“Yes,” he said and raised his face. He had loved the rain since he’d been a small boy, even the grand sheets of rain that had dampened the earth to its core for the past two days. “No,” he said, frowning after a moment, “no rain. I’m told that Mr. Hengis is never wrong. It must have been an errant drop, nothing more.”
“Another errant drop just hit me on the chin.”
“Keep your head down.”
She laughed. “All right, but you see, I don’t want to ruin my beautiful riding hat. Oh yes, Uncle Ryder’s multitudinous bastards. Actually, he does have one natural child, Jenny, whose mother died birthing her. They love each other very much. Jenny is Oliver’s wife, they married this past Christmas. He manages my father’s estate, Kildrummy Castle, in Scotland. Oliver was, if I remember correctly, one of the first children my uncle rescued. If you remain in Glenclose-on-Rowan you will meet them, my lord. Oliver usually comes for a visit in the fall. Hopefully, this fall, both he and Jenny will come.”
“Thomas. That’s my name.”
“Yes, I know, it’s just that I am an unmarried young lady. You know as well as I do that I really shouldn’t use your first name, much less be riding alone with you down country lanes.” She looked up to get some rain in her mouth. “I shall have to tell Mr. Hengis that he must forego his potato sticks since he has blundered. Let’s go to the Martins’ barn that lies just beyond that rise. It’s not much, but it will keep the rain off, if we’re careful where we stand.”
Meggie didn’t wait, just click-clicked Survivor in her sides and said, “Another carrot if you get me inside before all this increasing number of errant drops make my feather collapse under their weight.”
She thought she heard Thomas Malcombe’s laughter from behind her, but she didn’t turn, just smiled as she gave Survivor her head and hugged close to her neck. He had a very nice laugh.
When they reached the barn, Thomas realized that whoever the Martins were who had owned this barn had departed this earth many many years before, probably long before Thomas had been born. Long abandoned, it was small, utterly dilapidated, collapsing in on itself, boards hanging loose, part of the roof caved in—he hoped there would be enough roof overhead for all four of them. The rain was starting to pick up now. He would have a few words for the now-fallible Mr. Hengis.
He watched Meggie dismount, pull Survivor’s reins over her head, and lead the mare into the barn. He eyed it again, hoping the wreck wouldn’t collapse on them.
“I will try to save you, Pen, if something bad happens,” he said to his big black gelding.
Pen whinnied. He was smart. He didn’t want to go into that barn. Thomas couldn’t blame him. It took him a good three minutes to convince the horse that the bloody roof wouldn’t fall in on him. Thomas got a good soaking in the meantime.
Finally, inside the barn, he saw Meggie Sherbrooke and her mare in the one dry corner. Thomas shrugged out of his coat, shook himself like a mongrel, and plowed his fingers through his wet hair. It was a tight fit, but all four of them managed to be covered.
“What are potato sticks?”
“Why, they are Mrs. Bartholomew’s specialty. She, my lord, is your cook.”
“Oh, yes. I call her Morgana.”
“Morgana? She was King Arthur’s sister. Why would you call her that? Mrs. Bartholomew’s name is Agnes, I believe.”
“I call her that because she’s a witch, a witch who, I’m convinced, is trying to poison me. Now, these potato sticks, the ones that Mr. Hengis really likes. If I deprive him of them will it be a fitting punishment for his weather blunder?”
“Oh yes, I promise. He nearly whimpers when he smells Mrs. Bartholomew baking the sticks. Why does she want to poison you?”
“I believe it is my father she wants to poison, but he is dead, so I am the only one available.”
Meggie had been rubbing her arms, but now, she was hugging herself she was laughing so hard. “You’re right. Mrs. Bartholomew did dislike your sire profoundly. How did you know?”
“I heard her in the kitchen one morning when I wanted my tea replenished and Torrent was no where to be found, which happens more often than not. The downstairs maid, Tansie, wasn’t about. I understand she is smitten with Tobin, the butcher’s son. When I got to the kitchen, Morgana was slamming pots around and muttering about the crooked ways of the Devil, the dreadful thickness of demons on the ground. She had a truly amazing litany.”
“I would say she sounds rather upset. Did she say anything else? How do you know she was talking about your father?”
“Well, a number of times she said Old Lord L—that’s what she calls him—then followed that with miserable old bounder, blackguard, stingy coot who deserved to be drawn and quartered. Also, there was something about the hideous fate of the wicked.”
“Hmmm. I wonder what that was all about. Your father was rather clutch-fisted, at least that was his reputation, but he did pay the local tradesmen within the same six months as a purchase. As for your butler Torrent, he is getting old, my lord, and he naps at least a half dozen times a day, just behind the stairs, in a small alcove in his own special chair with three pillows. As for Tansie, she makes quilts, every chance she gets, beautiful quilts from scraps of material. She is very talented. You should look into having her start up a shop of her own. She hides in the small nursery at the top of the house whenever she can to sew. To the best of my knowledge Tobin doesn’t stand a chance with her.”
He could but stare at her. “Do you know everything about everyone in this town?”
“Naturally. I was born and raised here. Now, of course, for the past ten years we go to Scotland for the summer, to Kildrummy Castle. We all love it there. It is wild and barren and then, just half a dozen steps later, you see clumps of white heather, then purple, ah, so many colors, all of them so very brilliant that you want to weep. Have you been to Scotland, my lord?”
“Call me Thomas. Yes, I have been many times to Scotland, to Glasgow for business and up to Inverness to visit friends and to hunt.”
Meggie leaned down to pick up some ancient hay that had probably moldered in the same spot for at least twenty years. She began to rub it over Survivor’s back. Thomas did the same with Pen.
Without warning, Survivor whipped her head around and tried to bite Meggie’s shoulder. Meggie jumped back just in time, tripped on the hem of her riding skirt and went down on her bottom. She was laughing. “Oh, I see the problem now. The straw is too stiff and it is irritating her. Beware, Thomas, Pen might not like it either.”
Pen neighed loudly but didn’t move.
Meggie grinned as she brushed some dirt and straw off her skirt. “Survivor tries to bite you only if you’re grown up, never children.”
Thomas leaned down and clasped her hand. He pulled too hard, and both of them knew it was on purpose. She slammed against him. She’d never before slammed against a man. It was heady, that slamming.
It was too soon, he thought, then just couldn’t help himself. He leaned down his head and kissed her. Not much of a kiss, just a light touching of mouths. She didn’t move, didn’t do anything at all. It took him a moment to realize this must be her first kiss.
Good. No Jeremy. He must have been mistaken about him, which was a relief.
Her first kiss and he’d been the one to give it to her. Slowly he raised his head. She was staring up at him straight on, not blinking. She touched her fingertips to her mouth. Then, finally, she frowned and stepped back.
“How very odd,” she said, as she shook out her damp skirts. “Of course you should not have done that, but no matter. I am only a bit damp now. It is still raining quite hard.”
She watched him plow his fingers through his dark hair, nice and thick that hair, a bit shaggy for popular tastes. “Meggie, you’re right, I shouldn’t have done that, but it was just a kiss, after all, not a mauling or a serious attempt at seduction. I apologize for taking advantage of our situation.” His voice softened and deepened. He couldn’t hel
p the dollop of masculine pride that crept in. “It was your first kiss. I gave you your first kiss.”
“Ha,” Meggie said. “Ha ha. You are mistaken, my lord. I have been kissed many times.”
“Thomas,” he said. “My name is Thomas.”
“Yes, I know your name. Let me tell you, I have kissed so many boys I can scare remember all of them.”
“This was all during your Season last year?”
“Well, no, to be honest about this, and I suppose that I must be honest since my father is the vicar and this business of honesty is quite important to him, all the boys were my dratted cousins. I asked them, you see, when I was thirteen years old, to kiss me. I didn’t ask any of the older ones, only the dratted cousins who were my age or younger.”
“Jeremy was older?”
“Yes, he was much older,” and she thought, no, not Jeremy, never Jeremy. She’d wanted to, more than anything, but she’d known she’d probably sink into a puddle at his feet if he’d kissed her, and her father would have been appalled. Doubtless Jeremy would have been appalled as well. She said, “The older male cousins thought it a great jest, but I ignored them.” Jeremy, she recalled, had laughed his head off. Why had he asked specifically about Jeremy?
“What did you do?”
“I lined up all the dratted boy cousins. Each stepped forward when I called his name and puckered his lips and did it.”
8
HE COULD ONLY stare down at her. She was without guile. She also had an outrageous streak that was a good mile wide. She’d lined up her cousins? “You simply wished to experiment?”
“Well, yes. You see, Max and Leo, my brothers, absolutely refused to kiss me, so they announced that they would judge which cousin kissed the best. But as I think about it now, I think I should have been the judge, not two boys who knew nothing about anything.”
“It makes sense to me. What criteria did Max and Leo use to choose the winner?”
Meggie thought back to that splendid day, at the line of dratted cousins, all of them nervous, afraid, knowing there was a lot on the line here, but each eager. “Hmm. They picked Grayson, my uncle Ryder’s son. But the criteria—they claimed they awarded Grayson on form. But come to think of it, they might have picked Grayson no matter what the contest. You know, Grayson tells marvelous stories—ghost stories, adventure stories, really scary gnarly stories—and he’d told them a hair-raising ghost story just the night before about midnight. It was about this old man whose wife shoved him into a well and left him there to die, but his ghost came after her, did all sorts of gruesome things, and Max and Leo were so scared, so happy, wanting so badly to hear Grayson tell another story, that they didn’t even hesitate. Do you know, they announced Grayson the winner before poor James was barely finished.”
“This is an amazing story,” he said slowly. He tried to remember a single evening in his growing-up years that could possibly have been as delightful as this one. He couldn’t dredge a single one up. Then he remembered Nathan had taught him how to dive into the ocean from the cliff that summer of his tenth year. Nathan, who’d left, joined the army, and died in Spain so many years ago.
He shook this off. “Who is James?” he asked.
“He is my uncle Douglas’s oldest son. He and Jason are twins, born only about thirty minutes apart. James will be the earl of Northcliffe someday. Did you know that they are quite the most beautiful young men in the world?”
“No, I didn’t know. They weren’t beautiful then? You weren’t infatuated with one of them when you were younger?”
“Oh no. Both of them have very bad habits. I was always trying to make them better. Now it will be up to their wives to improve upon them, if they ever marry, that is. My uncle Douglas always despaired for their characters since they are so beautiful. In all fairness to other males, though, it’s really unfortunate that today they are quite unspoiled—only male sorts of bad habits that one simply cannot eradicate—but in their hearts, they are not rotten at all.”
“Not rotten at all?”
“No more rotten now than any of their contemporaries. You know, they curse and brag and steal their father’s brandy, run races at midnight and nearly break their necks, lay wagers on who can spit the farthest, that sort of thing. They don’t gamble or get sent down from Oxford or seduce local girls.”
Thomas doubted that last sincerely. They were young men. That was what young men did, rotten or not. Hopefully, they really had outgrown the worst of it. “May I kiss you again?”
“Whyever for?”
He said slowly, even as he lowered his head, “I want to see if you compare me favorably to your cousins.”
“But that was a long time ago and we were all children and—”
He kissed her. This time it wasn’t just touching mouth to mouth. This time there was a bit of pressure, a bit more coaxing, and lots of warmth. His hands were on her arms, slowly bringing her closer. Then he opened his mouth.
He actually opened his mouth, Meggie thought, appalled, like he was going to speak or eat his dinner or butcher a high note like that Milanese soprano.
She felt his tongue lightly pressing against her lips, but she kept her mouth shut. Meggie blinked up at him. His eyes weren’t closed. When he saw the shock in her eyes, he drew back.
She didn’t jump back or slap him. She simply stood there, looking thoughtful, staring up at him. Finally she said, “That was very strange. Since you have lived outside England for a very long time, perhaps you have forgotten English customs, my lord. That, I am quite certain, cannot be one of them. You opened your mouth, you touched your tongue to my lower lip, my upper lip as well, and you sort of licked me. Surely that isn’t done here in England, only in some foreign country where there is permission to explore shameless sorts of things.”
He had to smile. “Actually, Meggie, I swear to you it is the done thing.”
He saw that she wasn’t quite ready to accept that. She said, “So it is the done thing where you have lived all these years? Did someone instruct you to do this where you were brought up? Where you grew into manhood?”
“Oh yes, but instruction really isn’t necessary. Well, perhaps some instruction would be helpful to some young men. What is necessary is practice, a great deal of it, although by its very nature, there is a lot of built-in practice involved in the process.”
“What process?”
“The lovemaking process. Kissing simply sets the whole business off.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, it is done all the time. It is even done in China.” He was lightly stroking his hands up and down her arms. The velvet riding habit was still a bit damp. “Actually, Meggie, there is something that you need to know since you are now a woman.”
“What is that?”
“It is even done here in England.”
“You are certain about this? This tongue business?”
“Oh yes.”
“Really in China as well as in England?”
“Oh yes.”
And she realized: Then Jeremy must do this to Charlotte. He opens his mouth when he kisses her. Does she open her mouth as well? No, no, don’t think about that.
“Did you find it distasteful?”
Meggie thought about that a moment, considered it. Her forehead was furrowed, and she chewed on her bottom lip. He wanted to touch his fingertip to her bottom lip, perhaps stroke her bottom lip with his tongue.
“No, it wasn’t distasteful, just very curious. Goodness, I wonder if my father and Mary Rose do that.”
She looked utterly appalled as she said the words, looked as though she’d give anything to take the words back, to take back the fact that she’d even thought of it. Again, he held back a laugh, and said, “I am not so deranged to comment on the marital habits of a vicar and his wife.”
“You’re right. I shouldn’t either.” Meggie sighed. “Is that a sliver of weak sun?”
“It is. And look, it is no longer raining.”
She didn’t k
now whether to be pleased or disappointed. This had been a very strange morning.
“I wonder,” she said, “if Max and Leo would judge you to be the kissing winner now.”
“Yes,” he said, “they most certainly would.”
She laughed, but it wasn’t full and delighted, it was reedy and wary because she was thinking about his mouth against hers, about feeling him against her as well, his big hands stroking her, and it was as frightening as it was fascinating.
He looked at her upturned face and thought, Well, I’ve taught you something and it both worries and interests you. It’s a good start.
He said easily, “You see, to ensure that they would select me the winner, I would tell them an excellent story about scaly fire-breathing dragons and the witless knights who had nothing better to do than track them to their caves.”
“I fear Max and Leo are no longer bribed with good stories. Actually, I’m not sure what would sway them now. They are young men and I simply no longer know. The problem is the male brain—it is wholly mysterious and unpredictable. It’s rather like a mass of confusion in your head.” She sighed then. “I really did my best raising them. Max is going to be a vicar, like Papa, so he can’t be too wicked, can he?”
“Oh no. So you’re telling me that you raised your brothers?”
“Oh yes, at least until my father married Mary Rose. I was ten and a good-sized girl, lots bigger and stronger than they were. I could pound them whenever they needed it, which was quite often, being that they were boys, and had no sense at all. Yes, they required a great deal of discipline, and a vigilant eye. Leo was the prankster. I’ll never forget the time he cut a strip out of the back of my gown. I threw him in the bushes for that stunt.”
He laughed. He realized he’d laughed more since he’d met her than in a very long time.
They led their horses out of the barn. Pen whinnied, delighted to have escaped, hide intact. Leaves dripped water, the ground was spongy. He gave her a leg up, saying as she smoothed her skirts over her legs, “I hear from Dr. Dreyfus that Rory will be up to all sorts of mischief by the end of the week.”