Meggie sent her fist as hard as she could into his belly. He’d had an instant to tighten his stomach muscles before her fist landed hard and his breath whooshed out. At least the punch didn’t bowl him over. He grabbed her wrist before she could hit him again.
“That hurt,” he said.
Meggie tried to pull away, but he held her wrist tightly. She was panting even as she shouted at him, “I’m glad it hurt. Let me go and I’ll do it again!”
He grabbed her other wrist and shook her. “Dammit, Meggie, what the devil is wrong with you?”
“Thomas Malcombe, don’t you dare pretend that you’re bored by all this, that you’re indifferent to it, that you have no idea what I’m talking about, what I’m enraged about. Lower that supercilious eyebrow. Listen to me, Thomas, my father is the vicar. It is my father’s duty to meddle, particularly since you wish to be his son-in-law. He wants to protect me.”
“All right, now it’s my turn to be angry. No, don’t try to get away from me. I’m going to hold you awhile longer, there’s still too much blood in your eyes. Now, your damned father should not have sullied your ears with this. It has nothing at all to do with you, Meggie, nothing at all. Melissa was a mistake, a very bad one, admittedly, but your father should not have told you about it.”
“The mistake, as you so indifferently call it, has cost Melissa dearly. Now there will be a child to live with the consequences of that mistake.”
He released her, walked over to the sideboard, and poured himself some brandy. She’d seen his indifferent act, then seen the anger gushing out, and now he was the controlled gentleman again. She watched him sip the brandy before he turned back to her. “I am sorry for it,” he said, all calm and smooth, “but it happened and I couldn’t prevent it from happening. If I’d known, I would have stopped it, but I didn’t know.”
All his male beauty disappeared in that instant, all his charm with it. Jeremy was an insufferable moron, but Thomas was worse by far. He was treacherous. She was appalled both at herself for her lack of wisdom, and at him, for his indifference, his utter lack of remorse for what he’d done. Her own anger, her outrage at what he’d done, was fast drowning out her pain at his betrayal. “You couldn’t prevent it from happening? If you had known what? Are you mad?”
“No, I’m not in the least mad. Won’t you sit down, Meggie?” His hand was shaking. He hated that. Even as he waved her toward a chair, he moved quickly behind his desk.
“I don’t want to sit down,” she said, strode to his desk, leaned toward him, splaying her hands flat. “I want you to tell me why you couldn’t prevent this mess from occurring. Surely you aren’t going to blame Melissa for all of it? She seduced you? She, woman of the world that she is, forced you to be intimate with her? Blessed hell, Thomas, please don’t tell me that.”
He remained standing behind his desk, leaned forward as well, his own palms flat on the desktop, his face not six inches from hers. He said slowly, “No, I won’t tell you that. You haven’t known me long, Meggie, but I had believed that you’d come to trust me. I gather your father told you that I am paying for the upbringing of Melissa’s child.”
“Yes.”
“I told you I had no control. I meant it. You see, I didn’t know what William had done until it was far too late. Hell, I didn’t even know he was in town.”
Meggie drew back, now standing ramrod straight. “William? Who the devil is William?”
“My younger brother, my half brother, actually. He is at Oxford. However, four months ago, he was in London, as I said, unbeknownst to me at the time. He and several of his friends decided to experiment with sin—whores and gaming hells. He did, unfortunately, attend one party, met Melissa, and things progressed rapidly from there.” He frowned at her, then the frown deepened as he stared beyond her to the enclosed garden. “You believed I was the one to impregnate Melissa Winters.”
“Yes, I did. That is what my father told me.”
“I did not. She is a child, a silly foolish girl.”
“We are the same age.”
“Only in years, Meggie, only in years. William didn’t admit it to me until Melissa’s father arrived here at Bowden Close to call me a philandering bastard. Of course, then I managed to figure out what must have happened.”
William. It was William, his half brother, and she hadn’t even known he’d existed.
It wasn’t Thomas.
Meggie felt the sun break over her head. The explanation—it had burst forth and it was clean and pure with no murky gray to muck things up. She felt such relief, such profound joy, she wanted to shout. She said, “How old is William?”
“He’s twenty-one, much younger for a male than it is for a female. Using myself as a measuring stick, I have determined that youth tends to encourage stupid behavior. Haven’t you done foolish things, Meggie?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation, “but I have never searched out a boy to seduce him.”
This effortless charm of hers. It washed over him, whether he wanted it to or no. “No,” he said, “you wouldn’t.”
“Why did you let Mr. and Mrs. Winters believe you were the one?”
He shrugged. “Evidently Melissa was afraid to tell her parents the truth, so she told them it was me. Since I am now head of this family, I am responsible for William, and he knows it. He made a mistake. I have taken care of it. Hopefully, both he and Melissa are now a bit wiser.”
“My father always says that one must be accountable for one’s own mistakes.”
“Perhaps, but it is done and I cannot now change it. I will say, though, that William is on a much shorter leash now.”
“He should have married her.”
“He refused. However, I made it perfectly clear to him that if the child survived, then he would be its father. I told him I would cut him off if he did not agree to this. He agreed.”
“Well, that’s something. I am sorry, Thomas, but I am not going to much like William.”
“Perhaps not. I am hopeful that he will improve as he adds a few more years.” He paused a moment, then said, his voice every bit as austere as her father’s when faced with wickedness, “I am disappointed in you for not trusting me.”
“Don’t put on that righteous act with me, Thomas. Actually the evidence would have hanged you.”
She hadn’t apologized, just smacked him in the jaw with the unvarnished truth. “All right, I accept that. Now, would you like me to go reassure your father?”
Meggie gave him a brilliant smile. “Yes, please do, sir. Oh, Thomas, will we live in Italy?”
He said slowly, “Perhaps, Meggie. Perhaps. Would you like that?”
“Immensely.” She ran around his desk, went up on her tiptoes, kissed his check, then stared at him a moment, kissed his mouth, hers tightly seamed, and it didn’t matter a bit. He watched her rush out into the enclosed garden, her skirts rustling, her bonnet dangling from her fingertips nearly to the ground. He knew she would snag it on a rosebush, and she did, but again, it didn’t matter.
Glenclose-on-Rowan
April 1824
The wedding of Thomas Malcombe, earl of Lancaster, to Margaret Beatrice Lydia Sherbrooke, spinster, was attended by four hundred people, another hundred or so milling about outside the church for word of what was happening. The men who’d managed to beg off were in the tavern, drinking ale, listening to Mr. Mortimer Fulsome’s advice on married life, something none of them paid the least attention to since he’d buried four wives, none of them lasting more than two years, and he was eighty years old now and could barely be heard above the toasts.
Tysen led his daughter down the aisle to where Lord Lancaster and Bishop Arlington of Brighton waited, a twinkle in the bishop’s eye. He had known Tysen since he’d been born, Meggie as well. He was completely bald and the sunlight pouring through the stained-glass window above him sent a wash of colors across his head.
“He looks like God wearing a rainbow,” Meggie said out of the side of her mouth.
“He’s nearly blind,” Tysen said to his daughter as they walked past people who had known her all her life. “Stand as close as possible to him. Tell Thomas to do the same. And don’t stare at his head.”
It was a glorious Friday morning in mid-April, the air was fresh from a rain that had dutifully stopped at midnight the evening before. Clouds were strewn in a very blue sky.
Every Sherbrooke was present, including the earl of Ashburnham and his family come all the way from Scotland. And, of course, Oliver and Jenny from Kildrummy.
There was no one from Thomas Malcombe’s family, but if anyone remarked upon it, it didn’t get to Meggie’s ears. She, herself, believed it for the best. If William had shown up, she just might have kicked him. As for Thomas’s mother, he’d simply said she was ill and left it at that. He was so very alone, she thought that morning as all her aunts helped her dress in her wedding finery. But that would change.
The Vicarage was filled to capacity. Had there been ladders to the rafters, Thomas thought, there would be folk hanging off those as well. All of the boy cousins were staying with him at Bowden Close.
The Sherbrookes were a very popular family. No, it was more than that. Meggie was the daughter of the town, beloved by its denizens. He thought, as he watched her come closer and closer, that he’d never seen a more beautiful woman in his life. He smiled when she chanced to look at him.
Meggie didn’t look again at Bishop Arlington. She was staring at the man who would be her husband in not more than fifteen minutes from now.
Organ music swelled, so loud the windows rattled a bit. The air was still, fragrant with flowers, many from the Northcliffe Hall greenhouses, brought to Glenclose-on-Rowan by Uncle Douglas and Aunt Alex. So many people, all of them here to wish her well. She passed by the Winters family and felt a stab of concern. There were no smiles on their faces. Even though her father had told her they accepted that William Malcombe was the father of Melissa’s child, they still couldn’t bring themselves to like Thomas Malcombe.
All her boy cousins were seated in one row; Grayson, she knew, was memorizing everything, later to embroider a rousing tale, probably replete with a congregation that were really demons from some pit in Hell and the demons had sprung open the pit just recently, just for Meggie’s wedding. Leo and Max, both looking faintly worried, and she understood that. Everything was different now that they were all grown up. Now they realized just how many years separated all of them from childhood—her marriage underscored this. She wished she could have stopped a moment and hugged them, reassured them. She wanted to tell them that being a grown-up meant change, something to be desired not feared.
There were James and Jason, looking more beautiful than she did, both of them striving to look as austere and distinguished as their father, who, seated in the row ahead of them, looked every inch the powerful earl. Meggie gave him a big grin, which was returned, and which the twins didn’t see. They might have relaxed a bit if they’d seen that smile. Her aunt Alex gave her a small wave with her gloved hand.
Aunt Sophie and Uncle Ryder were to her left, and what with ten of the Beloved Ones coming to Glenclose-on-Rowan, they occupied an entire row, very tightly. Her uncle Ryder’s brilliant Sherbrooke eyes were still wicked, still so startling a blue, that ladies stopped in the middle of the street and stared at him and grinned like idiots. This behavior Aunt Sophie normally ignored, or poked her oblivious spouse in his ribs to make him stop being so damned delicious to the opposite sex. As for Aunt Sophie, she was solid as a rock, always calm no matter the trouble, no matter the pain.
And her godmother, Aunt Sinjun, sitting beside Uncle Colin, Fletcher and Dahling beside them, Dahling a young matron, married to a Scottish baron from the Highlands near Glen Coe way. Phillip was far away in Greece with the Royal Navy, Uncle Colin had told everyone. Phillip, it seemed, was a cartographer, something most all the male cousins had had to look up in the dictionary. Fletcher was now twelve, as magic with horses as Alec was with racing cats. She remembered so long ago how he had renamed her father’s horse. He spoke to horses and they spoke to him. What would he do when he grew up? Meggie wondered. She thought with a pang of his little sister, Jocelyn, who had died while still very young. Thank God Rory had survived.
Jeremy and Charlotte were there, Charlotte well into her pregnancy, smiling, looking utterly beautiful, glowing, Jeremy, so proud, so possessive of her, standing close by her, always. Meggie had greeted them warmly, so very warmly. As for Jeremy, he’d had time to say to her, “I need to speak to you sometime, Meggie.”
She’d nodded, having no intention whatsoever of listening to him lecture her on something, probably on copying dear Charlotte, the perfect obedient subservient wife.
Mary Rose sat between Alec and Rory on the very front row. She was trying to hold Rory still since he was bouncing up and down, wanting, Meggie knew, to walk along beside her. She’d seen him just the day before practicing how to walk. Meggie saw her father try to frown his son down, but then she realized he just couldn’t. It would be like scolding a racing kitten. When Tysen smiled at his son, Rory managed to pull away from his mother and dash to his father and Meggie. Laughter erupted from the congregation. Tysen swooped down and grabbed up his son, even as Rory tried to climb over him to get to Meggie.
Meggie took the little boy’s face between her gloved hands and kissed him, then said, “Rory, will you and our papa both give me away?”
And Rory beamed and said loud enough for everyone in the church to hear, “Oh yes, Meggie, let me, let me. Meggie, is that really you under that white sack?”
Meggie lifted a corner of her beautiful veil and winked at Rory.
There was laughter until finally Bishop Arlington raised his hands.
Rory stood proudly by Tysen until the bishop asked who was giving Meggie away, to which both males replied, “I do.”
More laughter. Meggie looked up to see that her groom was smiling, a relief since he was very pale, probably as scared as she was.
Bishop Arlington had a booming voice that probably reached even the folk down at the tavern. He spoke of all sorts of expectations for Meggie, all blessed and approved by God, which made Meggie want to roll her eyes. She peeked up at Thomas, saw that he was looking quite severe, and so didn’t make a sound.
The marriage service barely lasted fifteen minutes. Now, she, Meggie Sherbrooke, was a countess and Thomas, at Bishop Arlington’s kind direction, was pulling back her veil, kissing her, smiling, looking immensely relieved as he said close to her ear, “You’re mine now, Meggie. Mine.”
“And you are mine, Thomas. Forever.”
And something deep moved in his eyes as he stared down at her, something deep and thick and veiled. He kissed her again, a quick light kiss because there were many people avidly watching. They turned toward the congregation, both smiling so big some feared their jaws would crack.
Meggie said out of the corner of her mouth, “This is so very exciting. Do you think you will drink champagne out of my slipper?”
13
IT WASN’T UNTIL nearly six o’clock that evening when Mary Rose was fastening the small buttons of her traveling gown up Meggie’s back.
“Has Thomas told you where you are spending tonight?”
“No, the man has refused to tell me a thing. Not even a single hint. I have wheedled and promised all sorts of wicked favors if he would just give me one sentence, but he refused. I even offered to put my tongue in his mouth, but he refused to speak a word about it. Oh, forgive me, Mary Rose, I didn’t mean to embarrass you. It’s just that this tongue business—I think I like it. Ah, I do hope we’re on a packet to Calais, then to Paris. I should love to go to Paris again, Mary Rose. Remember when we went last time? I was thirteen and we walked in the Luxemburg Gardens and visited Versailles and Notre Dame, how magnificent that was, and—”
Mary Rose interrupted her, laughing, “Yes, love, I remember it well.” She sighed then. “I believe I would have preferred to h
ave your father to myself, but I endured having my interfering stepdaughter along.” For just an instant Meggie didn’t laugh at her jest. Mary Rose took Meggie’s face between her hands and kissed her. “I loved you from the moment you rescued me and sneaked me into your bedchamber at Kildrummy. I loved you even more when I heard you try to convince your father that you were innocent as a shorn lamb, that you weren’t hiding a thing from him. And I loved all the excuses your father had to invent to keep you out of our bedchamber at night.
“You have grown into a splendid woman. I want you to be happy with Thomas. I also want a letter from you, but I will give you a week before you have to write it.”
She kissed her again, only to have Meggie’s arms go around her and hug her tight. “Oh goodness, now you will have your own bedchamber with your own husband. Time has gone so quickly, Meggie, so quickly. Savor every moment. Be happy, love.”
And Meggie said, “I knew I would adore you forever when I saw Papa carrying you over his shoulder back into the castle. I was trying desperately to pull your valise back inside, but it was so heavy because of the iron candlesticks.”
Mary Rose laughed. “They weren’t iron, Meggie!”
“I know, but they were very heavy, and I was only ten years old. I will miss you and Papa, Mary Rose. Oh goodness, what about Alec and Rory? Will you be able to manage them? Will—”
“Everything will be all right. They will miss you dreadfully and ask me every day when you are coming for a visit. Don’t worry, love. You are a married lady now and that is a very different thing. Er, Meggie, is there anything you wish perhaps to ask me?”
“About what? Has either of the boys done something you’re not sure about?”
“No, not today. When they are monsters I will simply lock them in the closet beneath the stairs. Now, Meggie—” She paused a moment, pumping herself up. “Would you like to ask me about marital sorts of things? I promised your father I would, er, inquire.”