Squire Billings sputtered his coffee onto his necktie. “Well, as for that, I’m not a young man, you know, my lady, and who’s to say what—”
“If it is not too difficult for you, I would ask that you speak to your staff, sir,” Thomas said as smooth as the butter he’d spread on his toast. “This evening we will all compare what we have learned. Meggie, fetch your cloak and bonnet.”
That evening at eight o’clock, Squire Billings knew nothing more than what he’d known at breakfast. He’d had to hunt, he told Lord and Lady Lancaster, looking not a whit apologetic, aye, a full day of it, and he’d been desperately fatigued upon his return and had to nap before dinner. He had asked Elroy to conduct interviews with the staff, but the butler was still too overcome, and besides, what would his staff know?
Everything, Meggie wanted to say, but wisely kept quiet.
As for Thomas and Meggie, they’d found out two things: the local doctor had told them that Marie Leach was unconscious from a blow to the head before she was hung, maybe even already dead, and Bernard Leach had packed up and left the Hangman’s Noose suddenly, and no one knew where he’d gone. Nothing more. Even the stable lad had gone missing.
“Did Bernard go missing because he murdered his wife or because he was too scared to stay?”
It was an excellent question, the only one Thomas had ever heard from Squire Billing, and there was no answer.
It was late when Thomas came into the bedchamber. Meggie was sitting up in the big heavy bed, three pillows behind her back, a candle burning on a small table at her elbow. She appeared to be reading.
She looked up when he came into the room, watched him close the door quietly behind him, watched him set his candle down on the dressing table, then straighten and turn to face her.
She cocked her head to one side and said, “Hello, my lord. What do you want?”
“What are you reading?”
“John Locke. He isn’t very amusing.”
“No.”
“What do you want?” she asked again.
“You,” he said. “I want you, Meggie. Take off your nightgown.”
“I believe some specifics are in order here, my lord.”
“My name is Thomas.” He said again, his voice cold and remote this time, “I said that I wanted you. That is quite specific enough.”
“Do you mean that you want to maul me again?”
His hands stilled on the top button of his trousers. It was a good question. He had mauled her, rutting bastard that he was, but it wasn’t really his fault. If she hadn’t said those things, hadn’t rubbed his nose in the fact that she didn’t love him—no, that was a lie if he’d ever told himself one, which, of course he had. He’d known she hadn’t loved him and he’d believed it wouldn’t matter, that he would make her love him soon enough.
Damnation.
He stripped off his clothes, knowing she was watching, looking at him, pointedly. Surely that could be seen as a good thing, perhaps.
When he was naked, he walked to the bed and sat beside her. He looked into those Sherbrooke eyes of hers, beautiful light blue eyes, vivid as the summer sky—and said, “I will not hurt you tonight. I will come into you and you will like it. I’m going to teach you pleasure, Meggie.” I will be the teacher, the lover, not that bastard Jeremy, and you’ll learn to love my hands and mouth, and stop your dreams about him.
“That’s very hard to believe that it can actually be nice.”
“I’m going to make you grin like a loon, make your eyes go vague. Eventually I’ll even let you go to sleep.” He said nothing more, just drew her against him. “Kiss me, Meggie.”
“All right.” When his tongue was in her mouth, when she’d eased, when he knew she was becoming interested in what he was doing, he threw the pillows on the floor and came down beside her. “You’re beautiful,” he said into her mouth. “And you’re mine, Meggie. You will never forget that. No one else’s, mine.”
She gave him a clear look and said, “Of course I’m yours, Thomas, and you are mine. I pray you will not forget that either.”
That warmed him to his toes, then made him cold again, on the outside. Meggie might not love him, but she was loyal. He wanted her loyalty true enough, but he wanted her to love him too, it was just that simple. He wanted everything. Well, damnation.
When her nightgown was on the floor and he was on top of her, kissing his way down the length of her, he knew it would be difficult to keep himself in check, but he wouldn’t allow a repeat of their wedding.
Thomas’s heart was racing, the blood was pumping through him, hot and heavy, and he hurt with urgency. Then he kissed her white belly, feeling her muscles tense, knowing she was excited, knowing that she was ignorant as a post, but was beginning to enjoy herself and wanted to yell with it. He would make her love him, make her want him above all men, above that damned Jeremy, make her yield her soul to him, whisper his name in her dreams. He smiled when he came between her legs, wanting her, wanting her, lifted her in his hands, and gave her his mouth.
Meggie’s brain shut down. Yes, he was actually touching her there, with his mouth, his teeth, his tongue. Then she lifted off the bed, so embarrassed when she tried to yell at him, she could only stutter. She tried to jerk away from him, shoving at his shoulders, yanking on his hair, but he just raised his mouth a bit, looked at her straight in her Sherbrooke eyes, and said, his breath hot against her flesh, “Lie down, Meggie. Close your eyes and let yourself enjoy what I’m doing to you. It’s the done thing, just like the tongues. Relax. I’m your husband. This gives me great pleasure. Don’t deny me my pleasure, Meggie.”
“Oh no, oh goodness, but, Thomas—”
“Be quiet,” he said and blew his hot breath against her.
Meggie lurched up and yelled.
He eased a finger inside her and she yelled again, only this time, he knew she’d shoot him if he stopped. Good, he had her now. He pushed her until—“Come now, Meggie. Just let go. Come along, come to me—”
Meggie didn’t understand what was happening to her, but she knew she’d simply shatter into pieces if anything or anyone tried to stop it happening, whatever it was. She was quaking, stuttering she was so frantic, so maddened by the feelings building and building until—she arched her back, fisted her hands in his hair, and screamed to the beamed ceiling.
He pushed her and pushed her until he felt every bit of tension, every frantic need from deep inside her finally quiet, leaving her utterly limp, utterly his. He gave a shout of satisfaction as he came into her hard, deep and deeper still, and she raised her hips, something that nearly sent him right over the edge. No, he wouldn’t leave her this quickly, it wasn’t fair to either of them. Where had she gotten the energy to want him more? Then he looked down at them, saw himself going deeper inside her, and trembled like a tree branch in a high wind.
Those long legs of hers went around his flanks, and she moaned, and he tried, he truly tried to slow himself, to come out of her a bit until he managed to grab on to just a bit of control, but then he just couldn’t, couldn’t do anything but go forward and he did, touching her womb. Her womb, he was part of her. Oh God. Even then he gritted his teeth, trying desperately to hold himself still, not to move even a small little bit, but it did no good. He went right over the edge when she bit his shoulder, then licked where she’d bitten.
He yelled louder than his wife had, then collapsed on top of her.
Meggie, flattened by a very big sweaty male body, didn’t mind a bit. So this was pleasure. She bit his shoulder again, licked it, and grinned. She was astounded. She’d wanted to sing and dance with the champagne, but it was nothing compared to this. Now she wanted to whirl about in a fast waltz, she wanted to stomp her feet to some wild music that the gypsies played. She was filled with energy, with power, and all because of him, because of Thomas, her husband.
“Thank you,” she whispered against his ear, and squeezed her arms around his back.
He was breathing hard,
his face beside hers, and she’d brought him to this.
“I was very good, wasn’t I?” she said, and bit his ear-lobe this time. “Just look at you, my lord, felled like a tree, breathing so hard I fear an attack of apoplexy, and all because I’m me and I did it to you.”
“I’m going to die,” he said finally, tried to bring himself up on his elbow but failing. He fell on her again.
“Perhaps I should give lessons, do you think?”
“Meggie, aren’t you at all tired? Utterly relaxed? Your limbs weak and useless? Your brain ready to nap?”
“I want to dance, Thomas. Waltz with me. Then may we do this again?”
He groaned, and managed to pull himself up on his elbows. He was still inside her, and when he moved, he felt himself harden again. It was amazing. He didn’t want to waltz, oh no. “Meggie, I don’t think we are quite finished yet. Do you mind if we dance a bit later?”
She stared up at him, her head cocked to the side. “I must be truly amazing,” she said, and lifted her hips. She felt him hard now, as hard as he’d been before he’d reached his climax. It felt wonderful. “All right. We will waltz after. Do something, Thomas, please.”
And he did, grinning even as he kissed her mouth, the underside of her breast, her hipbone, the inside of her left knee. He kissed her until she moaned in his mouth, and he thought, You’re mine, not his, just mine. It didn’t take long since he was already far gone. He shuddered and quaked and threw his head back and moaned long and deep. Then when he managed to focus on her face again, he saw that she wasn’t unconscious from pleasure as she should be. He didn’t pause, pulled out of her, took her with his mouth, and sent her right over the edge, again. She didn’t manage a moan or a yell, but just heaved and jerked about like a puppet, then sighed deeply, and reached for him. Before Thomas fell asleep, he brought her close against him, felt her breath against his flesh, knew the instant she was asleep, and he thought, I am really excellent at this. Perhaps even better than my bride. He smiled, knew that Jeremy hadn’t intruded this time, and closed his eyes. He was gone in just under two seconds.
19
Off the coast of southwestern Ireland
Between Cork Harbour and Kinsale
MEGGIE DECIDED SHE loved the Celtic Sea. This morning it looked like the English Channel on a very bad day, a gray raucous day, water whipped up by the wind, tearing and whipping about the boat. Today the sea was as rough and pure and wild as the frigid North Sea that slammed into the rocks near her home Kildrummy Castle in Scotland.
Then, suddenly, a gleaming sliver of sun slid through a sky full of fat gray clouds, knifing into the high waves just ahead of their boat. As for the boat—The Kelpie—it rocked madly, lifted to the top of a wave, then slammed down hard into a deep trough. It was like slicing a knife into bread, fast and deep. Then holding steady, a long pause, as if the boat were holding its breath, then up again, towering on top of the cresting waves.
She’d never experienced anything like this. It was magnificent, exciting, and she loved every instant of it. She thought she’d even go so far as to say that she loved it as much as she’d loved the pleasure she’d wallowed in the previous night. Then, of course, morning had come as it always did, and even though one just wanted to lie there and smile and do nothing at all, except reach for her husband and begin it all again, it wasn’t possible because her husband had been gone. Long gone and it was only six o’clock in the morning, a stormy morning that would have made staying in bed, sipping chocolate, and kissing until her mouth was numb, a very lovely thing indeed.
It was not to be, dammit. And then he was there beside her, looking up at the billowing storm clouds overhead, feeling the harsh sea wind whip his hair around his face.
He said, “We’ll be landing soon in Cork Harbour.”
She had her hand firmly on her bonnet. She turned to see her husband, his dark eyes watering from the sea winds whipping about his head. He looked immensely wonderful, but he had changed again. This wasn’t the man who’d groaned and yelled and kissed her numb the previous night. What was wrong with men? Were they all like this—utterly unpredictable, without a single idea how nice it would be to smile and kiss?
“I hope it storms before we land. I love storms.”
“The horses don’t. They don’t like this pitching about a bit. Add rain to the mix and they would want to stomp until they toppled into the sea.”
“It is a pity that they don’t have thumbs—then they could hang on to something.”
He smiled, remembering how he’d hated to leave her, she’d been so warm and soft, a slight smile playing about her mouth. She’d opened her eyes then, looked at him and saw only him, he knew it, smiled at only him. He’d had to leave her, there was so much to be done.
He said, “Pendragon lies only two hours south, right on the coast, at the end of a short promontory. It was built four centuries ago, a sentinel at the edge of the land to watch for enemies. It was burned by Cromwell because the Kavanaghs refused to surrender, then rebuilt by Charles II.”
“The Kavanaghs?”
“My great-uncle, Rodney Malcombe, my grandfather’s younger brother, bought Pendragon with his inheritance when the Kavanaghs found themselves betrayed by the French toward the end of the last century.”
“Napoleon betrayed them?”
Thomas nodded. “It was a question of turning on their neighbors. It was said that the Kavanaghs would butcher a neighbor’s cattle without thinking twice about it, but they simply would not kill the neighbors’ families. The French made them promises, then broke them. The Kavanaghs took what money my uncle paid for Pendragon and went to the Colonies, to a town called Boston, I believe. Pendragon is a grand old place, Meggie.”
Her eyes were shining with excitement even as the wind whipped her bonnet off her head.
Thomas caught it before it whirled overboard and set it back onto her tangled hair. He lightly patted her cheek, leaned down, and kissed her. “I wish I could have stayed with you this morning,” he said, and kissed her again.
Meggie leaned into him, licked his bottom lip, and he stepped back to tie her ribbons beneath her chin. “It simply won’t do for the earl of Lancaster to make love to his bride on the deck of a pitching boat.”
“Why not?”
“Be quiet, Meggie,” he said, stroked his knuckles over her jaw, and grinned at her. He cleared his throat. “We have our own small harbour where our local fishermen moor their boats. We have a small village, Pendragon, that sports a few small shops for the hundred or so people who live around us. Mostly we ride to Kinsale for supplies, just to the south of us.”
“Pendragon,” she said. “It has taste, that word, the taste of adventure and secrets and old passages that no one knows about.” She rolled the name around in her mouth, said it out loud again. “Pendragon. My cousin Jeremy’s home in Fowey is called Dragon’s Jaw. Isn’t that a marvelous name as well? I so wanted to—well, that’s silly, now isn’t it? No, I wanted to visit Dragon’s Jaw. There are these sharp rocks at the base of the cliff just below the house and thus, its name.”
If Jeremy had magically appeared, Thomas would have hurled him overboard without a second thought. She was thinking about living at his home. He was so angry he wanted to curse the billowing sails down, but he knew he couldn’t, and so he said, “Pendragon is very old. It was once very important. Now it is simply beautiful. Now it simply endures.”
Meggie frowned up at him. “What’s wrong, Thomas? You sound as cold and sharp as my grandmother Lady Lydia who can both slice ham and a witless neighbor with just a single glare. She lives at Northcliffe Hall with my uncle Douglas and aunt Alex. She couldn’t come to our wedding because she was ill. However, given the letter she wrote me, she is very pleased that I married an earl who’s an Englishman, not a dreaded Scot like my uncle Colin. Still, given five minutes she could still find something significant lacking in your character.
“And so don’t you look down that very elegant nose of you
rs at me, just like she does. Don’t forget, my lord, that I gave you remarkable pleasure last night if your grunts and groans are any measure of pleasure, which they are, I know that firsthand.” She gave him a smile that made him want to jump on her and take her down to the deck.
She said, “One would think you would perhaps wish to reminisce a bit, perhaps smile a bit vacantly, but here you are, thin-lipped, and I have no idea why.”
All right. He would forget Jeremy for a moment and his ridiculous house in Fowey. Dragon’s Jaw, a really stupid name, so precious it was nauseating. He didn’t want her to guess that he was beyond jealous. He looked at her, saw the wind had burned her cheeks bright red. He also saw that she was so proud of herself, and now that he thought about it, she had pushed him right over the edge, and he’d happily fallen and fallen yet again, until he wouldn’t have cared if the bloody roof of Squire Billings’s house had come crashing down on his back.
He took her mittened hand and looked toward the distant shore, listened to the wind howl and poor Tim McCulver vomiting over the side of the boat, thankfully downwind.
“Yes,” Meggie said after a moment. “Pendragon—it is a vastly romantic name, just flows off the tongue and makes you shiver with the feel of it—so unlike our home in Scotland—Kildrummy Castle. That is utterly pragmatic and down-to-earth, feet firmly planted. Tell me about it.”
“I much prefer it to Bowden Close. You will see it yourself this afternoon.”
“Where did the name Pendragon come from? Is it named after an ancient Irish warrior?”
“No. My great-uncle changed the name from Belleek Castle to Pendragon. Uther Pendragon wasn’t Irish, he was Celtic or early English, the father of King Arthur. My great-uncle was obsessed with King Arthur. I believe he dreamed of finding Arthur’s burial site on Pendragon land. I heard rumors a couple of years back that North Nightingale, Lord Chilton, had found King Arthur’s sword Excalibur when a cliff wall collapsed into an ancient cave. Probably nonsense, but I would like to meet him someday and ask about it.