Pendragon (11 page)

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

T
HOMAS 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.

Her hair was mussed, as if she'd been fretting about something and had yanked on it, her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes, so expressive, bright and vivid, so filled with what she felt—oh God, something was wrong. It was like a punch to the gut.

He was around his desk in an instant, his hands around her arms but a moment later, and he was actually shaking her. “What the devil is wrong? What happened? Did someone hurt you?”

She looked up at him and said, without preamble, “My father told me about Melissa Winters.”

A dark eyebrow went up, making him look like a satyr, emphasizing the arrogant tilt of his head, the go-to-the-devil look. His hands dropped away, his voice was suddenly colder than the Channel waters in February. “Your father, my dear, shouldn't meddle.”

Meggie sent her fist as hard as she could into his belly. He'd had an instant to tighten his stomach muscles before her fist landed hard and his breath
whooshed
out. At least the punch didn't bowl him over. He grabbed her wrist before she could hit him again.

“That hurt,” he said.

Meggie tried to pull away, but he held her wrist tightly. She was panting even as she shouted at him, “I'm glad it hurt. Let me go and I'll do it again!”

He grabbed her other wrist and shook her. “Dammit, Meggie, what the devil is wrong with you?”

“Thomas Malcombe, don't you dare pretend that you're bored by all this, that you're indifferent to it, that you have no idea what I'm talking about, what I'm enraged about. Lower that supercilious eyebrow. Listen to me, Thomas, my father is the vicar. It is my father's duty to meddle, particularly since you wish to be his son-in-law. He wants to protect me.”

“All right, now it's my turn to be angry. No, don't try to get away from me. I'm going to hold you awhile longer, there's still too much blood in your eyes. Now, your damned father should not have sullied your ears with this. It has nothing at all to do with you, Meggie, nothing at all. Melissa was a mistake, a very bad one, admittedly, but your father should not have told you about it.”

“The mistake, as you so indifferently call it, has cost Melissa dearly. Now there will be a child to live with the consequences of that mistake.”

He released her, walked over to the sideboard, and poured himself some brandy. She'd seen his indifferent act, then seen the anger gushing out, and now he was the controlled gentleman again. She watched him sip the brandy before he turned back to her. “I am sorry for it,” he said, all calm and smooth, “but it happened and I couldn't prevent it from happening. If I'd known, I would have stopped it, but I didn't know.”

All his male beauty disappeared in that instant, all his charm with it. Jeremy was an insufferable moron, but Thomas was worse by far. He was treacherous. She was
appalled both at herself for her lack of wisdom, and at him, for his indifference, his utter lack of remorse for what he'd done. Her own anger, her outrage at what he'd done, was fast drowning out her pain at his betrayal. “You couldn't prevent it from happening? If you had known what? Are you mad?”

“No, I'm not in the least mad. Won't you sit down, Meggie?” His hand was shaking. He hated that. Even as he waved her toward a chair, he moved quickly behind his desk.

“I don't want to sit down,” she said, strode to his desk, leaned toward him, splaying her hands flat. “I want you to tell me why you couldn't prevent this mess from occurring. Surely you aren't going to blame Melissa for all of it? She seduced you? She, woman of the world that she is, forced you to be intimate with her? Blessed hell, Thomas, please don't tell me that.”

He remained standing behind his desk, leaned forward as well, his own palms flat on the desktop, his face not six inches from hers. He said slowly, “No, I won't tell you that. You haven't known me long, Meggie, but I had believed that you'd come to trust me. I gather your father told you that I am paying for the upbringing of Melissa's child.”

“Yes.”

“I told you I had no control. I meant it. You see, I didn't know what William had done until it was far too late. Hell, I didn't even know he was in town.”

Meggie drew back, now standing ramrod straight. “William? Who the devil is William?”

“My younger brother, my half brother, actually. He is at Oxford. However, four months ago, he was in London, as I said, unbeknownst to me at the time. He and several of his friends decided to experiment with sin—whores and gaming hells. He did, unfortunately, attend one party, met Melissa, and things progressed rapidly from there.” He frowned at her, then the frown deepened as he stared beyond her to the enclosed garden. “You believed I was the one to impregnate Melissa Winters.”

“Yes, I did. That is what my father told me.”

“I did not. She is a child, a silly foolish girl.”

“We are the same age.”

“Only in years, Meggie, only in years. William didn't admit it to me until Melissa's father arrived here at Bowden Close to call me a philandering bastard. Of course, then I managed to figure out what must have happened.”

William. It was William, his half brother, and she hadn't even known he'd existed.

It wasn't Thomas.

Meggie felt the sun break over her head. The explanation—it had burst forth and it was clean and pure with no murky gray to muck things up. She felt such relief, such profound joy, she wanted to shout. She said, “How old is William?”

“He's twenty-one, much younger for a male than it is for a female. Using myself as a measuring stick, I have determined that youth tends to encourage stupid behavior. Haven't you done foolish things, Meggie?”

“Yes,” she said without hesitation, “but I have never searched out a boy to seduce him.”

This effortless charm of hers. It washed over him, whether he wanted it to or no. “No,” he said, “you wouldn't.”

“Why did you let Mr. and Mrs. Winters believe you were the one?”

He shrugged. “Evidently Melissa was afraid to tell her parents the truth, so she told them it was me. Since I am now head of this family, I am responsible for William, and he knows it. He made a mistake. I have taken care of it. Hopefully, both he and Melissa are now a bit wiser.”

“My father always says that one must be accountable for one's own mistakes.”

“Perhaps, but it is done and I cannot now change it. I will say, though, that William is on a much shorter leash now.”

“He should have married her.”

“He refused. However, I made it perfectly clear to him that if the child survived, then he would be its father. I
told him I would cut him off if he did not agree to this. He agreed.”

“Well, that's something. I am sorry, Thomas, but I am not going to much like William.”

“Perhaps not. I am hopeful that he will improve as he adds a few more years.” He paused a moment, then said, his voice every bit as austere as her father's when faced with wickedness, “I am disappointed in you for not trusting me.”

“Don't put on that righteous act with me, Thomas. Actually the evidence would have hanged you.”

She hadn't apologized, just smacked him in the jaw with the unvarnished truth. “All right, I accept that. Now, would you like me to go reassure your father?”

Meggie gave him a brilliant smile. “Yes, please do, sir. Oh, Thomas, will we live in Italy?”

He said slowly, “Perhaps, Meggie. Perhaps. Would you like that?”

“Immensely.” She ran around his desk, went up on her tiptoes, kissed his check, then stared at him a moment, kissed his mouth, hers tightly seamed, and it didn't matter a bit. He watched her rush out into the enclosed garden, her skirts rustling, her bonnet dangling from her fingertips nearly to the ground. He knew she would snag it on a rosebush, and she did, but again, it didn't matter.

 

Glenclose-on-Rowan

April 1824

 

The wedding of Thomas Malcombe, earl of Lancaster, to Margaret Beatrice Lydia Sherbrooke, spinster, was attended by four hundred people, another hundred or so milling about outside the church for word of what was happening. The men who'd managed to beg off were in the tavern, drinking ale, listening to Mr. Mortimer Fulsome's advice on married life, something none of them paid the least attention to since he'd buried four wives,
none of them lasting more than two years, and he was eighty years old now and could barely be heard above the toasts.

Tysen led his daughter down the aisle to where Lord Lancaster and Bishop Arlington of Brighton waited, a twinkle in the bishop's eye. He had known Tysen since he'd been born, Meggie as well. He was completely bald and the sunlight pouring through the stained-glass window above him sent a wash of colors across his head.

“He looks like God wearing a rainbow,” Meggie said out of the side of her mouth.

“He's nearly blind,” Tysen said to his daughter as they walked past people who had known her all her life. “Stand as close as possible to him. Tell Thomas to do the same. And don't stare at his head.”

It was a glorious Friday morning in mid-April, the air was fresh from a rain that had dutifully stopped at midnight the evening before. Clouds were strewn in a very blue sky.

Every Sherbrooke was present, including the earl of Ashburnham and his family come all the way from Scotland. And, of course, Oliver and Jenny from Kildrummy.

There was no one from Thomas Malcombe's family, but if anyone remarked upon it, it didn't get to Meggie's ears. She, herself, believed it for the best. If William had shown up, she just might have kicked him. As for Thomas's mother, he'd simply said she was ill and left it at that. He was so very alone, she thought that morning as all her aunts helped her dress in her wedding finery. But that would change.

The Vicarage was filled to capacity. Had there been ladders to the rafters, Thomas thought, there would be folk hanging off those as well. All of the boy cousins were staying with him at Bowden Close.

The Sherbrookes were a very popular family. No, it was more than that. Meggie was the daughter of the town, beloved by its denizens. He thought, as he watched her come closer and closer, that he'd never seen a more beautiful woman in his life. He smiled when she chanced to look at him.

Meggie didn't look again at Bishop Arlington. She was staring at the man who would be her husband in not more than fifteen minutes from now.

Organ music swelled, so loud the windows rattled a bit. The air was still, fragrant with flowers, many from the Northcliffe Hall greenhouses, brought to Glenclose-on-Rowan by Uncle Douglas and Aunt Alex. So many people, all of them here to wish her well. She passed by the Winters family and felt a stab of concern. There were no smiles on their faces. Even though her father had told her they accepted that William Malcombe was the father of Melissa's child, they still couldn't bring themselves to like Thomas Malcombe.

All her boy cousins were seated in one row; Grayson, she knew, was memorizing everything, later to embroider a rousing tale, probably replete with a congregation that were really demons from some pit in Hell and the demons had sprung open the pit just recently, just for Meggie's wedding. Leo and Max, both looking faintly worried, and she understood that. Everything was different now that they were all grown up. Now they realized just how many years separated all of them from childhood—her marriage underscored this. She wished she could have stopped a moment and hugged them, reassured them. She wanted to tell them that being a grown-up meant change, something to be desired not feared.

There were James and Jason, looking more beautiful than she did, both of them striving to look as austere and distinguished as their father, who, seated in the row ahead of them, looked every inch the powerful earl. Meggie gave him a big grin, which was returned, and which the twins didn't see. They might have relaxed a bit if they'd seen that smile. Her aunt Alex gave her a small wave with her gloved hand.

Aunt Sophie and Uncle Ryder were to her left, and what with ten of the Beloved Ones coming to Glenclose-on-Rowan, they occupied an entire row, very tightly. Her uncle Ryder's brilliant Sherbrooke eyes were still wicked, still so startling a blue, that ladies stopped in the middle
of the street and stared at him and grinned like idiots. This behavior Aunt Sophie normally ignored, or poked her oblivious spouse in his ribs to make him stop being so damned delicious to the opposite sex. As for Aunt Sophie, she was solid as a rock, always calm no matter the trouble, no matter the pain.

And her godmother, Aunt Sinjun, sitting beside Uncle Colin, Fletcher and Dahling beside them, Dahling a young matron, married to a Scottish baron from the Highlands near Glen Coe way. Phillip was far away in Greece with the Royal Navy, Uncle Colin had told everyone. Phillip, it seemed, was a cartographer, something most all the male cousins had had to look up in the dictionary. Fletcher was now twelve, as magic with horses as Alec was with racing cats. She remembered so long ago how he had renamed her father's horse. He spoke to horses and they spoke to him. What would he do when he grew up? Meggie wondered. She thought with a pang of his little sister, Jocelyn, who had died while still very young. Thank God Rory had survived.