near on two dozen girls.”