Megs giggled. Perhaps she had lost her mind.
She opened her eyes to see Godric sitting up beside her, watching her, his lips curved gently and his gray eyes almost warm.
“Godric,” she whispered, and held out her hand to him.
He took her hand, spreading her fingers and kissing each one.
She caught her breath, her eyes blurring. He touched her as if he cherished her. As if what they were doing here was more than a simple physical act. He was standing beside the bed now, stripping off his breeches and stockings and pulling his shirt over his head. She watched him and saw that his pendant was a small key around his neck on a silver chain. Then she was distracted by the sight of his bare chest, and here in the light from all the candles she could see the scars: a twisted white line along his rib cage, a raised welt on one shoulder and an indent on his left forearm as if a chunk of his flesh had been ripped away sometime in the past. And yet, despite the scars—maybe even because of them—she found him beautiful. His chest was wide, the curves of his upper arms and shoulders well delineated. He had a diamond of body hair centered between his dark nipples, and his belly was taut and lean. His waist tapered gracefully into his hips, and—
He lowered his smallclothes and she stared. He rose ruddy and proud, the round crown of his penis shining with liquid and his balls drawn up tight underneath. She’d never seen Roger completely nude. Never seen any other man completely nude. It was a glorious sight. She was glad, suddenly, that he was her husband. That she could be selfish in this one thing: no one else could ever see him like this. He was hers.
Even if it was only for a time.
Her eyes rose to his and she saw that he stood watching as she looked her fill at him.
She blushed. “Godric.”
And he smiled, tight, approving, and predatory in a wholly masculine way.
He placed a knee on the bed and leaned over her. “Now. Now I take you, just you and me, Megs.”
There was still a twinge of doubt in her, a fearful shiver that she was betraying Roger. But she’d hurt Godric, she knew that, and he’d never done more than offer her kindness.
So she smiled back tremulously. “Just you and me.”
He lowered himself over her, settling between her spread thighs, and she could feel the heavy, slick weight of his cock, sliding from her thigh to wedge in her cleft.
She inhaled. She’d just come, lovely and hard, and her flesh was sensitive to his heat, his weight, his intimate dominance of her. He framed her face with his hands and lowered his head toward her. The kiss was gentle, almost reverent, and tears sprang to her eyes. This wasn’t what she’d wanted, what she’d thought she’d needed. He was weaving a web of intimacy, strand by intangible strand that, knotted together, would become an unbreakable net, holding her tight until she no longer even considered escape.
Her thoughts scattered as he lifted his hips a fraction and his erection dragged through her valley.
Her breath hitched.
He was rubbing, their mingled dampness making the glide so slick, so sweet. She smiled at him in invitation and saw as he raised his head that his lips were curved as well.
“Now.”
He notched the tip of his penis in her and began to push. Inexorably, relentless in his strength. In his determination. He watched her, locking eyes as he breached her entrance, as he made a place for himself within her, as he joined their bodies together.
She was open beneath him, her body, her cunny, her mouth, her face, everything. Open, splayed wide, absolutely vulnerable.
Then he began to move.
Just a little, hardly retreating at all, as if he couldn’t bear to leave the welcoming warmth of her body. Hard little shoves that jolted her each time.
She arched her neck, her head tilted back against the pillows, her eyelids half lowered, but her gaze still locked with his. She widened her legs even more, receiving him like the offering, the promise this was.
And he seemed to know what she was doing. His expression didn’t change, but his breath caught, his eyelids lowering just a fraction as he hitched his elbows under her knees and drew her legs up even farther. He held the upper half of his body up off her now, putting pressure on that one point of contact between them as he ground and ground and ground against her.
It caught her by surprise when it came, no slow buildup, no warmth diffusing through her body. This was fast and hard, a fire sweeping through limbs already weakened by the previous orgasm. She was dimly aware of her hands scrabbling at his sides, his shoulders, as she tried to urge him to do something. She was going to expire, to die, if he didn’t pick up his pace, didn’t take his cock and ram it into her.
And whether because he could sense her extremity or because he was there himself, he did it. He let her legs fall and braced himself on his strong, straight arms and slammed his hips into her, making violent, urgent, blissful contact with her. The bed rocked, the headboard banging rhythmically against the wall, and any other time she would have been mortified, but right now … right now she was in paradise. White light obscured her vision as bliss flooded her being, seizing her, shaking her, giving her life.
She could fly like this, perhaps live eternally.
She came down from the heights with her limbs liquid, just in time to see Godric. His head was arched, his eyes closed, his chest shining with sweat, and his lips drawn back over his teeth as if he were in extremis. He was beautiful like this, a god made mortal in his physical delight, and she stared in awe. At the last minute, his eyes snapped open, staring at her, gray and fervent, and she gasped.
It was as if he let her see into his soul.
He dropped then, his head falling forward limply, his body collapsing down. He rolled to the side as if he feared crushing her, and she had a moment’s disappointment: she wanted to feel his weight.
She lay there, catching her breath, feeling her skin grow chill. She turned her head to look at him, her husband. He lay, his expression more relaxed than she’d ever seen it before, the lines smoothed from his face, one arm thrown over his head, those elegant fingers lax and curling. A single drop of perspiration trembled at his temple and she wanted to touch it, to rub it into his skin and feel the man beneath the armor he wore. She reached out a hand, but he was moving now, rolling from the bed, getting up without a word.
She stared, drawing the coverlet over herself. “What are you doing?”
He didn’t look at her. “I need to go.”
“Where?” she whispered, feeling lost, abandoned.
“St. Giles.”
Chapter Fourteen
Grief leaned forward with an oily smile and touched Faith’s sleeve. “Do you see the souls drifting here and there in the wind? They are what remains of babes, dead before they were born. They’ll stay here, wailing for their mothers’ teats, until the earth falls into the sun.” Faith shivered. “How awful! ’Tis not their fault that they died thus.”
Grief grinned, his impish tail whipping back and forth. “Aye, but there is no justice in Hell. For them or for your beloved.”
Faith frowned and pushed Grief from the horse. …
—From The Legend of the Hellequin
“Over there,” Alf said later that night. He whispered so close to Godric’s ear that he could feel the boy’s panting breaths. Alf was scared, though he hid it well. “In that cellar across the way. Do y’see?”
“Aye.”
This was the second—and biggest—workshop of the night. He’d already freed six girls from a shed in the back of a foul courtyard—a relatively easy operation, as there had been only two guards, one of them drunk.
Now both Godric and Alf lay prone on a roof catty-corner from the cellar he’d indicated. “Is there another way in?”
Alf shook his head decisively. “Not that I ever saw.”
Godric grunted, analyzing. The lassie snatchers had chosen a good spot for the workshop. The cellar door lay within a narrow well—any attackers would be exposed from beh
ind and perforce would have to enter single file.
Of course, he’d always planned to enter by himself, so the point was moot.
Winter had argued in favor of bringing in more men for this second workshop when Godric had delivered the first six shivering girls to him. Godric was loath to trust anyone else, though, both with possible exposure of his identity and with the attack itself. He was used to working alone. This way he didn’t have to rely on another’s skill and dependability.
No one could fail him if he only had himself.
“There’s two guards.” Alf’s whisper was barely audible even this close.
Godric glanced at him, and for a moment his eyes were caught by the delicacy of his profile. Something twinged at the back of his mind—something that bothered him about the boy.
Alf jerked his chin forward, distracting him. “See? One by the door, one at the entrance o’ the alley.”
“And another one on the roof,” Godric replied.
Alf started, his gaze swinging in that direction. “Sharp eyes,” he said grudgingly. “What’ll you do? There’s only one o’ you.”
“Let me worry about that,” Godric whispered, rising to his haunches. “You stay here and don’t get involved. I don’t want to have to worry about you as well as them.”
Mutiny flashed in Alf’s eyes and Godric respected the scamp more for it.
Then the boy looked at the three toughs guarding the workshop and nodded. “Luck, then.”
Godric smiled at him. “Thank you.”
He was off, running silently across the roof in a crouch. He leaped away from the building housing the cellar, moving in a wide circle as he jumped from rooftop to rooftop. He was careful about it, taking a good fifteen minutes to work his way around until he was in back of the guard on the roof over the cellar. Then it was a simple matter of stealth and quiet. Killing the guard wasn’t hard: a firm, quick grasp on the guard’s hair, a vicious tug to bare his neck, and a lightning-strike cut across his throat. The difficulty came in making sure the guard made no sound before he died.
But he didn’t. Godric had more than enough experience to make sure it was so.
The man at the end of the alley was next; the fact that he stood in the open made it a bit more complicated. When the man turned at the last moment as Godric rushed him, Godric was forced to jab him hard in the throat before he could kill him. The man fell, wheezing quietly—the vulnerable hollow of his neck was crushed; he’d suffocate before too long.
Godric’s dagger thrust was quick and merciful.
He couldn’t waste a second after that. It was only a matter of time before the third guard noticed that his compatriot no longer stood at the end of the alley and gave the alarm. Godric scaled the building again, his chest heaving silently, his arms and shoulders burning as he hauled himself up. He ran over the rooftop, pausing only to see where the guard stood below, and leaped into space.
He landed square atop the guard and the man fell, smashing his head against the cobblestones. He didn’t move again.
But as Godric landed on the guard, he tumbled to the side, instinctively bracing himself on his left hand. Pain, white hot and blinding, flashed through his wrist. For a moment, nausea boiled in his throat and he feared he’d lose his stomach.
He stood, staggering a little.
Godric ran down the cellar stairs and kicked in the door.
The interior was black. A figure came rushing at him, but Godric was ready for the attack. He used his left shoulder to deflect the man’s body and then thrust his sword into his belly. The interior guard slumped, his eyes wide as he looked down at his bloody stomach. Godric withdrew his sword with a heave that made him swallow convulsively and looked around.
A second man dropped his pistol and backed, hands raised. “Mercy! Don’t kill me!”
“Bob,” the bleeding man moaned. “Bob.”
“Where are they?” Godric rasped. Sweat drenched his brow and he had to grit his teeth to stay upright. “The girls.”
“In back,” Bob said.
“I’m hurt bad,” the bleeding man said.
“You’re dead is what you are,” Bob replied flatly.
He couldn’t tie the man with only one working hand. Godric hit him in the temple with the hilt of his sword. Bob fell without a sound next to his dying fellow guard. Blackness threatened Godric’s vision and he shook his head hard, stepping over the guards. The room was small with a second door at the far wall. Godric took a breath, aware that saliva was flooding his mouth, and kicked it in as well, his sword raised in preparation for a fight.
But there wasn’t one. Only the eyes of children—girls—stared back at him from the cramped little room. And Godric finally realized what bothered him about Alf, about the delicacy of the boy’s features.
Alf was a girl.
Godric celebrated the realization by vomiting.
MEGS WAS AWOKEN from a deep sleep by someone shaking her shoulder.
“M’lady. M’lady, please wake up!”
“Moulder?” She blinked groggily at the butler’s form in the light from the candle he held. He stood by the bed, half turned away, his eyes averted from her, despite the fact that every line of his body screamed urgency.
Oh. She was nude. Megs tucked the covers around herself as she sat up. “What is it? Where is Godric?”
“He’s …” The butler looked honestly distressed, nearly panicked. “I don’t know. He’s hurt. Mr. Makepeace sent word from the home. They need you to go there an’ fetch him home.”
“Turn your back.” Megs was already scrambling from the bed, searching for her chemise, thinking about what she could put on by herself. “Have you called the carriage?”
“Yes, m’lady.” Moulder had turned his back as requested, but she could tell he was shifting from one foot to the other. “Shall I call a doctor? He doesn’t like doctors, says they talk too much, but if he’s truly hurt, it may be beyond my abilities.”
Megs didn’t even have to think. “Yes, please, send for a physician.”
She was searching on hands and knees now, looking for the slippers she’d worn earlier. Her eyes were blurring with stupid tears and something awful was beating at her chest, trying to get in. The slippers had fallen under Godric’s bed. She was still in his room and needed to go to her own to find a wrap. Which made her think of something else.
“Make sure to put his cloak and a change of clothing in the carriage. And I’ll need at least two footmen to accompany me.”
“Yes, m’lady.”
“What is it?”
Megs looked up and met Mrs. St. John’s wide eyes. Moulder slipped from the room without the older woman even glancing at him.
Her mother-in-law stood in the doorway, her graying hair loose about her shoulders, a purple silk wrapper clutched at her throat. “Megs? Where’s Godric?”
“He’s …” Her mind went entirely blank. She couldn’t think of a lie, something to put the older woman at ease and make her go back to bed.
Suddenly it was too much. Her eyes overflowed, the tears coursing down her cheeks.
“Megs?” Mrs. St. John stepped forward, pulling Megs close and framing her face with her palms. “What has happened? You must tell me.”
“Godric is in St. Giles. I’ve been sent word to go to him. He’s hurt.”
For a moment her mother-in-law simply looked at her, and Megs saw each and every line that had folded itself into the older woman’s face. All the sorrows she’d borne. All the disappointments.
Then Mrs. St. John nodded decisively and turned quickly to the door. “I’ll just be three minutes. Nothing more. Wait for me.”
Megs blinked, bewildered. “What are you doing?”
Mrs. St. John glanced over her shoulder, her face firm and strong. “I’m his mother. I’m coming with you.”
And she was gone.
Megs blinked, but she was far too worried to contend with trying to talk Mrs. St. John out of going to St. Giles. If Godric found fa
ult with his stepmother discovering the truth about his secret life, then Megs would deal with the problem later.
Pray she had a problem to deal with later. Pray he wasn’t dying at this very moment.
Megs dashed at the tears on her cheeks and scuffed on her slippers. She hadn’t time for this. Every particle of her body was urging her forward, spurring her to go to Godric’s side. She wasn’t sure she could wait for Mrs. St. John.
But when she made the hallway below, her mother-in-law stood by the door, already waiting. The older woman was pale, her face sagging as if she braced herself for some terrible news, but she straightened and nodded as Megs came down the stairs.
There didn’t seem to be anything to say. They stepped into the chill dark, walking briskly to the carriage. It was so early there was no light in the sky, not even the hint of dawn’s welcome succor from the blackness of night.
She was glad to see both Oliver and Johnny standing on the running board behind the carriage, and then Megs climbed in with Mrs. St. John and the fear crowded close. What would she do if he were unconscious? If he’d sustained permanent injury?
She recognized then the awful thing trying to burrow itself into her chest: the same hopeless regret she’d felt on the night of Roger’s death. Her breast tightened and blackness swam before her eyes. She couldn’t do this again. Couldn’t lose another so close to her. He wasn’t Roger, she tried to tell herself. He wasn’t her true love. But her heart didn’t seem able to tell the difference. The panic was real—maroon edged with mud-green—twisting, twisting inside of her, making her feel nauseous.
I can’t. I can’t.
“You will survive.” Mrs. St. John’s voice was sharper than Megs had ever heard it.
The black receded enough to let Megs see her mother-in-law’s face. Mrs. St. John was stern, the comfortable softness taking on a strength she’d never guessed was in the older woman. And she remembered: Mrs. St. John had lost a beloved husband. Had known sorrow and still lived.