He laughed at that, a soft puff of air. "Very well."

Outside the home's sickroom, they found Winter Makepeace leaning against the wall. His dark eyes flicked to Godric's stepmother. "There are ... matters we should discuss before you leave."

Godric glanced down at Mrs. St. John. "I'll join you downstairs, ma'am."

His stepmother pressed her lips together but merely nodded before turning away.

Godric looked at Winter. "My wife brought a change of clothes."

The home's manager followed him back inside the sickroom and watched as Godric began picking at the buttons on his leggings. "You rescued nearly thirty girls tonight. Six will need to stay abed for some days, but the rest are in fair condition, all things considered. They mostly appear to need decent food."

Godric grimaced at the thought of little girls deprived of enough sustenance, then remembered the main part of his worry. "Did Alf tell you where the third workshop is located?"

"He did." Winter frowned and helped him strip out of the leggings. "But I'm thinking they will have moved after your work this night. They'd be fools to stay and wait for your attack."

"True." Godric pulled on a pair of black breeches then looked down at his arm, already swollen. Perhaps if he braced it, there would still be time. "If I went out again tonight-"

"Don't even contemplate it," Winter said curtly. "You need to heal before you try again."

"I need to find those girls," Godric growled. The buttons of his fall were damnably difficult with only one hand.

"Yes, but becoming further injured-or killed-will do us no good." Winter hesitated. "There's one more thing."

Godric cocked his head impatiently.

"Alf left just after he brought you and the girls here," Winter said. "But he was agitated. Apparently Hannah, the ginger-haired lass he mentioned before, was not among the girls you rescued."

"Damnation." Godric glared at his arm. "Will she try to attack the third workshop on her own, do you think?"

"She?"

Godric nodded curtly. "Alf is a girl in disguise. I should never have brought her on tonight's mission."

"You-we-had no way of knowing." Winter looked thoughtful. "Aye, and now she might be off trying to free her ginger-haired friend by herself."

Godric had never felt so helpless. Well, that wasn't correct. The last time he'd felt this way was beside Clara's deathbed. He pushed the ugly memory away.

Winter looked disturbed. "I don't think Alf will act on her own," he said slowly. "She seemed quite respectful of the guards kept around the workshops. And remember: even if she did try something so foolish, the workshop has no doubt already moved."

Godric nodded, though the reminder was but small consolation. Alf might be careful to project a tough and pragmatic exterior, but she'd put herself at risk to inform on the workshops' whereabouts-and she'd been truly remorseful about delivering the ginger-haired little girl to one of them.

Pray she did nothing stupid.

He needed to heal. To get back to St. Giles and finish this business.

A soft scratch came at the door before it opened.

Megs peeked in. "The carriage is waiting and dawn is beginning to break."

Godric looked at her, his wife, hovering so hesitantly, not even venturing closer as if she feared rejection. She'd come for him when Winter had sent word, without demure or question. She'd lain beneath him earlier tonight and given him everything he'd demanded. She was so much and he felt so little-too broken, too old, too weary-to give her everything she needed. He should let her go, let her fly free to find a younger lover like her Roger.

He should do all those things, and maybe later, when he was healed and not in pain, he would, but right now he murmured his thanks to Makepeace, threw the cloak about his shoulders, and let her take his good arm. Let her draw it across her slender womanly shoulders. Let her take a small portion of his weight and guide him down the stairs.

His stepmother waited for them in the home's entry way along with Megs's footmen. They bracketed him and the women as he made his slow, painful way to the carriage. Godric didn't miss Captain Trevillion, lurking in the shadows by the home, and he didn't miss the captain's deliberate nod. That nod was a warning, a challenge delayed. It meant, I know who you are. Come again into St. Giles and I'll take you.

Godric knew it as surely as if the dragoon captain had screamed the words. And yet he couldn't bring himself to care. Makepeace was right: now he needed to heal. But when he was strong again, he'd return to St. Giles, Trevillion or not, because those girls needed rescuing.

It wasn't until they were all settled in the carriage that his stepmother spoke again.

She waited until the door was closed, until the carriage jolted forward; then she looked at Godric and said, "How long have you been the Ghost of St. Giles?"

Chapter Fifteen.

Grief rolled down the Peak of Whispers, screeching his rage all the way. The Hellequin made no comment, but one corner of his stern mouth may've lifted up. Now Faith grew thirsty, so reaching into her pocket, she drew out a small skin of wine. She took a sip, and as she did so, the Hellequin licked his lips. She offered the skin to him. "Would you like a drink?" "I have not drunk the wine of men for a millennium," he rasped.

"Then you must be very thirsty," she said as she held the skin to his lips. ...

-From The Legend of the Hellequin The groan was muffled, as if Godric was doing his very best not to make any sound at all, which only made it worse for Megs-the knowledge that he must be in terrible pain to let the muted sounds slip past.

She stared at the closed door to his bedroom, wringing her hands.

"Come sit, Megs," Mrs. St. John said from behind her. Megs glanced at her distractedly, jumping when another grunt came from the bedroom.

"Please." Her mother-in-law patted the seat beside her on the settee. "You'll do him no good pacing like that. In fact, he'll be embarrassed if you see him afterward and you're distraught. He'll know you heard him. Gentlemen detest appearing weak."

Megs bit her lip, but she obediently sank into the settee cushions. "I don't think him weak. He's hurt. And I do so wish he'd let me stay with him when he's in such pain."

"Mmm," Mrs. St. John murmured in agreement. "But gentlemen are terribly stubborn and rather illogical when they're hurt, you see. Godric's father had the gout in his later years and he was an absolute bear about it. Wouldn't let anyone near him, including me." For a moment she looked wistful. Then she glanced down at her hands, folded in her lap, and said, "This is my fault, you know."

Megs blinked, confused. "What is?"

"That." Mrs. St. John waved a hand toward Godric's bedroom. "I knew he was alone after Clara died, knew he was hurting, but I let his stoicism keep me away." She grimaced. "He's always been so very self-sufficient, so cold when I made any overtures, that it's hard to remember he's a man like any other. That he needs the comfort of family as much as any other."

"I don't see how that's your fault," Megs said. "You did try, and if he rejected your attempts, then surely the fault lies with him, not you."

"No." Her mother-in-law shook her head. "I love him as surely as if I'd carried him within my own body. A mother never abandons her child, even when he seems to want it. It was-is-my duty to break through the barriers he surrounds himself with. I should have kept trying until he gave in." Her look softened as she watched Megs. "I thank God that you decided to seek him out, to make your marriage a true one. He needs you, Megs. You're the one who can save him."

Megs looked away, feeling ashamed. Mrs. St. John praised her falsely: She'd come to London, made their marriage "true" for purely selfish reasons. But she couldn't explain that to her mother-in-law.

Instead she focused on the last part of what Mrs. St. John said, uncertainty a tight band around her chest. "Can one save a man who seeks willful self-destruction?"

The older woman's brows arched. "You think that's why he goes into St. Giles?"

Megs looked at her with sorrow. "Why else?"

Mrs. St. John sighed. "You have to understand that it took years for Clara to die-years in which Godric could do no more than stand idle and watch. Perhaps his dressing as the Ghost is his way of doing something good after so long being unable to do anything at all."

"He does do good in St. Giles." Megs frowned as she fingered the tassel on one of the settee cushions. "But, ma'am, whatever good he does others must be balanced by the evil he does himself."

"What do you mean?"

"He may help people in St. Giles, but I think he does it at the expense of himself." She yanked overhard on the tassel and the thing came off in her hand. She stared at it, her lips trembling. "It can't be good for a man such as Godric-a sensitive, moral man-to deal in violence so often. It's as if he's chipping away at his own soul."

"Then you must find a way to stop him," Mrs. St. John said quietly.

Megs nodded, though she had no idea how to do that. She'd made a pact with him-a pact that forced him to wear the Ghost's disguise. How could she have everything she wanted and save Godric as well?

The door to Godric's room opened behind her.

"We are done, my lady." The doctor was an odd, bent fellow with an Italian-or maybe French?-name. Isabel Makepeace had said that he was a refugee of some type and could be trusted not to talk about Godric's injury.

Megs stood. "Will his arm heal cleanly?"

"I have done all that I can. The rest is in the good Lord's hands." The doctor made a very foreign-looking moue and shrugged elaborately. "Mr. St. John will need bed rest for at least a week, preferably more. A simple diet of fish or chicken, fine, soft bread, clear broth, and wine will suffice, I think. A few vegetables such as turnips or carrots and the like. No onions or garlic, naturally, nor any overspiced foods."

"Of course." Megs nodded before looking up anxiously. "May I see him?"

"If you wish, my lady, but please make your visit a short-"

She was already past the doctor, not waiting for him to finish his sentence. Godric lay in the big bed, his left arm atop the covers. Two flat wooden boards had been strapped on either side of his forearm so that he could not move his hand independently of his arm.

She tiptoed to his bed and stared down at him. His face still shone with sweat, his short hair plastered to his head. He'd not shaved and his beard was dark against the pallor of his face.

"Megs." He didn't open his eyes, but his right hand moved, reaching for hers.

"Oh, Godric," she murmured, tears filling her eyes as she placed her hand in his.

He tugged on her hand. "Come lay beside me for a while."

She resisted even as he pulled her closer. "The doctor said you mustn't be disturbed."

"Damn that French quack." A corner of his mouth twitched wearily. "You don't disturb me, Meggie mine. Besides, I'll rest easier with you beside me."

Carefully she crept onto the bed, fully clothed, and lay beside him. He shifted until her head was on his right shoulder, his arm wrapped securely around her, and then he sighed.

In a few minutes he was asleep.

And in a minute more so was she.

TWO WEEKS LATER, Godric peered bemusedly over his half-moon spectacles as Her Grace trotted into his bedroom with a curled puppy hanging from her mouth. The pug glanced at him warily but seemed to dismiss him-rather insultingly-as no threat before she disappeared into the open door of his dressing room. After a pause of five minutes or so, she trotted out again, sans offspring.

Godric raised a brow as the pug bustled out of his room again. This didn't bode well.

He shrugged and went back to the political and philosophical pamphlets that Moulder had brought him. A week of enforced bed rest followed by a week more when all the females of his household seemed to have conspired to keep him homebound was making him damnably bored. True, each of his sisters, stepmother, and wife in turn had made a point of spending time with him, reading aloud or simply chatting. Even Great-Aunt Elvina had deigned to sit with him and had only disparaged him-halfheartedly-twice. He'd tempted Megs with a walk in Spring Gardens-one of the many public gardens in London. But not even the promise of gravel walks and exotic blooms had made her waver in her determination to keep him inside.

He hadn't fulfilled either of his parts of the bargain with Megs in those two weeks either. At first the pain from his broken wrist had been too debilitating for any physical exercise. Now he was nearly well enough to resume his Ghostly duties, he thought, and certainly able to bed her tonight-purely as his matrimonial duty, of course.

Godric frowned down at the political pamphlet that he'd read twice now without remembering a word. A gentleman should not let self-delusion control him. He wanted to bed his wife, true, but it wasn't entirely because of duty.

Or even partially.

Her Grace trotted purposely back into the room, a different puppy held in her jaws. This one was a glossy chocolate, and Godric wondered exactly who her paramour was. He could've sworn that Great-Aunt Elvina had said Her Grace had been bred to another fawn pug.

The bitch disappeared into his dressing room and Megs appeared in his doorway. She wore a rather frivolous pink and yellow confection that he'd not noticed on her before.

"There are puppies in my dressing room," Godric said, lowering the pamphlet to his desktop.

Megs sighed gustily but seemed unsurprised. "I was afraid of that. We keep putting Her Grace and her puppies in Great-Aunt Elvina's room, but she insists on moving them elsewhere. Last week Mrs. Crumb found them in the linen cupboard and was not at all pleased."

Her Grace emerged from the dressing room, detoured around Megs, and vanished into the outer hallway.

"I can understand Mrs. Crumb's consternation," Godric said gravely. "She seems a very orderly woman, and puppies in the clean linens is the antithesis of orderly."

"Mmm," Megs murmured distractedly, glancing into the hallway again. Was she looking for the pug?

Godric felt a pang at the thought of her leaving him again. "Is that a new frock?"

"Yes." Megs's cheeks warmed prettily. She looked down at her skirts, smoothing one hand over them. "We've received our order of new gowns from the modiste. Do you like it? I wasn't sure about the yellow. It so often makes one look jaundiced."

"Not you," he replied truthfully.

The spring colors made the peach of her cheeks glow against the dark mass of her hair. A lock was working itself free of her coiffure, slowly tumbling down her elegant neck, and oddly the sight made him want to pull the pins from her hair, tug the mass down, spread it with his fingers, and bury his face in the glossy waves.

He casually flipped the skirt of his coat over his lap. "You're beautiful."

"Oh," she said softly, glancing up and catching his intent gaze. "Oh, thank you."

Her Grace came into the room with her last puppy and headed directly to the dressing room.

Godric smiled. "You should shut the door to my bedroom so that she doesn't move them again."

Megs looked uncertainly at the bedroom door. "I suppose I should leave you to rest."

"I've rested quite enough these last weeks," he said smoothly. "I could use the company. That is"-he made himself look bravely forlorn-"if you don't mind sitting with an invalid."

He may've been laying it on too thick. She gave him an odd glance before shutting the outer door. "I'll get a chair from my room."

"No need. You can sit on my bed."

She looked at the bed, her brows drawn together with dawning suspicion.