Lord of Darkness (27 page)

Mrs. St. John looked helplessly at Megs, her eyes shining with tears.

“I’ll talk
to him,” Megs said with all the reassurance she could muster before hurrying after Godric.

If it weren’t for her mother-in-law and those tears, she would never have dared beard him again this soon after the disaster of last night. She’d hurt him badly, and he’d already made it clear he didn’t want her nearby.

Well, he’d just have to put up with her anyway.

She opened the door to his study without bothering to knock.

Inside, Godric was pouring himself a glass of brandy and talking to Moulder. “The usual place. Make sure you’re not followed.”

“Yes, sir.” Moulder looked relieved to scurry from the room.

Megs closed the door behind him and cleared her throat.

“Go away,” Godric growled at her, tossing back half his glass of liquid.

Megs winced. He truly was a bear bearded in his den.

She took a deep breath. “No. I’m your wife.”

He cocked his head, his beautiful lips curled. “Are you?”

Her face flamed. “Yes.”

Godric looked away then, as if losing interest in her. He shrugged off his cloak and coat, moving stiffly.

Megs blinked. Beneath the cloak Godric was wearing a sedate brown suit, not a trace of harlequin motley anywhere. He pressed his fingers against a panel next to the fireplace. The panel sprang open, revealing a hidden cupboard behind it. She watched as he took his short sword from an inner pocket in his cloak and stowed it in the secret cupboard.

She ventured a little farther into the room. “Did Captain Trevillion follow you?”

“Yes.” He hissed
under his breath as he gingerly pulled his shirt over his head and she inhaled. His wound had reopened, a sluggish trail of blood dripping down his broad back. “From St. Giles. He’s very good, actually. Several times I wasn’t sure he was even there behind me.”

She picked up his shirt and started to tear a strip from the tail—it was ruined by the blood anyway. “I’m so glad you didn’t wear your Ghost costume last night.”

“But I did.”

Her hands froze on his shirt, staring at his crystal gray eyes. “What do you mean?”

He shrugged and then winced. “I knew he was following me and would no doubt take the opportunity to confront me if I led him home. Fortunately I made provisions for just such an eventuality years ago. I left a set of clothes in the care of an old widow. It was only a moment to duck into her crowded tenement and exchange the Ghost’s costume for my hidden clothes. Actually,” he said thoughtfully as he stared into his glass, “it’s rather a miracle Trevillion didn’t lose my trail in the tenement. But then again, I did say he was good.”

“I’m so glad you admire him.” Megs tore a strip from his shirt with a rather violent motion. She wadded the linen and dipped it unceremoniously into his brandy glass.

“That’s good French brandy,” Godric said mildly.

“And your back is good English flesh,” she retorted rather nonsensically before pressing the wet cloth against the cut.

He grunted.

“Oh, Godric.” She dabbed with tender care at his hot skin, her fingers trembling. “What happened last night?”

He shot a look over his shoulder at her, his eyes glittering, and for
a moment she thought he’d say something they’d both regret. “I questioned the owner of a tavern on your behalf.”

“And?”

His jaw tightened. “I learned very little, I’m afraid. The footman who reported Fraser-Burnsby’s death is thought to be dead himself.”

Her hand stilled on him. “Killed?”

He shook his head. “Perhaps. I simply don’t know. But it’s certainly suspicious that the only witness disappeared and then presumably met his death soon after Fraser-Burnsby was murdered.”

His wound had ceased bleeding and the blood was cleaned from his back. Still she pressed the cloth carefully to his skin, loath, somehow, to stop touching him. “Where do we go from here?”

“The footman must have family or friends.” Godric frowned. “If nothing else, I can ask d’Arque again about Fraser-Burnsby.”

“But I can do that—”

“No.” He stepped away from her.

She blinked at the fierce growl, her hand still raised foolishly in the air.

He grimaced and looked away from her, grabbing a banyan that had been lying over the back of a chair. “If the footman was deliberately killed, Megs, then there is at least one man out there willing to murder to hide his crime. I don’t want you poking at this.”

“Godric—”

“We made a pact.” Godric pulled on the banyan, buttoning it up. “I upheld my part.”

She held his gaze a moment longer before throwing the bloody bit
of linen down. They’d have to burn it later so the servants wouldn’t see. “Very well.”

His shoulders visibly relaxed.

She pressed her useless hands together. “You said earlier that you had your own Ghostly business to attend to in St. Giles. Can I ask what it was?”

His eyes narrowed and for a moment she thought he wouldn’t answer her. “I was on the trail of a group who steal little girls and work them near to death making silk stockings, of all things. They’re called the lassie snatchers.”

Megs’s mouth sagged with horror. She thought of the girls at the home, the little maids they’d so recently hired. The idea of someone abusing children just like them made her stomach roll.

“Oh,” she said weakly.

He nodded curtly. “Now if your curiosity is assuaged …?”

It was a dismissal, but her curiosity
wasn’t
satisfied. “What about your back? You’ve pulled the stitches out.”

“Don’t fuss. I’ll have Moulder bandage it later,” Godric said curtly. “It’ll just pull out again when—” He glanced at her and closed his lips.

She felt an awful premonition. “When what, Godric?”

The corner of his beautiful mouth curled down. “When I return to St. Giles tonight.”

Artemis Greaves slipped through the crowded London street, her pace fast and determined that morning. She had only a couple of hours to herself before Penelope would wake and want her company to chat and analyze every detail of the previous evening’s ball. Artemis sighed—albeit fondly. If she’d thought Penelope featherheaded before, it was nothing to what her cousin was like when she was determined to marry a duke. There were angled invitations, plotted chance meetings, and the near-constant jealousy over Miss Royle, who, Artemis suspected, didn’t even know she was engaged in a fierce rivalry with Penelope.

All of it
would be a quiet source of amusement were it not for the object of Penelope’s obsession: His Grace, the Duke of Wakefield. Artemis didn’t like the man, doubted very much that he would, in the end, make her cousin happy. And if they ever did marry …

She stopped and was nearly run down by a porter carrying two geese on his back.

“Watch out, luv,” the man flung over his shoulder, not unkindly, as he stepped around her.

Artemis swallowed and started forward again, moving easily in the stream of shuffling, stomping, running, strolling, limping, and tripping people. London’s streets were like a great river of people, constantly flowing and ebbing, joining into greater rushing courses, parting into side streams, getting caught in whirlpools of milling humanity.

One swam or ran the risk of drowning.

If Penelope married the Duke of Wakefield, in the best case Artemis would join her in her new home, a constant, pale wraith, as His Grace had put it. Continuing to be Penelope’s handmaiden, eventually perhaps, the kind aunt to their children. In the worst case, Penelope would decide that she no longer needed a companion.

Artemis inhaled shakily. But those worries were for the future. She had more immediate problems to deal with.

Twenty minutes later, she at last neared her destination: a small jeweler’s shop in a not very fashionable area of London. It had taken Artemis months of carefully worded questions among the ladies of her acquaintance to get the address of a suitable shop. Her queries could’ve caused comment and started gossip if she’d taken a more direct route.

Artemis
glanced around cautiously and then pushed open the door to the little shop. The interior was very dim and almost bare. An elderly man sat behind a high counter with a few rings, bracelets, and necklaces displayed. She was the only patron in the shop.

The shopkeeper looked up at her entrance. He was a small, stooped man with an overlarge nose and leathery, wrinkled skin. He wore a worn gray wig and red waistcoat and coat. His gaze seemed to appraise her clothing: not rich. Artemis stopped the urge to lower her head.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Good morning,” she replied, taking her courage in her hands. She
needed
to do this—there was no other way. “I am told that you sometimes buy items of jewelry.”

He blinked and said cautiously, “Yes?”

She approached his counter and withdrew a small silk bag from her pocket. The strings were knotted and it took her a minute to untangle them, tears pricking at her eyes. It was her most treasured possession.

But need outweighed sentimentality.

The strings finally gave up their struggle and she pulled open the little bag, sliding out the treasure within. Green and gold sparkled, even within the dimness of the shop, belying the necklace’s true worth: she knew the stone was really paste, the gold merely painted gilt.

Still, she gazed with as much awe upon the little pendant as she had when it had first lain in her hands, nearly thirteen years ago on her fifteenth birthday. His dear eyes had gleamed with eager anticipation as he’d given the silk bag to her, and she’d never asked how he’d come by the necklace, almost afraid to.

She watched now as the jeweler fixed spectacles over
his eyes, pulled a lamp closer, and bent forward, a magnifying glass in his hand. The delicate gilt filigree around the green stone glittered in the light. The pendant was in the shape of a teardrop, the chain it hung from much cheaper and duller.

The jeweler stiffened and bent closer, then abruptly looked at her. “Where did you get this?” His tone was stern.

She smiled uncertainly. “It was a gift.”

The elderly man’s eyes, sharp and clear, lingered on her admittedly pedestrian clothes. “I doubt that.”

She blinked at his rudeness. “I beg your pardon?”

“Young lady,” the jeweler said, sitting back and gesturing to the necklace still lying on the counter. “This is a flawless emerald set in what I suspect is nearly pure gold. Either you are selling this for your mistress or you stole it.”

Artemis acted without thought. She snatched up the necklace and, clutching her skirts, ran from the little shop, ignoring the shopkeeper’s shouts. Her heart was beating like a deer in flight as she darted down the street, dodging carts and chairmen, expecting any moment to hear shouts of pursuit from behind her. She didn’t stop running until the breath caught in her throat and she was forced to walk.

She hadn’t left her name with the jeweler. He didn’t know who she was and thus couldn’t send a thief catcher after her. She shuddered at the thought, and then surreptitiously glanced at the emerald still in her hand.

It winked slyly at her, a fortune she’d never wanted, a treasure she couldn’t sell precisely
because
it was much too dear. Artemis laughed bitterly. The necklace had been a gift, but she had no proof.

Dear Lord,
where
had Apollo gotten the necklace?

*   *   *

D
USK WAS FALLING
when
Megs went into the garden for a walk after an early supper. Higgins had cleared the paths and laid down fine gravel, weeded the beds and neatly edged them. A few faltering daffodils trailed bravely near the house, planted and then forgotten by some ancestor of Godric’s.

Megs paced and thought. Gardens were such peaceful spots, even half-naked ones such as this. But soon she and Higgins would be able to add roses and irises, peonies and Michaelmas daisies.

If Godric let her stay that long.

She frowned. He’d shut himself in his room since his early morning appearance, ignoring both luncheon and the dinner summons, although she’d noticed that trays of food had been brought up to him. At least he wasn’t starving in there.

She paused by the old fruit tree and laid her hand on the rough bark, somehow soothed by its presence. The light was nearly gone, but she peered closer at the low branches, her heart beginning to speed. There were buds on the twigs that lined the branches, she could swear. Maybe—