Free Lord of Darkness by Elizabeth Hoyt Page A

smiled, though the effort might’ve been a trifle strained. “I … I thought tonight would be a good time to become better acquainted.”
    “Acquainted.” The word dropped, lifeless and heavy from his lips, and fell like a dead halibut between them.
    She’d never liked fish.
Megs inhaled to explain, but he set his hands on her waist, lifted her up and aside, and strolled past her to the fireplace.
    Megs goggled. She’d never been one of those fairylike girls, the ones who lived on marzipan and the odd strawberry here and there. She was a bit over average height and had the figure of a woman with a fondness for hearty country food. Yet her husband—her
elderly
husband—had lifted her with as little effort as he would a fluffy kitten.
    Megs squinted at Godric, now on one knee by the hearth, stirring up the fire that had died while she’d dozed waiting for his return. He’d left off his soft cap tonight, and she saw for the first time the shorn hair that lay close to his scalp. It was dark, nearly black, but there was a wide swath of gray at both temples.
    “How old
are
you?” she demanded, truly without thinking.
    Hesighed, still efficiently prodding the fire into life. “Seven and thirty and, I’m afraid, well past the age of enjoying surprises.”
    He stood and turned, and somehow he seemed taller tonight, his shoulders broader. Without his gray wig, without the habitual half-moon reading spectacles, he seemed … well, not younger, precisely, but certainly more virile.
    Megs shivered. Virile was good. Virile was what she most needed in the prospective father of her child.
    Why, then, did Godric seem suddenly more
daunting
as well?
    He gestured to one of the chairs before the fireplace. “Please. Sit down.”
    She sank into the chair, feeling a bit like she had the time her governess had caught her hoarding sugared almonds.
    He leaned against the mantel and raised an eyebrow. “Well?”
    “We’ve been married two years,” she began, crossing her arms, then immediately uncrossing them. Best to try not to look like a schoolboy being called on the carpet by a particularly dreary schoolmaster.
    “You seemed happy enough at Laurelwood Manor.”
    “I was. I am. …” She held her hands flat out and shook her head. “No.” She wasn’t making any sense, but the time had come to stop prevaricating. “No. I’ve been
content
enough, but not entirely happy.”
    His dark brows drew together as he stared at her. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
    She leaned forward urgently. “I’m not blaming you by any means. Laurelwood is a wonderful place to live. Ilove the gardens, Upper Hornsfield, the people, and your family.”
    One eyebrow arched. “But?”
    “But it—
I’m
—missing something.” She jumped to her feet, pacing restlessly around the chair, trying to think how to make him understand. At the last moment, she realized her direction was taking her to the bed. She stopped short and whirled, blurting, “I want—I desperately
need
—a child, Godric.”
    For a moment he simply stared at her as if stunned speechless. Then his gaze dropped to the fire. The light behind him silhouetted his profile, outlining a long brow and straight nose, and Megs thought rather irreverently that his lips from this angle looked so soft, almost feminine.
    But not quite. “I see.”
    She shook her head, pacing again. “Do you?”
Not toward the bed.
“I was pregnant when we entered into this marriage. I know it was wrong of me, but I wanted that child—Roger’s child. Even in the grief of his passing, it was something to hold on to—something of my very own.” She stopped before his dresser, severely ordered, severely plain, only a washing basin, a pitcher, and a small dish on its surface all equidistant from each other. She reached out and picked up the dish. “A child. A baby.
My
baby.”
    “The urge toward motherhood is natural.”
    His voice had grown remote. She was losing him and she didn’t even know