Lord of Darkness (Maiden Lane #5)(52)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

“You should’ve thought of that before you made this bargain, my lady.” He flexed his hand, his tendons moving within her grasp, but made no move to pull his wrist from her fingers. “You wanted me to investigate. Well, I do my investigating as the Ghost. Have you changed your mind? Do you want me to give up the hunt for Fraser-Burnsby’s murderer?”

He could hear her inhale in the dark, imagined he could feel the brush of her hair against his arm. She hesitated, and in that still moment his heart seemed to stop, waiting—hoping—though he wasn’t entirely sure for what.

At last her fingers slipped from his wrist, and with their loss the warmth seemed to drain from his body. “No.”

“Then I shall fulfill my end of the bargain.”

He didn’t wait to see if she would say anything more. He fled the room.

Downstairs he quickly donned the costume of the Ghost, determinedly driving all thought from his mind, and drifted into the night.

Twenty minutes later, Godric strode down an alley in St. Giles. The One Horned Goat was a rather notorious tavern. The mere fact that Fraser-Burnsby’s footman had been in any way connected to it should’ve made d’Arque suspicious of Harris’s motives.

But then the viscount obviously didn’t know St. Giles as well as he.

The One Horned Goat was on the ground floor of a brick and wood building perpetually listing ever so slightly to the side. The goat on the dark wooden sign swinging from the corner of the building had no horns at all—on its head. The eponymous “horn” of the tavern’s name lay elsewhere on the animal’s body. The place did a brisk trade in everything illicit to be had in St. Giles: gin, prostitution, and the trade of stolen items. More than one highwayman had used the One Horned Goat as his base of operations.

Godric slouched in the shadows until he saw the lad who worked about the place come out to empty slops into the channel.

“Boy.”

The child was a product of St. Giles. His eyes widened, but he didn’t bother trying to run as Godric revealed himself. Neither did he come any closer.

Godric flipped a coin to the lad. “Tell Archer I’d like a word—and mind you inform him that I’ll come in after him if he’s not out in two minutes.”

The boy pocketed the coin and ran back into the tavern without a sound.

Godric didn’t have long to wait. A tall, thin man ducked his head to avoid braining himself on the lintel as he emerged from the One Horned Goat.

He straightened and looked cautiously around before sighting Godric and looking resentfully resigned. “What you want from me, Ghost?”

“I want to know about a man named Harris.”

“Don’t know no ’Arris.” Archer looked shiftily away, but that didn’t tell Godric anything. Archer always looked a bit shifty. His complexion was an unhealthy yellowish white, as pale as some cave-dwelling aquatic animal. His eyes were bulbous and colorless, his hair a strange, flat black, clinging greasily to the tavern keep’s skull.

Godric arched a brow, leaning against the building, his arms crossed. “The footman who saw Roger Fraser-Burnsby murdered in St. Giles?”

“Lots o’ murders in St. Giles.” Archer shrugged.

“You’re lying to me.” Godric dropped his voice to a silky whisper. “Fraser-Burnsby was a toff. There was a manhunt immediately after his murder. All of St. Giles remembers it.”

“And if’n I do?” the tavern keep asked gruffly. “What’s it got to do wif me?”

“His possessions were sent here several weeks after the murder.”

“An’?”

“Who picked them up?”

The tavern keep gave an odd wheezing sound that must’ve been his version of a laugh. “’Ow you expect me to remember that? It’s been years, Ghost.”

Godric uncrossed his arms.

Archer abruptly stopped wheezing. “’Onest, Ghost! I swears on my ma’s grave, I do. I can’t remember who might’ve taken ’Arris’s stuff.”

Godric took a step closer.

The tavern keep squealed and backed up, his hands raised. “Wait! Wait! I do know somethin’ you might like.”

Godric cocked his head. “And what’s that?”

Archer licked his lips nervously. “Word is, ’Arris is dead.”

“When?”

Archer shook his head. “I don’t know, but a long time ago. Maybe afore ’is things were ever sent for.”

Godric studied the tavern owner for a minute. Archer was a born liar, but Godric thought he might actually be telling the truth now. He could threaten and intimidate the man more, but he had the feeling that it would be a waste of time.

The One Horned Goat’s door crashed open and three soldiers staggered out, obviously the worse for drink.

“You learn anything more and I want to know about it.” Godric flipped a coin at the man and turned away to duck into an alley, swiftly gliding away.

The moon was a mocking oval above, her light pale and sickly. Behind him, he could hear wild laughter and the crash of barrels being knocked down. He didn’t turn.

He could sense someone following him and his heart sang with gladness. Suddenly the rage from earlier tonight was back, as fresh and raw as ever.

How dare she?

He’d given up his home, his solitude, his peace of mind, and his goddamned body for her, and this was how she repaid him? By imagining he was another man while he had his cock in her? He’d been suspicious the first time but dismissed the notion. But tonight, there’d been something—the way she’d held herself, the refusal to meet his eyes, the very fact that she wouldn’t let him make love to her properly, damn it—that had roused all of his doubts. And then it had hit him: He wasn’t the man she was fucking at all. He didn’t know if she dreamed of Fraser-Burnsby or d’Arque or some man he’d never met, but it hardly mattered.

He wasn’t going to be used as a blasted proxy.

They came from around the corner up ahead, riding two abreast, and he was so distracted that he didn’t realize they were even there until they were almost on him.

Godric didn’t know who was more surprised: him or the dragoons.

The man on the right recovered first, drawing his saber and kicking his horse into a charge. He couldn’t outrun a galloping horse and the alley was narrow. Godric flattened himself against the grimy bricks at his back. The first dragoon charged past, the horse nearly brushing Godric’s tunic, but the second, slower dragoon was smarter. The soldier kneed his horse until the great beast was hemming him in, threatening to either crush him against the bricks or, more likely, run him through with the sharp point of a saber. There was no room to dodge around the sweating, snorting horse. He looked up and saw the sagging wooden balcony, tacked on the building he was pressed against like an afterthought. It might not hold his weight, but he had no choice now.