“Mrs. Black is nearly blind, not I. I was hoping that you would notice and wish to take a hand in fixing things. There is enough money to make any reparations you wish to. I have already done quite a bit of work on our tenant cottages and outbuildings. You have but to ask Paddy, my steward, and he will see to it. He will be about this afternoon. I ask only that you tread diplomatically around my mother and all the servants. Change is usually very difficult for people.”
Meggie nodded. “Maybe your mother believed there wasn’t enough money and that was why she didn’t do anything.”
Thomas raised an eyebrow to that. “You’re kind to make that excuse, Meggie. However, as you know, cleaning really doesn’t require much money. No, she merely doesn’t care. She has always hated Pendragon. Her home was Bowden Close. I imagine that she might want to go live there now that it belongs to me. She spends all her time producing endless journals, recording all her woes in both English and French.”
“You have read her journals?”
“No, that would be abusing her privacy. She speaks of them quite freely, reads them during tea. No matter she doesn’t like you, she will still see you as fresh ears and insist upon reading to you in the evenings. If you wish to escape, you will wink at me or roll your eyes in a discreet manner. You understand?”
Meggie nodded.
“Why doesn’t she like me, Thomas?”
“She truly believes I’m too young to be wed. She’s afraid I’ve inherited some of my father’s more dreadful propensities. She told me last night that she’d prayed I’d spend more time in Italy. There are mistresses to be had there, no need to take a wife to relieve my man’s lust. Yes, my age is too tender, too easily hurt by a conscienceless woman. She will get over it, Meggie. Don’t worry.”
Easy for you to say, Meggie thought.
They came to the end of the promontory, and Meggie looked out, speechless, over the Irish Sea and the magnificent coastline, rugged hunks of land chipped inward or thrusting out like long fingers into the sea, the shore lined with scored and barren rocks.
She slipped off Aisling’s back, shook out her riding skirts, and made her way to the edge. The water sparkled beneath the morning sun. It was very calm, low tide, the waves collapsing gently against the dirty sand, fanning out, then easing back again to be swallowed into the next wave. She became aware that Thomas was looking at her. She turned slowly, feeling him close to her, feeling the pull of him, the pull she’d felt when she’d first met him, even though her mind had been full of Jeremy. Jeremy, now at Dragon’s Jaws with his pregnant wife. No, she wouldn’t think about either of them.
“Thomas,” she said.
He crossed the distance between them in an instant and pulled her up against him. The wind was mild, but still it plastered her riding skirts to her legs.
He didn’t kiss her, just held her and looked down at her. “You’re so bloody innocent.”
“Well, yes. Could you expect much else given my father is a vicar?”
He kissed the tip of her nose and pulled her about so she leaned her back against him. She loved the feel of him, the strength, the heat. She’d never really thought about the heat of men, but now she did, and those wicked thoughts heated her as well.
She said slowly, feeling his arms cross over her chest, pulling her closer to him, “Can I trust you, Thomas?”
His arms tightened. He rested his chin on top of her head for a moment, said without hesitation, “Yes.”
She said, her voice clear and calm, “You can trust me too, Thomas.”
“Meggie—”
She turned then and lightly touched her fingertips to his jaw, to his lips. “It’s all right. I made vows before God, as did you. I keep my promises, Thomas. You are my husband. I will be with you until the day I die. I will never leave you. I haven’t made you laugh in a while. I will work on that. You have a beautiful smile. It pleases me to see it.”
“A beautiful smile?” She wouldn’t leave him and he had her loyalty. It wasn’t enough, dammit.
“Oh yes.”
He looked away, but not before she saw something flash in those eyes of his, something she couldn’t begin to understand.
And, at the very bottom of things, she knew she didn’t know him very well at all.
She pulled away and looked back toward Pendragon, a magnificent heap of gray stone fashioned into a lasting structure that was more a castle than not. It was big, overpowering, it would surely make an enemy pause, and they had held Cromwell off the first time. Yes, Pendragon dominated everything around it, including nature, and it was, she thought, watching a dark cloud chase across it, menacing. It had secrets, perhaps even secret passages. One could only hope. She shivered, but she was smiling.
Meggie lay in her bed, wide-awake. Thomas had loved her, then leaned over her and said, “I think I want to sleep in my own bed tonight. Good night.”
And he’d kissed her mouth one last time and left her.
There was moonlight spilling in through the windows, and it was beautiful. It was also frightening, that moonlight. It cast strange shadows on all those white walls.
Why had he changed his mind? He’d made love with her, and she’d felt flooded with pleasure and with something that was deeper, something that made her want to cry with the power of it. She’d thought he’d felt the same things. Evidently not.