Megs mouthed, “Sorry.”
Hero nodded and retired from the room, closing the door behind her.
“Now, then,” Griffin said, lowering himself once more to the wing chair. “What has Godric done to make you ask?”
And Megs realized that Griffin had used the brief interruption to marshal his thoughts.
Well, she certainly wasn’t going to tell her brother that her husband refused to consummate their marriage. Besides, she saw now, Griffin was probably throwing the question back at her in an effort to get her off the topic.
“Godric hasn’t done anything,” she said coolly, and when he frowned suspiciously, she sighed. “He’s been a perfect gentleman. That’s not why I’m here. I want to know what you did to him to make him marry me.”
His eyebrows flew up. “Make him?”
“He said he had no choice but to marry me, Griffin.” She gripped her hands in her lap, remembering again the stab of foolish pain at her husband’s words. “Why?”
Griffin took a breath, his head tipped back and his eyes closed. For a moment, Megs was afraid he wouldn’t speak at all.
Then his eyes opened and they were filled with brotherly love for her. “You were so broken, Meggie. So grief-stricken, it was like you’d lost part of your mind.” A muscle tightened in his jaw. “And then there was the fact that you were with child.”
She flushed, looking away from her brother, the embarrassment and shame so strong she nearly didn’t hear his next words.
“If your lover hadn’t been dead, I would’ve killed him myself.”
She stared at him, her mouth falling open. “Griffin! Roger was a good man, a man I loved, a man who loved me—”
“He seduced my baby sister and got her with child.” Griffin’s green eyes flashed. “I understand you loved him, Megs, but don’t expect me to wax poetic on the man. He should’ve never touched you.”
“We would’ve married had he lived,” she said with dignity, and then more pragmatically, “and you shouldn’t be throwing any stones.”
Griffin’s cheeks turned ruddy at her words. There had been rather a scandal when he’d married Hero—who had originally been betrothed to Thomas. “We stray from the point. You were in pain and you needed a husband. St. John had a spotless reputation, was from an old aristocratic family, and perhaps most importantly, the man has enough money to keep you happy for the rest of your life. I didn’t have much time, but I made the best match I could under the circumstances.”
“And I thank you for it,” Megs said with real warmth. Without Griffin, she would’ve been banished forever from society, a family shame to be kept secret and hidden perhaps until the day of her death. “But that still doesn’t answer my question. Why did Godric marry me? He loved his first wife dearly. I believe had he had his druthers, he wouldn’t have married again at all.”
“But he didn’t have his druthers,” Griffin said softly.
And it came to her in a sudden and rather unwelcome flash as she stared into her brother’s too-intelligent features. “You blackmailed him?”
Griffin winced. “Now, Meggie …”
“Oh, my Lord, Griffin!” She stood, too appalled to sit. “No wonder he …” Doesn’t want to bed me. She stopped abruptly, realizing she was about to say much too much to her perceptive brother. Megs inhaled instead. “What did you blackmail him with? It must be truly terrible for a man to marry when he never wanted to in the first place.”
Griffin’s eyes were narrowed suspiciously, but he replied, “It’s not as terrible as you seem to be thinking.”
“Then what is it?”
But he was already shaking his head as he rose in front of her. “That was part of the bargain: I’d keep his secret to the grave. I can’t tell you, Megs. I suggest if you really want to know, you ask St. John yourself.”
GODRIC PAUSED TO catch his breath across the street from Lord Griffin Reading’s town house. Sarah hadn’t told him until nearly fifteen minutes after Margaret had left the wretched ball that his darling wife intended to ask her bastard of a brother something of import. He’d wasted another ten minutes making sure Sarah and Great-Aunt Elvina had proper escort home, and then he’d left with a muttered and probably ill-believed excuse. He’d hailed a hack back home and then changed into his Ghost costume as a precaution. Who knew where Megs might lead him?
He’d done it badly, his abrupt exit from the ball, but it wasn’t as if he’d had much choice in the matter.
He could think of no reason why Margaret would seek Reading’s counsel so suddenly unless it was to inquire about the circumstances of their marriage.
Damn it. He’d known, deep in his gut, the night he’d found Reading waiting for him in his own study, that giving in to Reading’s demands would come back to bite him in the arse. But what choice had he had? Reading knew. Knew that Godric was the Ghost of St. Giles. The ass had threatened to make public the knowledge, and though something in Godric wanted to tell him to publish and be damned, he’d held back at the thought of St. Giles.
He still ruled the night in St. Giles. There was still a tiny spark inside of him that cared about the people there and the help he could give them. A part that hadn’t died with Clara.
So he’d submitted to the blackmail and married Margaret, and now he’d had the stupidity to all but dare Margaret to ask her brother why.
Did he want her to find out?
The thought brought him up short. Idiot idea. Of course he didn’t.
And he hadn’t a moment more to think on the matter. The front door of Reading’s town house opened and Margaret emerged, briefly haloed by the door’s lanterns. She turned to say something to her brother and then descended the steps, looking the same as ever: maddeningly inquisitive and beautiful in her salmon ball gown and a white and gold short cape tied close at her throat.
Apparently one couldn’t tell just by looking if a woman had learned one’s deepest secret.
Margaret climbed into the carriage and the driver touched the horses with his whip. The convenience rumbled off, but because of the nature of London’s narrow streets, Godric could easily keep up. Jogging behind the carriage, staying in the shadows, he was mostly hidden from others on foot.
Well, except for the night-soil man, who gave a strangled shout and dropped one of his odiferous buckets.