Lord of Darkness (13 page)

Megs focused on Sarah. “I have to leave. Actually, there’s something important I need to talk to my brother Griffin about. Can you make my apologies to the earl and countess?”

“Of course.” Sarah’s eyes softened in sympathy—and a touch of curiosity. “But we only brought the one carriage.”

“Oh.” Megs felt her face fall.

But Sarah had already rallied. “Your great-aunt Elvina has been gossiping with Lady Bingham all evening. I’m sure she’ll be amenable to giving us a ride home.”

“You’re an angel.” Megs just took the time to press an affectionate kiss to her sister-in-law’s cheek and then she was down the stairs.

Fifteen minutes later, she was the sole occupant of the carriage and on her way to Griffin and Hero’s town house. Only now did it occur to her that her brother might not be home
at this hour. But considering the matter as her carriage clattered through the dark streets of London, she decided there was a good chance that he’d be in tonight. She knew from Hero’s letters that her brother, once one of the wildest rakes in society, now spent most of his evenings at home with his wife and small son.

Megs decided that she wouldn’t be jealous of her brother.

Twenty minutes later, her carriage was pulling up in front of a neat town house. On marriage, her brother had given up the house he’d spent his bachelor days in and moved here to a much better neighborhood.

Megs mounted the front steps, her heart dipping as she realized that although there were two bright lamps burning out front, the house itself was dark. For a moment she hesitated, but the matter really couldn’t wait: she wouldn’t face her husband again without clearing up this mystery.

She raised the knocker and let it fall twice.

There was a long pause and then a butler answered the door. It took a bit of wrangling to convince the manservant that she really was Lord Griffin’s sister come to visit him at a terribly inconvenient hour, but soon she’d been ushered into a pretty little sitting room. A sleepy maid had just got done stirring the dying fire and left when Griffin burst into the room.

Her brother strode across the sitting room and took her by the shoulders, examining her with piercing green eyes. “What is it, Megs? Are you all right?”

Oh, dear, she hadn’t meant to alarm him. “Yes, yes, I’m fine. I just wanted to … uh … talk to you.”

Griffin blinked and stepped back. “Talk to me? At”—his gaze went to a brass clock on the mantelpiece—“half past midnight? Megs, you’ve been avoiding me for years.”

She gulped.
“You noticed.”

He rolled his eyes. “That my favorite sister corresponds more often with my wife than with me? That she’s declined half a dozen invitations to come visit? That when you came after William’s birth you hardly spoke two words to me? I’m not stupid, Megs.”

“Oh.” She didn’t quite know what to say to that. All she could seem to do was stare at her fingers as she plucked at a loose thread on her gown.

Griffin cleared his throat. “Hero said I should give you time. Was she wrong?”

“No.” Megs took a breath and lifted her head. She was being a craven coward and it simply wouldn’t do. “Hero is almost maddeningly wise.”

He smiled crookedly. “Yes.”

“I’m sorry I’ve been such a widgeon,” she said softly.

“The only time you’ve been a widgeon is right now,” he said almost irritably. “There’s no need to apologize to me.”

She caught her breath, feeling her eyes go all hot and liquidy, but really it was Griffin’s own fault for being such a sweetheart. Why had she ever stayed away from him?

She beamed through her tears and sat on a delicate primrose settee. “Come talk to me.”

He looked suddenly suspicious. “Megs?”

She patted the empty place beside her.

Griffin narrowed his eyes and picked up a wing chair, placing it in front of her before lowering himself to the chair. He’d obviously come from bed. He wore a dark blue banyan, edged in black and gold, and slippers on his feet, but in contrast to her husband, there was no soft hat on his bare head. Griffin, like most men who wore a wig, kept his hair cropped close to the skull.

“So,” he
drawled, “what is so urgent you must drag me from my bed? My very
warm
bed?”

She blushed, for although most couples at their level of society kept separate rooms, she had the sudden strong impression that Griffin and Hero did not.

Megs inhaled. “I want to know why Godric married me.”

Griffin’s face went entirely blank, but before he could say a word, Hero appeared at the door, a pale green wrapper held close at her throat, her beautiful red hair a curling mass over one shoulder.

“Megs? What has happened?”

Griffin rose at once, crossing to Hero. He bent over her, murmuring something quietly and with one hand touching her cheek in a tender gesture that declared louder than any embrace what he felt for his wife.

Megs bit her lip, feeling again that miserly twinge of envy. It wasn’t that she didn’t wish Griffin all the marital happiness in the world. It was just … well. She’d never have that with Godric, would she?

She winced in something very like pain at the thought. She had friends, family that cared for her, wealth and privilege. Maybe, if she could change Godric’s mind, she might even have a baby.

Couldn’t she be happy just with those things?

Hero nodded at whatever Griffin said to her and then smiled at Megs and gave a little wave.

Megs mouthed,
“Sorry.”

Hero nodded and retired from the room, closing the door behind her.

“Now, then,” Griffin said, lowering himself once more to the wing chair. “What has Godric done to make you ask?”

And Megs
realized that Griffin had used the brief interruption to marshal his thoughts.

Well, she certainly wasn’t going to tell her brother that her husband refused to consummate their marriage. Besides, she saw now, Griffin was probably throwing the question back at her in an effort to get her off the topic.

“Godric hasn’t done anything,” she said coolly, and when he frowned suspiciously, she sighed. “He’s been a perfect gentleman. That’s not why I’m here. I want to know what you did to him to make him marry me.”

His eyebrows flew up. “
Make
him?”

“He said he had no choice but to marry me, Griffin.” She gripped her hands in her lap, remembering again the stab of foolish pain at her husband’s words. “Why?”

Griffin took a breath, his head tipped back and his eyes closed. For a moment, Megs was afraid he wouldn’t speak at all.

Then his eyes opened and they were filled with brotherly love for her. “You were so broken, Meggie. So grief-stricken, it was like you’d lost part of your mind.” A muscle tightened in his jaw. “And then there was the fact that you were with child.”

She flushed, looking away from her brother, the embarrassment and shame so strong she nearly didn’t hear his next words.

“If your lover hadn’t been dead, I would’ve killed him myself.”

She stared at him, her mouth falling open. “Griffin! Roger was a good man, a man I
loved
, a man who loved
me
—”

“He seduced my baby sister and got her with child.” Griffin’s green eyes flashed. “I understand you loved him, Megs, but don’t expect
me to wax poetic on the man. He should’ve never touched you.”

“We would’ve married had he lived,” she said with dignity, and then more pragmatically, “and you shouldn’t be throwing any stones.”

Griffin’s cheeks turned ruddy at her words. There had been rather a scandal when he’d married Hero—who had originally been betrothed to Thomas. “We stray from the point. You were in pain and you needed a husband. St. John had a spotless reputation, was from an old aristocratic family, and perhaps most importantly, the man has enough money to keep you happy for the rest of your life. I didn’t have much time, but I made the best match I could under the circumstances.”

“And I thank you for it,” Megs said with real warmth. Without Griffin, she would’ve been banished forever from society, a family shame to be kept secret and hidden perhaps until the day of her death. “But that still doesn’t answer my question. Why did Godric marry me? He loved his first wife dearly. I believe had he had his druthers, he wouldn’t have married again at all.”

“But he didn’t have his druthers,” Griffin said softly.

And it came to her in a sudden and rather unwelcome flash as she stared into her brother’s too-intelligent features. “You
blackmailed
him?”

Griffin winced. “Now, Meggie …”

“Oh, my Lord, Griffin!” She stood, too appalled to sit. “No wonder he …”
Doesn’t want to bed me.
She stopped abruptly, realizing she was about to say much too much to her perceptive brother. Megs inhaled instead. “What did you blackmail him with? It must be truly terrible for a man to marry when he never wanted to in the first place.”

Griffin’s eyes
were narrowed suspiciously, but he replied, “It’s not as terrible as you seem to be thinking.”

“Then what is it?”

But he was already shaking his head as he rose in front of her. “That was part of the bargain: I’d keep his secret to the grave. I can’t tell you, Megs. I suggest if you really want to know, you ask St. John yourself.”

G
ODRIC PAUSED TO
catch his breath across the street from Lord Griffin Reading’s town house. Sarah hadn’t told him until nearly fifteen minutes after Margaret had left the wretched ball that his darling wife intended to ask her bastard of a brother something of import. He’d wasted another ten minutes making sure Sarah and Great-Aunt Elvina had proper escort home, and then he’d left with a muttered and probably ill-believed excuse. He’d hailed a hack back home and then changed into his Ghost costume as a precaution. Who knew where Megs might lead him?

He’d done it badly, his abrupt exit from the ball, but it wasn’t as if he’d had much choice in the matter.

He could think of no reason why Margaret would seek Reading’s counsel so suddenly unless it was to inquire about the circumstances of their marriage.

Damn it. He’d known, deep in his gut, the night he’d found Reading waiting for him in his own study, that giving in to Reading’s demands would come back to bite him in the arse. But what choice had he had? Reading
knew
. Knew that Godric was the Ghost of St. Giles. The ass had threatened to make public the knowledge, and though something in Godric wanted to tell him to publish and be damned, he’d held back at the thought of St. Giles.

He still ruled the night in St. Giles. There was still a tiny spark inside
of him that
cared
about the people there and the help he could give them. A part that hadn’t died with Clara.

So he’d submitted to the blackmail and married Margaret, and now he’d had the stupidity to all but dare Margaret to ask her brother why.

Did he want her to find out?

The thought brought him up short. Idiot idea. Of course he didn’t.

And he hadn’t a moment more to think on the matter. The front door of Reading’s town house opened and Margaret emerged, briefly haloed by the door’s lanterns. She turned to say something to her brother and then descended the steps, looking the same as ever: maddeningly inquisitive and beautiful in her salmon ball gown and a white and gold short cape tied close at her throat.

Apparently one couldn’t tell just by looking if a woman had learned one’s deepest secret.

Margaret climbed into the carriage and the driver touched the horses with his whip. The convenience rumbled off, but because of the nature of London’s narrow streets, Godric could easily keep up. Jogging behind the carriage, staying in the shadows, he was mostly hidden from others on foot.

Well, except for the night-soil man, who gave a strangled shout and dropped one of his odiferous buckets.

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.

M
EGS 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.