“Oh, Megs,” he said. “You know I can’t deny you anything.” She arched her eyebrows pointedly, and he threw up his hands. “Fine. Yes. Yes, I should’ve told you, should’ve let you shoulder a bit of my burden.”
“Thank you,” she said, not without a hint of complacency. “I have one more question.”
He looked a little hunted but nodded his head bravely enough.
“Is the family still in financial straits?” she asked. “Are you in financial straits?”
“No,” he said immediately, with what sounded like relief. “I’m still in filthy business, of course, but it’s respectable enough now. I’ve got sheep grazing on the family lands and a workshop here in London spinning the wool.” He shrugged. “It’s small now, but we’re making a good profit and I’ll be expanding soon. Not”—he added wryly—“that I’d ever say that aloud in society.”
Having money was good, naturally. Actually making money was deeply frowned upon by society. Presumably a gentleman would rather starve than let his hands get dirty with commerce.
Megs was very grateful that Griffin had never cared particularly for society’s rules.
She threaded her arm through his elbow. “I’m glad to hear it. But, Griffin?”
“Hmm?” He was strolling with her back toward the sitting room where the baritone was still singing.
“Promise me that if ever you run into straits again—financial or otherwise—you’ll tell me.”
“Oh, all right, Megs,” he replied, rolling his eyes a bit.
She smiled to herself. He might balk, but it was important to her that Griffin was honest with her. A family should be honest. And they should share things—both good and bad.
She was reflecting on the subject and wondering how exactly she could push Godric in that direction with his own family when they entered the sitting room and she stopped short in surprise.
It seemed the Duke of Wakefield had a magnificent singing voice.
MEGS LAY IN her bed that night, surrounded by the cold darkness of her room, and tried not to anticipate Godric’s arrival.
Tried not to long for him.
She lectured herself on the reasons why she was doing this, but the arguments had become muddled in her own mind and all she could hear was the drag of her breaths in and out of her body. She focused on the dinner at Griffin and Hero’s house, the face of sweet William, the accord she’d found with Griffin, the astonishing sight of the rigid Duke of Wakefield singing like a stern archangel, but each image wavered and slipped through her mind’s grasp. She even tried remembering the taste of the syllabub at dinner, the smooth texture of cream, the tart wine, but the phantom sweet dissolved in her mouth, and all she could taste on her tongue was Godric’s mouth.
There in the darkness she might’ve moaned.
He came at last, moving like the ghost he was. She didn’t even know he’d entered her room until she felt the dip of her bed, the warmth radiating off his body.
She trembled before he ever touched her.
Then his hands were gliding over her shoulders, sweeping down her chemise-covered sides, sliding up the slopes of her breasts while his head and shoulders hovered over her like a hawk shielding its prey.
Her breath caught. There was something dangerous about him. Perhaps there always had been and he’d simply damped it the night before. This was only their second joining and she nearly panicked at the thought. There would be many nights more. Nights when she lay in the dark and waited for him. Nights when she desperately tried to order her mind. Nights when she tried not to feel.
As she was trying not to feel now—trying and failing.
His hands moved, swift and sure, cupping her breasts, and she had no trouble at all remembering their pale, elegant length. Imagining what they would look like against her flesh.
She bit her lip, and his thumbs coasted over her nipples, catching, for they were already erect and pointed. Goose pimples shivered across her skin at his touch. When he brushed across her nipples again and then pinched both at once, it was all she could do not to arch into those beautiful hands.
Roger. She had to think of Roger.
His head descended with alarming swiftness and suddenly his mouth, hot and wet, was on her nipple. He tongued her through the thin fabric of her chemise and all thought scattered. She arched beneath him, whimpering. His hands clamped around her rib cage, holding her still. His pendant slid coolly across her belly as he suckled her nipple hard. He let go and drew back, blowing on her oversensitive skin, covered only by the wet fabric, and she shivered under the sudden chill. Then he was ministering to her other breast, thoroughly, intently. His focus entirely on her and her body. She hadn’t time to recover, to regain control under his sexual siege.
She could only feel and yearn.
He lifted his head finally, when her breath was ragged and nearly broken, and began trailing his open mouth down her quivering belly. At first she had no idea of his intent—couldn’t even think—but as his hand bunched up her chemise and moved lower still, she had a terrible premonition.
“No.” It was the first word spoken between them since he’d entered her room, and it sounded overly harsh to her own ears.
Megs licked her lips, feeling her heart still beating too fast in her chest, the obscene dampness on both her nipples, and the still of the night.
He’d frozen at her word, but it wasn’t in fear or apprehension. His stance, hovering over her, his arms on either side of her hips, seemed dangerous somehow. As if his will were held back by only a tiny thread. As if he might ignore her plea and place his mouth against her anyway.
Against her cunny.
That’s where he had been moving. She was no virgin and she knew what his intent was: to disintegrate her composure. She wouldn’t be able to take it. She’d succumb to that beautiful mouth, that quiet expertise, and she’d forget everything.
The last vestiges of Roger would dissolve and blow away from her mind.
So she inhaled slowly and reached tentatively for his shoulders. His muscles were bunched, hard and unyielding, and she couldn’t move him if he did not wish it.
“Please,” she whispered.
For a moment more he didn’t move. Then he was shaking her hand off his shoulder, hauling up her chemise, settling between her thighs. She was already wet, but perhaps not quite enough. He rocked against her, his penis a hard prod, sliding in her moisture before catching and slowly beginning to invade.
She swallowed, arching her head back, trying to relax as he slid more and more of himself into her. Animals did this without thought. Why, then, couldn’t people? She knew some did. But not her it seemed.
She thought—felt—far too much.
She gripped his arms as he shoved resolutely against her, seating himself fully. She looked up, trying to see something of him in the darkness. An expression, perhaps how he held his head.
But he was simply a large male shape.
And yet … she knew it was him. Would’ve known it blindfolded. Whether by scent or some more primitive means—perhaps an alchemy of souls—she felt him bone-deep.
Godric. Poised above her.
Godric. Withdrawing his cock in one long, pulling slide.
Godric. Flexing his hips back into her with a final twist at the end.
He was overpowering her senses, laying claim to her soul.
She struggled internally, resisting, closing her eyes, dropping her hands from his arms, trying to shut away her senses.
But that was impossible. How could it not be? He was making love to her.
She tried her best, she really did, and in the end she had one small victory: As his thrusts grew harder and closer to his point, she held herself together. He shook against her, rubbing into her, making her feel, but she was stubborn and strong, and when finally he shuddered, the dark shape of his head arching back, it was by himself.
She had no time to congratulate herself.
He leaned down in the dark and she thought h
e meant to kiss her. She turned her head aside and it was in her ear he whispered huskily, so close she could feel the brush of his lips.
“Who are you making love to, my lady? For I know it’s not me.”
Chapter Twelve
Faith was hungry as she clung to the Hellequin’s broad back. She fished in a pocket of her dress and took out a small apple. The Hellequin’s nostril’s flared as she bit into the sweet-tart flesh.
Faith was abashed at her discourtesy. “Would you like some?”
“I have not eaten the food of men for a millennium,” the Hellequin rasped.
“Well, then,” said Faith, “it’s past time you did so.”
She bit off a piece of the apple, and taking it from her own mouth, held it to his. …
—From The Legend of the Hellequin
At his words Megs froze beneath him.
Rage was pumping through Godric’s veins, corrosive and hot, expanding, making him feel as if he’d explode from inside if he didn’t get out of here at once. He gingerly withdrew from her silky depths, moving carefully so as not to hurt her.
He’d never in his life worried that he might harm a woman in shear anger.
His movement shifted the covers, stirring the scent of semen and sex and her. He couldn’t think; his emotions were overwhelming him.
“I didn’t—” she started, foolish wench.
How dare she try to deny it?
“Quiet,” he bit out, sliding from the bed.
“Godric.”
“Will you leave it?” he hissed, turning on her in the dark. He had to leave before he said something—did something—he would regret.
But she was ever contrary. He felt her fingers wrap around his wrist, feminine and strong.
He stilled.
“Where are you going?” she whispered.
He could still smell her scent, and he realized to his horror that it was probably imprinted upon his skin. “Out.”
“Where?”
He sneered, though she couldn’t see it in the dark. “Where do you think? I go to St. Giles. To find your lover’s murderer. To do my work as the Ghost.”
“But …” Her voice lowered in the dark, a mere whisper. “But I don’t want you to go, Godric. I think you lose a bit of your soul every time you go out as the Ghost of St. Giles.”
“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 h
it 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.
Godric stretched his arms overhead and jumped, grasping one of the supporting rails of the balcony. He curled his legs up, his left shoulder aching as he felt the stitches pop from the wound. His legs were suddenly near the horse’s head and the animal was startled at his movement. The dragoon pulled hard on the reins, trying to control the beast, and the horse reared.
Godric swung and dropped in back of the horse, rolling away as he hit the hard cobblestones and rising with his long sword out and up.
But the first dragoon had wheeled his horse around by now, trapping Godric between the two mounted men. The only thing he could be glad of was that the dragoons seemed to be by themselves, a mounted patrol of two.
“Surrender!” the second dragoon shouted, his hand reaching for the pistol holstered in his saddle.