Faith looked up and saw before them a black, swirling river that stretched in either direction as far as the eye could see. The Hellequin never hesitated but rode his great black horse directly into the river. Faith took a firmer grip on his shoulders and looked down as the horse began to swim. There in the inky water she saw strange, white wispy forms drifting past, and the longer she stared, the more they seemed nearly human. …
—From The Legend of the Hellequin
The second time Godric woke that day it was to the sound of muffled giggles. He glanced at his window and from the angle of the light shining in estimated it to be late afternoon. Apparently, he’d slept the day away after his catastrophic argument with Megs. Remembering her avowal to traipse into St. Giles and attempt to kill the murderer of her damned dead lover made his head start to pound.
She was his wife.
It was his duty to protect her, to keep her from her own folly, and he would’ve done that even if he hadn’t grown rather … fond of her in the last several days.
The stab of pain behind his left eye at that thought was quite awful.
Godric sighed and rose carefully. Moulder had patched him up the night before, muttering all the while that the wound was but a tiny thing, hardly worth the effort. It didn’t feel tiny as all that today, though. He had trouble lifting his left arm to put on a shirt, and it took him awhile to don stockings, breeches, and shoes. Still, Godric acknowledged that he’d had much worse injuries in the past.
There’d been times when he’d not risen from bed for days.
He shrugged on his waistcoat, buttoned it, and left his toilet at that for the moment, crossing to the door that connected with his wife’s room. Another husky laugh sparked his curiosity and he knocked once before opening the door.
Megs sat on the round carpet by her bed, her skirts a pool of apple green and pink about her. The four little maids recently apprenticed from the home squatted beside her like acolytes to a particularly pretty pagan priestess, and on her lap was the cause of their mirth: a squirming, fat, ratlike thing.
Megs looked up at his entrance, her face shining. For a moment he caught his breath—it was almost like a light radiated from within her, and he was very glad that she’d apparently decided not to hold their argument against him.
“Oh, Godric, come see! Her Grace has had her puppies.” And she held out the ratlike thing—which, apparently, was a pug puppy—like a peace offering.
Godric raised his brows, sinking into a chair. “It’s quite … lovely?”
“Oh, pooh!” She retracted her arms, cuddling the tiny creature against her cheek. “Don’t listen to Mr. St. John,” she whispered to the puppy as if in confidence. “You’re the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen.”
All four maids giggled.
Godric raised an eyebrow, replying mildly, “I said it was lovely.”
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.