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His wife’s laughing brown eyes peeked at him over the soft fawn creature. “Yes, but your tone said the opposite.”
He started to shrug, but the sudden bite at his shoulder made him regret the movement.
He thought he’d suppressed the wince, but Megs’s eyes narrowed. “Thank you, girls. Mary Compassion, could you take the other Marys downstairs? I’m sure Mrs. Crumb has need of you now.”
The girls looked a bit disappointed, but they rose obediently and left the bedroom, trailing the eldest.
Megs waited until the door closed behind them. “How are you?”
She held the puppy to her face almost like a shield against him, and he wished she’d put the animal down so he could see her expression.
“Well enough,” he replied.
She nodded, meeting his gaze at last. Tears sparkled in her eyes and his chest tightened. “I’m so very, very sorry that I hurt you.”
If she wished not to speak of their earlier argument, it was fine with him. “You’ve already apologized, and besides, there’s no need. It wasn’t your fault. I suppose you thought I was attacking you.”
She looked away and he felt a sinking sensation. Had his kiss been that repulsive, then?
There was a short and, for him at least, very awkward silence.
Finally he gestured to the puppy in her arms. “Doesn’t the mother want her offspring back?”
“Oh, yes,” Megs murmured, and to Godric’s astonishment she turned and lay on her belly to place the puppy under her bed.
A squeak and rustle came from the shadows there.
Megs straightened and turned.
Godric raised his brows.
“Her Grace is under there with her puppies—three of them,” Megs answered his silent question. “We think she whelped sometime last evening, but I didn’t notice until late this morning when I heard the puppies crying.”
“Strange,” Godric murmured as he watched her rise from the floor, “that the dog chose your room to give birth.”
Megs shrugged, shaking out her skirts. “I’m just glad we found her. Great-Aunt Elvina was so worried when she realized Her Grace was missing from her room this morning.”
He nodded absently. How was he to keep her safe? How was he to save her from her own gallant heart?
She inhaled as if bracing herself. “Godric?”
He watched her warily. “Yes?”
“Can you tell me how”—she waved her hands in a fluttering gesture between them—“how this happened? How you came to be the Ghost of St. Giles?”
He nodded. “Yes, of course.”
PREHAPS IF SHE could understand why he did this dreadful thing, then she could somehow dissuade him, Megs thought.
Godric was still pale. Megs examined her husband while trying to hide her concern, but his gaze was steady, his body solid and strong in the chair. She took a moment to marvel again that at one time she’d thought this man almost infirm. She realized now that he might not be as tall or as bulky as some men, but he was solid, as if he were made of some durable, indestructible material. Granite, maybe. Or iron that would never rust. Something strong and muscular and … and masculine.
Megs glanced down at her hands in confusion at the thought of her husband’s body and nearly missed his next words.
“Have you ever heard of Sir Stanley Gilpin?”
She looked up again. “No, I don’t think so.”
He nodded as if her reply was expected. “He was a distant relation of my father’s, dead now for several years. A third cousin or some such. He was a wealthy man of business in the city, but he also had other interests.”
