own girls.”
“We’re not your girls!”
Godric saw out of the corner of his eye that the elder chit had sat up.
“’E’s not our da!”
Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth, making him snarl.
“Get on to your home,” he urged in a low voice to the girls. “I’ll deal with this ruffian.”
“We don’t ’ave a ’ome,” the smaller child whimpered.
She’d barely got the words out when the elder nudged her and hissed, “Shut it!”
Godric was tired and the news that the children were homeless distracted him. That was what he told himself anyway when the rogue on the ground swept his legs out from under him.
Godric hit the cobblestones rolling. He surged to his feet, but the man was already rounding the corner at the far end of the alley.
He sighed, wincing as he straightened. He’d landed on his injured shoulder and it was not thanking him for the treat.
He glanced at the girls. “Best come with me, then.”
The smaller child obediently began to rise, but the elder pulled her back down. “Don’t be daft, Moll. ’E’s as like to be a lassie snatcher as the other one.”
Godric raised his eyebrows at the words lassie snatcher. He hadn’t heard that name for a while. He shook his head. He hadn’t time to dig into these matters now. Lady Margaret would reach his home soon, and if he wasn’t there, awkward questions might arise.
“Come,” he said, holding out his hand to the girls. “I’m not a lassie snatcher, and I know a nice, warm place where you can spend the night.” And many nights hereafter.
He thought his tone gentle enough, but the elder girl’s face wrinkled mutinously. “We’re not going wif you.”
Godric smiled pleasantly—before swooping down and scooping one child over his shoulder and the other under his arm. “Oh, yes, you are.”
It wasn’t that simple, of course. The elder cursed quite shockingly for a female child of such tender years, while the younger burst into tears, and they both fought like wildcats.
Five minutes later he was within sight of the Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children when he nearly dropped them both.
“Ow!” He swallowed stronger language and took a firmer grip on the elder child, who had come perilously close to unmanning him.
Grimly, Godric stalked to the back door of the St. Giles orphanage and kicked at it until a light appeared in the kitchen window.
The door swung open to reveal a tall man in rumpled shirtsleeves and breeches.
Winter Makepeace, the manager of the home, arched an eyebrow at the sight of the Ghost of St. Giles, holding two struggling, weeping girls on his doorstep.
Godric hadn’t time for explanations.
“Here.” He unceremoniously dumped the children on the kitchen tiles and glanced at the bemused manager. “I’d advise a firm hold—they’re slipperier than greased eels.”
With that, he swung shut the home’s door, turned, and sprinted toward his town house.
LADY MARGARET ST. John started shaking the moment her carriage left St. Giles. The Ghost had been so large, so frighteningly deadly in his movements. When he’d advanced on her, his bloody swords gripped in his big, leather-clad hands and his eyes glinting behind his grotesque mask, it had been all she could do to hold herself still.
Megs inhaled, trying to quiet the quicksilver racing through her veins. She’d spent two years hating the man, but she’d never expected, when she finally met him, to feel so … so …
So alive.
She glanced down at the heavy pistols in her lap and then across the carriage to her dear friend and sister-in-law, Sarah St. John. “I’m sorry. That was …”
“An idiotic idea?” Sarah arched one light brown eyebrow. Her straight-as-a-pin hair varied from mouse-brown to the lightest shade of gold and was tucked back into a sedate and very orderly knot at the back of her head.
In contrast, Megs’s own dark, curly hair had mostly escaped from its pins hours ago and was now waving about her face like a tentacled sea monster.
Megs frowned. “Well, I don’t know if idiotic is quite—”
“Addled?” Sarah supplied crisply. “Boneheaded? Daft? Foolish? Ill-advised?”
“While all of those adjectives are in part appropriate,” Megs interjected primly before Sarah could continue her list—her friend’s vocabulary was quite extensive—“I think ill-advised might be the most applicable. I am so sorry for putting your life in danger.”
“And yours.”
Megs blinked. “What?”
Sarah leaned a little forward so that her face came into the carriage lantern’s light. Sarah usually had the sweet countenance of a gently reared maiden lady—which at five and twenty she was—belied only by