Lord of Darkness (Maiden Lane #5)(33)

Oliver started to climb down from the footboard of the carriage, but Megs waved him back. “Stay here.”

“Best ye take him, m’lady,” Tom rumbled worriedly from the high driver’s seat.

“I … I need a moment alone. Please.”

Megs leaned back into the carriage and withdrew one of the pistols from underneath the seat. She hesitated a moment and then took out a small dagger and carefully shoved it up her sleeve. It was mostly ornamental, but it might deter a robber long enough to call Tom and Oliver.

Not that she intended to be waylaid. She wouldn’t go far from the carriage, but she’d been honest with Tom.

She needed a moment alone … with her memories of Roger.

Perhaps it was all the male stubbornness she’d dealt with tonight: Griffin and Godric and even Lord d’Arque in a way—the man had been more interested in flirting with her than wondering why she’d sought him out in the first place. She felt blocked at every turn. Nothing she’d come to London for was working out as she’d hoped.

Especially, in a way, this.

She felt farther from Roger than she ever had before—even as she walked the streets where he’d lived his last moments.

She stopped and looked up and down the empty lane. It was darker than most London streets. The St. Giles merchants and residents either couldn’t afford to light their homes, or they didn’t care to. In either case, the area was dim and shadowed, tall buildings leaning ominously overhead. The sound of something breaking and the clatter of footfalls came from … somewhere. Megs shivered and drew her short cape closer, even though it wasn’t especially cold out tonight. Sound was hard to estimate here. The buildings and small, crooked passageways seemed to echo back whispers and swallow shouts.

This place was haunted by more than Roger’s memory.

Megs turned in a circle. Her carriage was only yards away, a lighted, reassuring presence, but she felt isolated nonetheless.

Why had Roger come here that night?

He didn’t live nearby, hadn’t, as far as she knew, anyone to visit. She had loved him and knew, deep in her heart, that he’d truly loved her in return, but she had no explanation for his last journey.

All she knew, in fact, was that he’d come to St. Giles—and that the Ghost of St. Giles had seen fit to murder him here.

Why? Why Roger of all people?

Megs tried to imagine Roger being held at sword point, deciding to fight back even if mismatched.

She shook her head. Her conjured image was blurry. She couldn’t quite set his features right. When she’d first heard the news of his murder, she’d been sure that he wasn’t the type of man to foolishly provoke a fight with a footpad. Now …

Now she’d lost part of his memory. Lost part of Roger himself. She wasn’t sure she knew who he’d been anymore, and the thought sent panic racing in her chest.

Something moved in the shadows.

She had the pistol grasped in both hands and pointed even before the Ghost of St. Giles stepped from the doorway.

The rage hit her, hot and quick. How dare he? He was sullying ground sacred to her, ground sacred to her memory of Roger.

“You shouldn’t be here, my—”

She fired the pistol … except nothing happened but a sputtering sound and a tiny spark.

Then he was on her, big and hard, wrenching the pistol from her hands and throwing it, clattering, onto the cobblestones, out of reach.

She opened her mouth to shriek her anger, but his hand clamped down on the lower half of her face, his other arm hugging her close, trapping her hands against her sides.

She went insane. Men! All telling her what to do, all unable to give her the simple courtesy of treating her like she mattered. She writhed, trying to elbow him, trying to stamp on his toes, her dancing slippers sliding harmlessly against his jackboots. She twisted, small sounds of frustration and rage pushing against his damned hand. He grunted and staggered, pulling her with him as he half fell into the shadows against a house wall. She tucked her chin into her neck and slammed the top of her head against him, missing his jaw and connecting painfully with his chest, shaking with fury.

“Damn it—” His growl was low.

He didn’t seem affected at all, this murderer, this killer of all she’d ever held dear. She raised her head and glared at him over the top of his hand, daring him to do what he might.

He met her look and his eyes narrowed behind that stupid mask, and then his hand was moving from her mouth, but before she could draw breath, he was slamming his lips over hers and he was …

Kissing her?

Her world whirled sickeningly because he was angry and she was angry and his mouth wasn’t at all gentle, but somehow, despite all of that, or maybe because all of that, she felt it: a stirring. A warmth down below where—

No! This wasn’t right; this wasn’t going to happen, not for this man of all men. She tried to arch her head away, but he had a hand on the back of her neck, holding her there as he opened his mouth against hers, sweetly hot, wrongly enticing, and she bit him. She clamped down on his lower lip, tasting blood, whimpering. She couldn’t take much more of this, couldn’t hold out, but he didn’t pull away. He still held her close against his large, warm, masculine frame and she could feel that part of him now, hard and erect, pushing into her, even through her many skirts, and the feeling was supposed to repulse and scare her.