Well. He had been living alone and lonely for years now.
But the small delight of a letter was a far cry from the lady herself invading his domain.
“Never seen the like, I haven’t,” Moulder muttered as he entered the library, shutting the door behind him. “Might as well’ve been a traveling fair, the bunch o’ them.”
“What are you talking about?” Godric asked as he stood and doffed the banyan.
Underneath he still wore the Ghost’s motley. It’d been a near thing. Both carriages had been drawn up outside his house when he’d slunk in the back. Godric had heard Moulder trying to hold off the occupants even as he’d run up the hidden back stairs that led from his study to the library. Saint House was so old it had a myriad of secret passages and hidey-holes—a boon to his Ghostly activities. He’d reached the library, pulled off his boots, thrown his swords, cape, and mask behind one of the bookshelves, and had just tugged the soft turban onto his head and wound the banyan about his waist when he’d heard the doorknob turn.
It’d been close—too damn close.
“M’lady and all she brought with her.” Moulder waved both hands as if to encompass a multitude.
Godric arched an eyebrow. “Ladies do usually travel with maids and such.”
“’Tisn’t just such,” Moulder muttered as he helped Godric from the Ghost’s tunic. In addition to his other vague duties, Moulder served as valet when needed. “There’s a gardener and bootblack boy and a snorty sort o’ dog that belongs to Lady Margaret’s great-aunt, and she’s here too.”
Godric squinted, trying to work through that sentence. “The dog or the aunt?”
“Both.” Moulder shook out the Ghost’s tunic, eyeing it for tears and stains. A sly expression crossed his face just before he glanced up innocently at Godric. “’Tis a pity, though.”
“What?” Godric asked as he stripped the Ghost’s leggings off and donned his nightshirt.
“Won’t be able to go out gallivanting at all hours o’ the night now, will you?” Moulder said as he folded the tunic and leggings. He shook his head sorrowfully. “Right shame, but there ’tis. Your days as the Ghost are over, I’m feared, now that your missus has arrived to live with you.”
“I suppose you’d be right”—he took off the silly turban and ran a hand over his tightly cropped hair—“if Lady Margaret were actually going to live with me permanently.”
Moulder looked doubtful. “She sure brought enough people and luggage to take up residence.”
“No matter. I don’t intend to give up being the Ghost of St. Giles. Which means”—Godric strode to the door—“my wife and all her accouterments will be gone by next week at the outside.”
And when she was gone, Godric promised himself, he could go back to his business of saving the poor of St. Giles and forget that Lady Margaret had ever disrupted his lonely life.
Chapter Two
Now mind me well: the Hellequin is the Devil’s right-hand man. He roams the world, mounted on a great black horse, in search of the wicked dead and those who die unshriven. And when the Hellequin finds them, he drags their souls to hell. His companions are tiny imps, naked, scarlet, and ugly. Their names are Despair, Grief, and Loss. The Hellequin himself is as black as night and his heart—what is left of it—is nothing but a lump of hard coal. …
—From The Legend of the Hellequin
Godric woke the next morning to the sounds of feminine voices in the room next to his. He lay in bed, blinking for a moment, thinking how foreign it was to hear activity from that direction.
He slept in the ancient master’s bedroom, of course, and the mistress of the house had the connecting room. But Clara had occupied the rooms for only the first year or two of their marriage. After that, the disease that had eventually eaten away at her body had begun to grow. The doctors had recommended complete quiet, so Clara had been moved to the old nursery a floor above. There she had suffered for nine long years before she’d died.
Godric shook his head and climbed from his bed, his bare feet hitting the cold floor. Such maudlin thoughts wouldn’t bring Clara back. If they could, she would’ve sprung alive, dancing and free from her terrible pain, thousands of times in the years since her death.
He dressed swiftly, in a simple brown suit and gray wig, and left his room while the female voices were still chattering indistinctly next door. The realization that Lady Margaret had slept so close to him sent a frisson along his nerves. It wasn’t that he ran from such signs of life, but it was only natural to be unused to the presence of others—female others—in his gloomy old house.
Godric descended the stairs to the lower level. Normally he broke his fast at a coffeehouse, both to hear the latest news and because the meals at his own home were somewhat erratic. Today, however, he squared his shoulders and ventured into the little-used dining room at the back of the house.
Only to find it occupied.
“Sarah.”
For a disconcerting second, he hadn’t recognized her, this self-possessed lady, dressed in a sedate dove-gray costume. How many years had it been since he’d last seen her?
She turned at her name, and her calm face lit with a smile of welcome. His chest warmed and it caught him off guard. They’d never been close—he was a full dozen years older than she—and he’d not even known that he’d missed her.
Apparently he had.
“Godric!”
She rose, moving around the long, battered table where she’d been seated alone. She hugged him, swift and hard, her touch a shock to his frame. He’d been in solitude so very long.
She moved back before he could remember to respond and eyed him with disconcertingly perceptive brown eyes. “How are you?”
“Fine.” He shrugged and turned away. After nearly three years, he was used to the concerned looks, the gentle inquiries, especially from women. Sadly, though, he hadn’t become any more comfortable with them. “Have you already eaten?”
“As of yet, I haven’t seen anything to eat,” she observed drily. “Your man, Moulder, promised me breakfast and then disappeared. That was nearly half an hour ago.”
“Ah.” He wished he could feign surprise, but the fact was he wasn’t even sure there was anything edible in the house. “Er … perhaps we should decamp to an inn or—”
Moulder burst through the door, carrying a heavy tray. “Here we are, then.”
He thumped the tray down in the center of the table and stepped back in pride.
Godric examined the tray. A teapot stood in the center with one cup. Beside it were a half-dozen or so burned pieces of toast, a pot of butter, and five eggs on a plate. Hopefully they’d been boiled.
Godric arched an eyebrow at his manservant. “Cook is … er … indisposed, I perceive.”
Moulder snorted. “Cook is gone. And so is that nice wheel o’ cheese, the silver saltcellar, and half the plate. Didn’t seem too happy when he heard last night that we had so many guests.”
“Just as well, I’m afraid, considering the unfortunate way he handled a joint.”
“He was overfamiliar with your wine stock, too, if you don’t mind me saying so, sir,” Moulder said. “I’ll go see if we have any more teacups, shall I?”
“Thank you, Moulder.” Godric waited until the butler left the room before turning to his sister. “I apologize for the paucity of my table.”
He held out a chair for her.
“Please don’t worry,” Sarah said as she sat. “We did descend on you without any notice.”
She reached for the teapot.
“Mmm,” Godric murmured as he lowered himself to a chair across from her. “I wondered about that.”
“I was under the impression that Megs had written to you.” His sister lifted an eyebrow at him.
He merely shook his head as he took a piece of toast.
“I wonder why she didn’t tell you of our arrival?” she asked softly as she buttered her own toast. “We’d planned the trip for weeks. Do you think
she was fearful that you’d turn her away?”
He nearly choked on his toast. “I wouldn’t do that. Whatever gave you the notion?”
She shrugged elegant shoulders. “You’ve been separated since your marriage. You hardly write her or me. Or, for that matter, Mama, Charlotte, or Jane.”
Godric’s lips firmed. He was on cordial terms with his stepmother and younger half sisters, but they’d never been especially close. “Ours wasn’t a love match.”
“Obviously.” Sarah took a cautious nibble of her toast. “Mama worries for you, you know. As do I.”
He poured her tea without answering. What could he say? Oh, I’m all right. Lost the love of my life, don’t you know, but the pain’s quite bearable, considering. To pretend that he was whole, that rising every day wasn’t a chore, became exhausting. Why did they ask, anyway? Couldn’t they see that he was so broken nothing would fix him?
“Godric?” Her voice was gentle.
He made the corners of his mouth twitch upward as he pushed the cup of tea across the table to her. “How are my stepmother and sisters?”
She pursed her lips as if she wanted to prod him more, but in the end she took a sip of tea instead. “Mama is well. She’s in the midst of preparations for Jane’s coming-out. They plan to stay with Mama’s bosom-bow, Lady Hartford, for the season in the fall.”
“Ah.” Godric felt a twinge of relief that his stepmother didn’t want to stay at Saint House. Guilt followed immediately thereafter: he should’ve been aware that his youngest half sister was old enough to make her debut into society. Gads! He remembered Jane as a freckle-faced schoolgirl running about with a hoop and stick. “And how is Charlotte?”
Sarah cast her eyes heavenward. “Fascinating all the young men of Upper Hornsfield.”
“Are there many eligible young men in Upper Hornsfield?”
“Not as many as in Lower Hornsfield, of course, but between the new curate and the local squire’s sons, she has a fair coterie of young men. I’m not sure she even knows that wherever she goes, she’s followed by longing male eyes.”
The thought of little Charlotte—whom he’d last seen arguing with Jane rather heatedly over a piece of fig tart—becoming a rural femme fatale made Godric smile.
The door to the dining room opened at that moment and he looked up.
Straight into the eyes of his wife, poised in the doorway like Boudicca about to storm some poor, unsuspecting Roman general’s camp.
MEGS HALTED ON the threshold to the dining room, taking a deep breath. Godric looked different somehow than the man she remembered from just last night. Perhaps it was simply the daylight. Or it might be the fact that he was properly dressed in a well-cut but somewhat worn acorn-brown suit.
Or maybe it was the tiny smile still lingering on his face. It smoothed the lines of care and grief on his forehead and about his gray eyes, and drew attention to a mouth that was wide and full, bracketed by two deep indents. For a moment her gaze lingered on that mouth, wondering what it might feel like on her own. …
“Good morning.” He rose politely.
She blinked, hastily looking up. She’d decided last night—quite logically!—to wait until the morning to begin her planned seduction. Who would expect to jump straight into bed with one’s stranger-husband after a two-year absence, after all? But now it was morning, so …
Right. Seducing the husband.
Her silence had caused his smile to fade entirely, and his eyes were narrowed as he waited for her response. He looked altogether formidable.
Baby.
Megs squared her shoulders. “Good morning!”
Her smile might’ve been a trifle too wide as she strove to cover her lapse.
Sarah, who’d turned at her entrance, arched an eyebrow.
Godric rounded the table and pulled out a chair for her next to Sarah. “I hope you slept well?”
The room had been damp, dusty, and smelled of mildew. “Yes, very well.”
He glanced at her dubiously.
She walked toward him—and then around the table to the chair next to his vacant one.
“I’d like to sit here, if you don’t mind,” she said throatily, lowering her eyelashes in what she hoped was a seductive manner. “Close to you.”
He cocked his head to the side, his expression inscrutable. “Do you have a cold?”
Sarah choked on her tea.
Drat! It’d been so long since she’d done anything like flirting. Megs shot an irritated glance at her sister-in-law, repressing the urge to stick out her tongue.
“As you wish.” Godric was suddenly beside her, and she nearly started at his rasping voice in her ear. Good Lord, the man could move quietly.
“Thank you.” She sank into the chair, aware of his presence behind her, looming large and intimidating, and then he returned to his own seat.
Megs bit her lip, glancing at him from the corner of her eye. Should she rub against his leg under the table? But his profile was so very … grave. It seemed a bit like goosing the Archbishop of Canterbury.
And then she caught sight of breakfast and her dismal seduction attempt abruptly fled her mind.
Megs squinted at the plate in the middle of the table. It held a few burned fragments of toast and some hard-boiled eggs. She scanned the room but saw no other signs of nourishment.
“Would you care for some toast?” Sarah murmured across from her.
“Oh, thank you.” Megs widened her eyes in question at her.
“It appears the cook did a runner, as Oliver would say.” Sarah shrugged infinitesimally as she pushed the plate over. “I believe that Moulder is searching for another teacup for the tea right now, but in the meantime, do feel free to have a sip of mine.”
“Er …” Megs was saved from having to reply by the dining room door being flung open.
“My dears!” Great-Aunt Elvina swept into the room. “You’ll not credit the ghastly room I slept in last night. Her Grace was quite overcome by the dust and spent the night wheezing horribly.”
Godric had risen at Great-Aunt Elvina’s entrance and now he cleared his throat. “Her Grace?”
A small but very rotund fawn pug waddled into the room, glanced perfunctorily at Great-Aunt Elvina, and plopped down onto the rug, rolling immediately to her side. She lay there, panting pathetically, her distended belly rising and falling.
Her Grace’s flair for the dramatic was almost as well honed as her mistress’s.
“This is Her Grace,” Megs hurried to explain to her husband, adding perhaps unnecessarily, “She’s in an interesting way.”
“Indeed,” Godric murmured. “Is the … er … Her Grace quite well? She looks rather worried.”
“Pugs always look worried,” Great-Aunt Elvina pronounced loudly. Her ability to hear came and went with disconcerting irregularity. “She could do with a dish of warm milk with perhaps a spoonful of sherry in it.”
Godric blinked. “Ah … I do apologize, but I don’t believe we have any milk on the premises. As for the sherry …”
“None o’ that neither,” Moulder said with dour satisfaction as he entered the room behind Great-Aunt Elvina. In his arms he carried an array of mismatched teacups.
“Quite,” Godric murmured. “Perhaps if I’d been informed in advance of your arrival …”
“Oh, no need to apologize,” Megs said quickly.
He turned and narrowed his eyes at her. This close she could see the small lines fanning from the corners of his eyes in an altogether alluring way, which made no sense because why would crow’s-feet be alluring?
Megs shook herself mentally and continued. “After all, your house hasn’t had a feminine hand managing it in quite some time. I expect once we employ a new cook and some scullery maids—”
“And a housekeeper and upstairs maids,” Sarah put in.
“Not to mention some footmen,” Great-Aunt Elvina muttered. “Big, strong ones.”
“Well, we did bring Oliver and Johnny and your two fo
otmen,” Megs pointed out.
“They can’t be expected to do all the heavy lifting required to clean this place,” Great-Aunt Elvina said with a frown. “Have you seen the upper floors?”
“Er …” Megs hadn’t in fact explored the upper floors, but if the condition of the rooms they’d slept in last night were any indication … “Best we hire at least half a dozen strapping lads.”
“I doubt I’ll need a veritable army to run Saint House,” her husband said in a dry tone, “especially after you all leave, which will, I’m sure, be soon.”
“What?” barked Great-Aunt Elvina, cupping her hand behind her ear.
Megs held up a finger to interrupt because a thought had occurred to her. She addressed Moulder. “Surely you have some help running the house?”
“There was a couple o’ strong lads and some maids, but they left awhile back, one by one, like, and we just never hired others.” Moulder cast his eyes up as if to address the spiders lurking in the cobwebs dangling from the ceiling. “Did have a girl name o’ Tilly, m’lady, but she got in the family way ’bout a month back—not my fault.”
All eyes swung toward Godric.
He raised his brows in what looked like mild exasperation. “Nor mine.”
Thank goodness. Megs returned her gaze to Moulder, very aware of her husband glowering at her shoulder.
The butler shrugged. “Tilly up and left not long after. Think she was chasin’ the butcher’s apprentice. Maybe he was the father. Or it might’ve been the tinker what used to come ’round the kitchen door.”
For a moment there was silence as they all contemplated the mystery of Tilly’s baby’s paternity.