“Well, of course. I wouldn’t have married you otherwise. Would you ever, Thomas, let someone else accept the consequences for something you did?”
He said, his voice still deep and slow, “No, I don’t believe I would ever do that.”
“He doesn’t know that I know what he did to you? To Melissa Winters?”
Thomas shook his head.
“Who hit me?”
He sighed. “I don’t know. Everyone claims to have been sleeping until the storm started last night. Everyone also claims to have woken up when the lightning and thunder struck and the rain started coming down in torrents. It was so heavy, a couple of windowpanes were blown in. No one heard anything at all. What would you expect, Meggie?”
“Why would someone want to hurt me, Thomas?”
There it was, stark and clear, in the open, heavy and frightening, deadening the air between them.
Thomas rose from her bed and began pacing the White Room. He looked back to see his bride sitting up, white covers pulled to her waist, a white nightgown spilling lovely lace from her shoulders, and a white bandage around her head. And she was in the middle of a stark white room. He shook his head. “You look like a virgin who protesteth too much.”
It took her an instant to understand him, and then she laughed, raising a hand to hold her head because laughing made it hurt. “Too much virginal white, I guess you mean. The good Lord knows I’m not a virgin anymore. Did I tell you that I’m pleased not being a virgin anymore, Thomas, in fact—” She paused a moment, and he knew, just knew all the way to his boots, that she was thinking about him kissing her, probably on top of her, going wild, and he shook with it.
“Don’t look at me like that, Meggie. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Oh, you mean my head.”
“Yes.” He was as hard as the heavy door latch, but he grinned, just couldn’t help himself. “Yes, I mean your head.” It seemed as every day passed, he had to simply think of her and he wanted her. It was unnerving, particularly now. And mixed with that lust he felt just thinking her name, just seeing that vivid hair of hers in his mind’s eye, mixed with that was the fact that someone in the dark of night had sneaked into the White Room and hit her on the head.
And he had no idea who it was.
He said, wanting it to be true, willing it to be true just by saying the words, “It has to be someone from outside, Meggie. Someone who doesn’t like me, someone who wants revenge, someone who’s lived here and knows Pendragon, how to get in and how to get out again.”
“Do you have any ideas about who it could be?”
“I’ve thought and thought about it, but no, I really can’t think of anyone. But that’s not saying much. Every old castle has shadows, mysteries, if you will, things hidden for a very long time, but—” He shrugged, then there was a fierce look in those dark eyes of his. “I won’t let anything else happen to you, Meggie, I swear it.”
“If you had slept with me, Thomas, maybe you would have been the one hurt, maybe the person who did this believed we did sleep in here together. Maybe you were the one he was after. Oh dear, I want you safe, Thomas. All right, here it is. I’ve decided that I want you to continue to sleep in your bedchamber and I will lock the door between our rooms. That way no one can get to you.”
He felt intense pleasure flow through him as he said very matter-of-factly, “Don’t be an idiot, Meggie. The person hit you, not me. It was your bedchamber, not mine. I dare say that that person now knows that you were quite alone. No, Meggie, we will sleep together, but we will make certain the doors are locked.” He cocked his head to her, swallowed as he said, “I am considering sleeping on top of you to further protect you.”
“Oh my.”
He swallowed again, cleared his throat, mumbled under his breath, “Sorry, forget I said that. Now isn’t the time.”
That was a pity. “Maybe,” Meggie said, wrapping her arms around her knees, unable to get that image out of her mind, “just maybe there are some secret passages in this wonderful old place. What do you think? Are there any you know about?”
Thomas plowed his fingers through his hair, making it stand on end. For an instant she was sure he looked frightened. “No, no,” he said at last. “There have been rumors about passages, my uncle occasionally whispered about them, but I’ve never actually seen one.”
“Your mother doesn’t particularly seem enthralled with me. You have my dowry and maybe she thinks I’m no longer necessary. Then there’s William. Maybe he’s found out that I know what he did to Melissa Winters, maybe—”
“My mother is eccentric, that’s for certain, but to the best of my knowledge she wouldn’t even kill my father, and she hated him more than one can imagine. As for William, I can’t imagine he would care if all of Cork and Kinsale knew he was a little lecher. Why would he care if you knew or not?”
Meggie sighed. “I wish to get up now, Thomas. I’m bored and my head hurts only a bit. Also, someone could simply open the bedchamber door, take one step inside, and shoot me. I’m rather helpless here, amidst all this virginal white.”
His eyes nearly crossed. God, he wanted her, right now, and he didn’t want to leave her, he wanted to pump into her, deeper and deeper and yell his pleasure to the rafters of this drafty old castle and fill her with his seed. And lie on top of her, to protect her. He was in a bad way and he knew it. And she didn’t. It was amazing. He said, “No one is going to come in here and shoot you, all this white or no.” Then, because he just couldn’t help himself, he said, “By God, you look delicious.”
This was interesting and she gave him what she believed to be a very warm smile, one filled with the promise of wicked things.
He didn’t move a muscle.
He was being noble, bless him. Truth be told, her particular place in the world didn’t feel all that steady right now. She realized she was scared, but she wasn’t about to say that out loud. She said, “I’m getting up now.”
He looked like he would protest, then shook his head, at himself, not at her. “I’ll send Alvy to you.” And he was gone. Guilt had driven him away, of that she was certain. He didn’t want to take a chance of hurting her head anymore. Yes, he wanted her and now that Meggie knew what this wanting was all about, she wished he would come back. He could leave her aching head to her. She smiled as she swung her legs over the side of that stark white bed. Yes, she was quite certain his eyes had become glazed, fixed on her face. She wondered if she were the first of all the cousins to make love, then frowned. All her dratted cousins were boys, and outrageous, just like their fathers, even her brothers, Max and Leo, seemed to know things, yes, even Max the Latin scholar. She’d seen him speaking to Leo just a couple of months ago, there had been this fixed smile on his face, really a rather stupid smile, and she hadn’t understood then. Now she did. She’d worn that stupid smile a couple of times now; she’d seen it in the mirror.
Ah, marital sorts of things were all well and good, but when all was said and done, when everything was right there, ready to smack her in the face, what was important was that someone had hit her on her head. As he’d said, an old place like Pendragon was filled with secrets, with mysteries. It was up to her to discover if any of them had come out of hiding and didn’t like seeing her as the countess sleeping in the White Room.
Meggie began pacing her bedchamber, her white nightgown disappearing amongst all the other white, the only thing keeping her set apart from the furnishings was the flapping gown at her ankles as she paced.
His mother, Meggie thought. She had to be the keeper of Pendragon secrets. Madeleine, who didn’t like her and didn’t bother to hide it. Madeleine, who wrote journals in both French and English. Why not beard the lioness in her den?
Was his mother mad?
She was becoming hysterical, just like Maude Freeberry, whose wails could be heard every third night throughout Glenclose-on-Rowan when her husband stumbled home drunk.
Well, if Madeleine wasn’t mad, she certainly w
as unpleasant, and perhaps, just perhaps—
“Why,” Meggie said aloud to the empty white room, stripping off her virginal white nightgown, “is Aunt Libby living here at Pendragon?”
Two hours later, after taking a very brief walk on Barnacle’s back, each step accompanied by groans and complaints and sighs, Meggie found Madeleine in her bedchamber, penning in her journal. She wondered if she was in a French mood or an English mood today.
“My lady,” Meggie said from the door, then stepped into the room. It wasn’t like any other room she’d seen at Pendragon. The room looked as fine as a London salon. It was large and airy, furnished in the Egyptian style, out-of-date, but distinctive and quite interesting, what with the sphinx feet on the sofas and the bird claws on the arms. Her mother-in-law sat behind a lovely antique ladies’ writing desk, perfectly positioned to get most of the sunlight coming through the very clean windows.
Madeleine was chewing on the end of her pen. She said, “Oh? It’s you, is it? Well, come in, don’t dawdle. You don’t look at all ill. Thomas said someone hit you on the head. I see no sign of it. I dare say that a real lady who’d been struck would be lying in her bed, pale as death.”
“Sorry. If I’d realized you needed some proof, I wouldn’t have taken off the bandage.”
“You’ve a very smart mouth, don’t you? It’s a pity. Mrs. Black told me that you had six women hired from Kinsale to come to Pendragon to clean. What is this all about?”
“I would have told you myself, ma’am, but someone hit me on the head last night and I was a bit fuzzy for a while. I’m fine now.”
“I think you’re the sort of girl who demands attention, and when she doesn’t receive the attention she believes she deserves, she enacts a scene.”
Meggie struck a pose, said, “Now why didn’t I think of that?”
“You might amuse my son on rare occasion, miss, but you don’t amuse me.”
“Actually, I’m a Mrs. Actually, I’m a countess. Come to think of it, I’m even a ‘my lady.’ Even more to think about—I would precede you at an official function. What do you think of that?”
“Not much.”
Meggie sighed and said slowly, looking at her mother-in-law dead on, “You asked what this is all about. It’s quite simple and straightforward. I want Pendragon to be clean. I want the foundation of the castle to shudder from all the cleanliness, the smell of lemon wax, the smell of plain soap. I want Pendragon to sparkle just like your room sparkles. I want all the windows so clean they squeak to the touch, just like I’m sure your windows do. I want to destroy all those dirty old draperies that are frayed and have moth holes in them and let the sun shine into all the rooms. I want that ancient chandelier in the entrance hall to glitter. I want no more dust flying around when one walks on the carpets.”
“You want too much. It is absurd.”
“Why, may I ask, ma’am, is your room so lovely and the rest of Pendragon sporting dirt from the last century?” Hmmm, she wasn’t treating Thomas’s mother with much solicitude, but blessed hell, this was beyond too much. The dollop of sarcasm tasted good. The woman seemed to hate her anyway, no matter if she snarled or smiled. It made no sense.
Madeleine said, holding the black pen in her hand as if she wished it were a stiletto, “I want Pendragon to remain just the way it is. Be quiet and stay in your room. Wrap the bandage around your head again. Take to your bed and stay there, perhaps a week should do it.”
“Do what?”
Madeleine only shrugged.
Meggie said, “Pendragon is a beautiful old castle. It deserves to be cared for. I am now mistress here. It will be beautiful once again, just like your room.”
“There is little sun. It won’t matter.”
“It seems to matter to you, at least in here. Please tell me, ma’am, what is going on here?”
Madeleine looked up for a moment, her eyes focused not on the present, but somewhere in the past, and they weren’t good memories. She said at last, “I like the two heads of the coin—one light, the other dark. It is alternately satisfying and mysterious.”
“Or perhaps you mean a Janus head?”
Madeleine merely cocked her head to one side. Her black hair with its rich white strands was very shiny today. She looked lovely. Hers was the cast from which Thomas’s face was molded, except, Meggie believed, his face more pure, the lines more stark, more finely chiseled. There was no wildness in his dark eyes, except when he was kissing her.
“No,” Madeleine said, shaking her head. “Not Janus. A Janus head has two faces—one evil, one good. But with light and darkness, there is both good and evil in both, don’t you think?”
“Things are never that simple, ma’am.”
“Naturally they are. No, I don’t wish there to be evil at Pendragon, but evil comes in all shapes and forms, doesn’t it? No, I wish to have both light and darkness and I have achieved it. Leave things alone.”
Meggie sighed and sat down on a spindle-legged chair from early in this new century, one with what looked like lion’s paws with long toenails filed to sharp points, and said slowly, “No, I will not leave things as they are. Pendragon is now my responsibility and I won’t let it continue to molder. If you do not wish to help me, I pray you will keep still. I do not wish Thomas to be at odds with his mother.”
“He would be at odds with you, not me.”
“The women,” Meggie said, looking out those crystal-clear windows onto lush gardens beyond that were badly in need of a gardener, “are working well. Men will come in to rehang the chandelier. All the draperies will be replaced as well as most of the furnishings. Pendragon will look like it did three hundred years ago right after it was rebuilt, only better. It will be done.”
“I have but to tell Mrs. Black to send them back to the village”—Madeleine snapped her fingers—“and it will be done.”
Just you try it, Meggie wanted to tell her, but instead, she said with all goodwill and exquisite calm, “Mrs. Black is very happy that Pendragon is being tidied up, those were her words. She may be almost blind, but I fancy she’s smelled the neglect, felt it with her housekeeper’s special touch. She has even given her own cleaning solutions to everyone. She’s supervising all the help with a fine eye, albeit a blind one.”
“Someone should stop you.”
Meggie said, “Someone tried last night. Are you really certain it wasn’t you, ma’am?”
“No, I was sleeping, dreaming beautiful dreams. Actually, Lord Kipper was in one of them.”
Meggie wasn’t about to touch that, at least not now. She said, “Your son wanted me to marry him. He didn’t know my dowry was so magnificent until he actually spoke to my father when he asked for my hand.”
“Men, including my son, always manage to sniff these things out. That’s exactly what he did—married you to get his hands on all that lovely money of yours. And now he has it. What are you saying, Miss—Mrs.? You now want to accuse my son of hitting you on the head in the middle of the night so he can be rid of you since he now has your dowry?”
“Oh no. There is one thing I am very sure of. Thomas is as honorable as my father, as are my uncles. I would never have married him otherwise. No, ma’am. Your son will protect me. He cares for me.” Not love, Meggie thought, he hadn’t yet said a word about love. On the other hand, she hadn’t either. She said, “I have come to realize that there is a lot going on here that I don’t understand. Perhaps after you dreamed of Lord Kipper, you moved along to dream you struck me on the head last night? You perhaps dreamed it was you who tried to stop me?”
“I don’t want you dead, you little idiot, either dreaming or awake. There weren’t any dreams after Lord Kipper. You’re a fool, Meggie Sherbrooke.”
“My name is Meggie Malcombe. Goodness, I hadn’t thought about the alliteration before. It sounds rather nice to say, doesn’t it? Just imagine, I’m now Meggie Malcombe.”
“No, it sounds ridiculous.”
“Let’s just say that you did
indeed dream that you hit me. Tell me then, why would you want to hurt me? To make me less foolish?”
“If I had hit you, I would have done it right. I have no idea who struck you. It was probably Mrs. Black. I told you she wants things left the way they are. Aye, she’s the one who wants to stop you in your tracks.”
What did that mean, she would have done it right? Madeleine would have hit her hard enough to kill her?
“Go away. This is none of your affair.”
“I don’t wish to die, ma’am.”
“Then keep your nose out of things that aren’t your business. Are you with child yet?”
That made Meggie nearly fall out of her chair. “I have no idea. We’ve been married for a very short time.”
“You knew my son for at least three months before your married him.”
That was a shocker. Meggie said slowly, “Thomas is a gentleman. He would never seduce me before we were married.”
“Well, my son needs an heir now that he is the earl of Lancaster. If he passes without an heir, why then, William would take his place. I cannot stomach that. Prove you are worth something, and see to it.”
“William,” Meggie said slowly, “Libby is his mother. I don’t understand this, ma’am. Did the earl of Lancaster divorce both his wives?”
“Yes, the foul wretch. There was a terrifying sickness in his brain. He desperately wanted a wife who would be loyal to him. I was as loyal as a tick, but it didn’t matter. This sickness ate at him, you see, and he became utterly convinced that I had deceived him. Then he married Libby and it began all over again.” Madeleine snorted. “I suppose we are lucky—the old bastard might have married and divorced a third wife and all of us would be here, sharing tea.”
“I have never heard of such a sickness.”
“I was told that his mother deceived his father and no one was certain that he was indeed his father’s son. It corroded his soul. I would have been strong enough to have overcome this, but he wasn’t. You cannot imagine the thousands of pounds he spent—mainly bribes, you know—to secure both divorces. All those lords laughed at him behind his back as they stuffed his groats in their pockets. Now, you’ve seen William. Although I am quite fond of Libby, her son is quite paltry. He would make a very bad earl of Lancaster and master of Pendragon.”