Lord of Darkness (2 page)

He watched, fascinated, as she opened her mouth, no doubt to scorch his hide with her retort, but she was interrupted before she could speak.

“Thank you!” cried
a feminine voice from inside the carriage.

Lady Margaret scowled and turned. Apparently she was close enough to see the speaker in the dark even if he couldn’t. “Don’t thank him! He’s a murderer.”

“He hasn’t murdered
us
,” the woman in the carriage pointed out. “Besides, it’s too late. I’ve thanked him for both of us, so climb in the carriage and let’s leave this awful place before he changes his mind.”

The set of Lady Margaret’s jaw reminded Godric of a little girl denied a sweet.

“She’s right, you know,” he whispered to her. “Believe it or not, toffs have been known to be accosted by footpads in this very spot.”

“Megs!” hissed the female in the carriage.

Lady Margaret’s glare could’ve scorched wood. “I shall find you again, and when I do, I intend to kill you.”

She was completely in earnest, her stubborn little chin set.

He took off his large floppy hat and swept her a mocking bow. “I look forward to dying in your arms, sweeting.”

Her eyes narrowed on his wicked double entendre, but her companion was muttering urgently now. Lady Margaret gave him one last look of disdain before ducking inside her carriage.

The coachman shouted to the horses, and the vehicle rumbled away.

And Godric St. John realized two things: his lady wife was apparently over her mourning—and he’d better make it back to his town house before her carriage arrived. He paused for a second, glancing at the body of the man he’d killed. Black blood wound in a sluggish trail to the channel in the
middle of the lane. The man’s eyes stared glassily at the indifferent heavens. Godric searched within himself, looking for some emotion … and found what he always did.

Nothing.

He whirled and darted down a narrow alley. Only now that he was moving did he notice that his right shoulder ached. He’d either damaged something in the brawl or one of the footpads had succeeded in landing a blow. No matter. Saint House was on the river, not terribly far in the usual way, but he’d get there faster by rooftop.

He was already swinging himself up onto the top of a shed when he heard it: shrill, girlish screams, coming from around the bend in the alley up ahead.

Damn it.
He hadn’t the time for this. Godric dropped back down to the alley and drew both his swords.

Another terrified cry.

He darted around the corner.

There were two of them, which accounted for all the noise. One was not more than five. She stood, shaking, in the middle of the reeking alley, screaming with all of her might. She could do little else because the second child had already been caught. That one was a bit older and fought with the desperate ferocity of a cornered rat, but to no avail.

The man who held the older child was three times her size and cuffed her easily on the side of the head.

The older girl crumpled to the ground while the smaller one ran to her still form.

The man bent toward the children.

“Oi!” Godric growled.

The man looked up. “What th—”

Godric laid
him flat with a right haymaker to the side of the head.

He placed his sword at the man’s bared throat and leaned down to whisper, “Doesn’t feel very good when you’re on the receiving end, does it?”

The oaf scowled, his hand rubbing the side of his head. “Now see ’ere. I ’as a right to do as I please wif me own girls.”

“We’re
not
your girls!”

Godric saw out of the corner of his eye that the elder chit had sat up.

“’E’s not our da!”

Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth, making him snarl.

“Get on to your home,” he urged in a low voice to the girls. “I’ll deal with this ruffian.”

“We don’t ’ave a ’ome,” the smaller child whimpered.

She’d barely got the words out when the elder nudged her and hissed, “Shut it!”

Godric was tired and the news that the children were homeless distracted him. That was what he told himself anyway when the rogue on the ground swept his legs out from under him.

Godric hit the cobblestones rolling. He surged to his feet, but the man was already rounding the corner at the far end of the alley.

He sighed, wincing as he straightened. He’d landed on his injured shoulder and it was not thanking him for the treat.

He glanced at the girls. “Best come with me, then.”

The smaller child obediently began to rise, but the elder pulled her back down. “Don’t be daft, Moll. ’E’s as like to be a lassie snatcher as the other one.”

Godric raised
his eyebrows at the words
lassie snatcher
. He hadn’t heard that name for a while. He shook his head. He hadn’t time to dig into these matters now. Lady Margaret would reach his home soon, and if he wasn’t there, awkward questions might arise.

“Come,” he said, holding out his hand to the girls. “I’m not a lassie snatcher, and I know a nice, warm place where you can spend the night.”
And many nights hereafter.

He thought his tone gentle enough, but the elder girl’s face wrinkled mutinously. “We’re not going wif you.”

Godric smiled pleasantly—before swooping down and scooping one child over his shoulder and the other under his arm. “Oh, yes, you are.”

It wasn’t that simple, of course. The elder cursed quite shockingly for a female child of such tender years, while the younger burst into tears, and they both fought like wildcats.

Five minutes later he was within sight of the Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children when he nearly dropped them both.

“Ow!” He swallowed stronger language and took a firmer grip on the elder child, who had come perilously close to unmanning him.

Grimly, Godric stalked to the back door of the St. Giles orphanage and kicked at it until a light appeared in the kitchen window.

The door swung open to reveal a tall man in rumpled shirtsleeves and breeches.

Winter Makepeace, the manager of the home, arched an eyebrow at the sight of the Ghost of St. Giles, holding two struggling, weeping girls on his doorstep.

Godric hadn’t time for explanations.

“Here.” He
unceremoniously dumped the children on the kitchen tiles and glanced at the bemused manager. “I’d advise a firm hold—they’re slipperier than greased eels.”

With that, he swung shut the home’s door, turned, and sprinted toward his town house.

L
ADY MARGARET ST.
John started shaking the moment her carriage left St. Giles. The Ghost had been so large, so frighteningly deadly in his movements. When he’d advanced on her, his bloody swords gripped in his big, leather-clad hands and his eyes glinting behind his grotesque mask, it had been all she could do to hold herself still.

Megs inhaled, trying to quiet the quicksilver racing through her veins. She’d spent two years hating the man, but she’d never expected, when she finally met him, to feel so … so …

So
alive
.

She glanced down at the heavy pistols in her lap and then across the carriage to her dear friend and sister-in-law, Sarah St. John. “I’m sorry. That was …”

“An idiotic idea?” Sarah arched one light brown eyebrow. Her straight-as-a-pin hair varied from mouse-brown to the lightest shade of gold and was tucked back into a sedate and very orderly knot at the back of her head.

In contrast, Megs’s own dark, curly hair had mostly escaped from its pins hours ago and was now waving about her face like a tentacled sea monster.

Megs frowned. “Well, I don’t know if
idiotic
is quite—”

“Addled?” Sarah supplied crisply. “Boneheaded? Daft? Foolish? Ill-advised?”

“While all
of those adjectives are in part appropriate,” Megs interjected primly before Sarah could continue her list—her friend’s vocabulary was
quite
extensive—“I think
ill-advised
might be the most applicable. I am so sorry for putting your life in danger.”

“And yours.”

Megs blinked. “What?”

Sarah leaned a little forward so that her face came into the carriage lantern’s light. Sarah usually had the sweet countenance of a gently reared maiden lady—which at five and twenty she was—belied only by a certain mocking humor lurking at the back of her soft brown eyes, but right now she might’ve been an Amazon warrior.

“
Your
life, Megs,” Sarah replied. “You risked not only my life and the lives of the servants, but
your
life as well. What could possibly be important enough to venture into
St. Giles
at this time of night?”

Megs looked away from her dearest friend. Sarah had come to live with her at the St. John estate in Cheshire nearly a year after Megs’s marriage to Godric, so Sarah didn’t know the real reason for their hasty nuptials.

Megs shook her head, gazing out the carriage window. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to see …”

When she didn’t finish the sentence, Sarah moved restlessly. “See what?”

Where Roger was murdered.
Even the thought sent a shard of dull pain through her heart. She’d directed Tom the coachman to drive into St. Giles, hoping to find some lingering trace of Roger. There hadn’t been, of course. He’d been long dead. Long lost to her. But she’d had a second reason to look around St. Giles: to learn more about Roger’s murderer, the Ghost of St. Giles. And in that, at least,
she’d succeeded. The Ghost had appeared. She hadn’t been adequately prepared tonight, but next time she would be.

Next time she wouldn’t let him get away.

Next time she’d blast a bullet through the Ghost of St. Giles’s black heart.

“Megs?” Her friend’s gentle murmur interrupted her bloody thoughts.

Megs shook her head and smiled brightly—perhaps too brightly—at her dear friend. “Never mind.”

“What—”

“Goodness, are we here already?” Megs’s change of subject was not subtle, but the carriage was slowing as if they’d finally arrived at their destination.

She leaned forward, peering out the window. The street was dark.

Megs frowned. “Maybe not.”

Sarah crossed her arms. “What do you see?”

“We’re on a narrow, winding lane and there’s a tall, dark house up ahead. It looks very … um …”

“Ancient?”

Megs glanced at her companion. “Yes?”

Sarah nodded once. “That’s Saint House, then. It’s as old as dust, didn’t you know? Didn’t you see Saint House when you married my brother?”

“No.” Megs pretended to be engrossed in the dim view out the window. “The wedding breakfast was at my brother’s house and I left London a sennight after.” And in between she’d been bedridden at her mother’s house. Megs pushed the sad memory from her mind. “How old is Saint House?”

“Medieval and, as I remember, quite drafty in winter.”

“Oh.”

“And not
in the most fashionable part of London, either,” Sarah continued cheerfully. “Right on the riverbank. But that’s what you get when your family came over with the Conqueror: venerable old buildings without a lick of modern style or convenience.”

“I’m sure it’s quite famous,” Megs said, trying to be loyal. She was a St. John now after all.

“Oh, yes,” Sarah said, her tone dry. “Saint House has been mentioned in more than one history. No doubt that’ll comfort you when your toes turn to blocks of ice in the middle of the night.”

“If it’s so awful, then why did you accompany me to London?” Megs asked.

“To see the sights and shop, of course.” Sarah sounded quite cheerful despite her gloomy description of Saint House. “It’s been forever since I was last in London.”

The carriage jerked to a halt at that moment, and Sarah began gathering her needlework basket and shawls. Oliver, the younger of the two footmen Megs had brought with them, opened the door to the carriage. He wore a white wig as part of his livery, but it didn’t disguise his red eyebrows.

“Never thought we’d make it alive,” Oliver muttered as he set the steps. “Was a close one with them footpads, if’n you don’t mind me saying so, m’lady.”

“You and Johnny were very brave,” Megs said as she stepped down. She glanced up at her coachman. “And you, too, Tom.”

The coachman grunted and hunched his broad shoulders. “Ye an’ Miss St. John best be gettin’ inside, m’lady, where ’tis safe.”

“I will.” Megs
turned to the house and only then noticed the second carriage, already drawn up outside.

Sarah stepped down beside her. “It looks like your great-aunt Elvina arrived before us.”

“Yes, it does,” Megs said slowly. “But why is her carriage still outside?”

The door to the second carriage popped open as if in answer.

“Margaret!” Great-Aunt Elvina’s worried face was topped by a cloud of soft gray curls intertwined with pink ribbons. Her voice was overly loud, booming off the stone buildings. Great-Aunt Elvina was rather deaf. “Margaret, the wretched butler won’t let us in. We’ve been sitting in the courtyard for ages, and Her Grace has become quite restless.”

A muffled yelp from inside the carriage emphasized the statement.

Megs turned to her husband’s house. No light betrayed human habitation, but obviously
someone
was at home if a butler had earlier answered Great-Aunt Elvina’s summons. She marched up to the door and lifted the great iron ring that served as knocker, letting it fall with a sharp
bang
.

Then she stepped back and looked up. The building was a hodgepodge of historical styles. The first two floors were of ancient red brick—perhaps the original building. But then some later owner had added another three stories in a paler, beige brick. Chimneys and gables sprouted here and there over the roofline, romping without any seeming pattern. On either side, low, dark wings framed the end of the street, making a de facto courtyard.

“You did write to tell Godric you were coming,” Sarah murmured.

Megs bit
her lip. “Ah …”

A light appearing at a narrow window immediately to the right saved her from having to admit that she hadn’t notified her husband of their trip. The door opened with an ominous creaking.