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“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?”

er 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.

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