Pendragon (Sherbrooke Brides 7)

“He saved your son’s life.”

“For that I owe him a debt that will never be repaid. However, I do not owe him my daughter.”

Meggie knew something bad was coming, she just knew it. She drew herself up. “I’m ready, Papa. Tell me.”

“As you know, Melissa Winters left last Thursday for an extended visit with her grandmother in Bury St. Edmonds. You know that, but not the reason for her leaving. I didn’t want to tell you this, I didn’t want to tell anyone this, and it is a confidence. I ask that you not betray it to anyone, even Mary Rose. Evidently Thomas Malcombe was in London before he came here. He met Melissa there. She was staying with her aunt and attending parties and such, sort of an informal come-out for her. There’s no easy way to say this, Meggie—he seduced her and got her with child. You and I and Melissa’s parents are now the only ones to know. And Lord Lancaster, of course.”

Meggie said slowly, “Thomas didn’t tell me he was in London before he came here.”

“He was. I asked. Because he wants to marry you, it was my responsibility to ask, to find out everything I could about him. Mr. Winters heard, of course, that you were to wed Thomas Malcombe. He searched me out. He told me about this, in confidence, just this morning. It was obvious he didn’t want to tell me, Meggie, but he has great liking for you and didn’t want you to be hurt.”

There was fire in her eyes as she said the fateful words he would have given anything not to hear, ever, “I don’t believe it. Melissa is lying. She wanted him. I know that Thomas must have rejected her, and thus this is her revenge. I know that Melissa—to punish Thomas—was intimate with another man, to make him jealous, perhaps, and this is the result. I am sorry for it, but Thomas is innocent. Papa, if Melissa were truly pregnant with his child, then why wouldn’t Thomas marry her?”

“You are not näive, Meggie. You must know that Melissa’s birth isn’t high enough to tempt a man like Lord Lancaster, nor is her dowry an incentive to overlook her birth. Even though her mother is the daughter of a baron, her father is in trade. In short, there is nothing to induce Thomas Malcombe to tie himself forever to the Winters family.”

She was shaking her head, back and forth. “I am convinced that Thomas wouldn’t behave dishonorably, Papa. Truly, he is all that is kind and honest and—”

“Thomas Malcombe paid Melissa’s parents for the care of the child. Her father, although he was reluctant to do so, told me this. I have no reason to disbelieve Mr. Winters, Meggie. His pain over this was palpable. He tried his best to convince Thomas Malcombe to marry his daughter, but he wouldn’t do it.”

He watched her face pale, the light of battle fade from her eyes. He hated it, but now it was done.

“Oh dear,” Meggie whispered, “Oh dear.”

“I believe,” her father said, lightly touching her fingertips to her smooth check, “that now is an appropriate time for you to say blessed hell.”

Meggie just shook her head, pulled off her bonnet, and dashed her fingers through her hair, shining more blond than brown beneath the morning sun. There had been Jeremy, and she’d been sure her heart would never recover from that stomping. Then, thankfully, she’d seen Jeremy as a fatuous, self-aggrandizing clod, so superior to womankind, who would likely make Charlotte’s life miserable, something she probably richly deserved, unless she was a doormat and she’d met the ideal mate for her.

And then Thomas had come along, and she’d realized that here was indeed a man she could admire, a man who admired her, who didn’t denigrate her, who teased her and made her happy. The soul-eating melancholia that had pulled her down for nearly a year had vanished. She’d felt so very blessed for nearly a week. Six full days, no black clouds in the vicinity. And now this. She was cursed.

“Mary Rose and I would like you to visit Aunt Sinjun and Uncle Colin in Scotland.”

She turned on him, bitterness overflowing. “Won’t everyone think I’m pregnant?”

He hated the hurt in her, knew that rage would come, and he wished with all his heart that it didn’t have to be like this. “I’m sorry, Meggie, but there are men in this world who are simply not worthy. I am so very sorry that you had to meet one of them, trust one of them.”

Meggie felt pounded, felt the words hollowing her out, leaving her empty with only the bowing pain to fill her. She said as she slowly rose and shook out her skirts, “You know I must speak to Thomas, Papa. I must hear this from him.”

“Yes, Meggie, I know you must.”

“I will know the truth when I hear him speak.”

“I hope that you will.”

Meggie had turned away when he felt a sudden shaft of alarm, and called after her, “Do not go to a private spot with him, Meggie. I wish you wouldn’t go to Bowden Close without a chaperone, but I know that you feel you must. So be mindful. Do you promise me?”

“Yes,” Meggie said. “I promise.” She wasn’t about to tell him that she’d visited Thomas at his home alone before. She walked away, her head down, deep in thought. She wasn’t aware that her father was watching her, pain in his eyes for the pain he’d had to give her.

Tysen rose from the bench, stared down at Sir Vincent’s tombstone, and wondered what Sir Vincent D’Egle, that

medieval warrior, would have done to Thomas Malcombe if Meggie had been his daughter. Probably lop off his head.

All Meggie could think about as she strode to Bowden Close was that she’d been wrong about him, that Thomas had fathered a child, that he’d professed to care for her when just a couple of months before he’d been intimate with another girl and fathered a child. That, Meggie knew, meant intimacy and that meant they’d caressed and kissed each other. Meggie stopped short. She touched her fingertips to the velvet of a blooming rose that climbed the wrought-iron fence that surrounded the cemetery. She knew in that moment that there was an explanation that would absolve him. She wanted that explanation and she wanted it pure and clean and straightforward, with no questions, no doubts, left behind.

12

Bowden Close

THOMAS WAS SMILING even before Meggie slipped into his library. It wasn’t at all proper that she came in through that old garden gate, but they would soon be married. Soon he would no longer have to concern himself with the vicar’s daughter bending society’s rules. It wouldn’t matter. That thought pleased him mightily.