Pendragon (14 page)

“Oh God.”

She tried to rear up at the pain in his voice, but he was holding her down. “Thomas, whatever is the matter?”

“You're still wearing your nightgown, Meggie. That will never do.”

“Perhaps I could leave it on for a little while longer?” She was afraid now, he heard it, but it just didn't matter.

He pressed his forehead to hers, his breath hard and fast, his body pulsing with lust. “I'm in a bad way. Give me a moment, and I'll give you a moment as well and then we'll proceed.”

It wasn't even a moment before all he felt was his climax building, building, overwhelming him, and he reared up, slid his hand between her legs and came down on his knees between them. “Sit up.”

“Well, I—”

He pulled her up, raised her hips off the bed, lifted her nightgown off her, and threw it over his shoulder. “Oh dear,” Meggie said, but he was kissing her, not looking at her, just kissing her and kissing her, her neck and her breasts, kissing each rib, going down her stomach and then he was actually between her legs and she felt his
mouth touch her—no, surely that couldn't be right—and he groaned, and then his breathing was sharp and he was looking down at her while his fingers were touching her, pressing against her, and she was staring up at him as he eased one of his fingers inside her. Actually inside her. She'd never imagined such a thing. It wasn't nice at all.

It hurt.

She tried to push him off, but she couldn't. “Meggie, Meggie, just lie still, relax, trust me.”

“No, no,” she said, trying frantically to scramble away from him, to get his finger out of her, “it's far too late for any trust. This isn't going to be nice, it's going to be bad. That's just your finger, Thomas. I held you between my hands. You are much more than just one of your fingers, and that's what you're going to do, isn't it? You're going to stick yourself inside me.”

He managed a “yes.” It was bad? What he was going to do to her was bad? He eased his finger a bit deeper, then stopped. Oh God, he wanted her so much he ached to his feet, and she was claiming his damned finger was bad? He wanted her this very instant, and by God, he wasn't going to wait. He just couldn't. He came over her, his eyes on himself and on her, and came slowly inside her. Slowly, he moved forward. She was stiffer than a board. Her hands were fisted at her sides. Well, damn. He went just a bit more, felt her maidenhead.

“Meggie.”

He looked down at her, really looked at her despite feeling like he would explode inside her at any instant, and this time he looked into those bright blue eyes of hers. Seemingly so guileless, those blue eyes of hers, filled with openness, no shadows lurking about anywhere at all in the depths of those eyes, but he knew it for a lie, a lie that had cut him to his knees, just hours before, but there was no going back. He hated her at that moment because of her goodness, because of her damned sense of honor, because of her betrayal. He hated the man she obviously still adored, hated that she adored him, and not her husband. She shouldn't have led him on, shouldn't have made
him want her so quickly, so effortlessly, made him want to marry her. The fact was, she was betraying him in her heart and it was their wedding night. Was she thinking of him even as he pushed into her? He saw Jeremy's face, heard Meggie's voice. It all mixed with his lust and he butted her maidenhead. She yelled, struggling beneath him, trying to throw him off, but unable to. He paused for just an instant when he butted against her maidenhead.

“Thomas, no!”

She'd forced him into a life of lies. He looked into her eyes as he yelled his pain, his fury, his lust, and pushed through her maidenhead.

Meggie didn't have the breath to yell again or to curse or the will to move. It was very simple, really. She knew he'd killed her, a body couldn't continue after what he'd done. She realized that she'd been told a very big lie. Surely a man didn't treat a woman like this if he loved her, surely. But then again Thomas had never said he loved her.

He suddenly stopped cold, and he was staring down at her again, looking right into her eyes, and he seemed to be fighting with himself about something she couldn't begin to understand. He said, “No, I can't do this. Not with you feeling the way you do. I can't, just can't.” And he moaned, deep in his throat even as he jerked out of her, came to his knees, stiffened, and climaxed. Then he hung there, his head bowed.

Meggie hurt inside, he'd made her bleed, she just knew it, and then he'd left her, rejected her. She yelled now, but not with pain, it wasn't all that bad now, truth be told, but she yelled at the top of her lungs with resentment, with rage that she'd actually been excited, actually anticipated this lovemaking business, and just look what he'd done—he'd hurt her, then left her. A man wasn't supposed to do that, was he?

He was breathing hard, his head bowed, and he'd not wanted to stay with her. And now she'd bleed. She should have demanded to know about the bleeding business before she'd even let him unfasten all those nice safe buttons
on her gown. But no, she was an idiot, she'd trusted him, and now he was on his knees between her legs, heaving, looking at if he were dying. It was as if a sort of cataclysm had racked him all the way to the soles of his wretched feet.

He looked up at her then, and she saw that his jaw was locked, his eyes glazed, and all of him was pulsing madly. His seed was on himself, on the sheet, on her belly. It was an overwhelming upheaval that she couldn't begin to understand, really didn't want to understand, but she did know one thing for certain—he was a liar. It was obvious he knew very little about this lovemaking business.

She hurt really badly. She hated what he'd done to her and wanted to hurl him out of the window. And what had he meant that he couldn't do it? Do what? Stay inside her? What was he talking about?

She didn't care. Then he stopped his quivering, his shuddering, and just hung there over her, not breathing quite so hard now, his eyes closed, saying nothing, doing nothing.

She said loudly, right up into his face, “You shouldn't have done what you did. It wasn't right. You hurt me and then you just came out of me. I am going to kill you.”

15

T
HOMAS COULDN
'
T THINK
, just couldn't gather his wits together. He'd managed to come out of her, he'd actually managed to make his body obey his will, and he hated it.

Suddenly Meggie lurched up and bit his shoulder as hard as she could. She hoped she'd make him bleed.

That brought him back to his brain and miserable body. He managed to straighten. He blinked at her. “My God,” he said slowly, disbelieving, “you bit me.”

“Yes, you hurt me.”

“It happened.” She'd actually bit him. He'd come out of her, not his fault, he'd simply had to. Well, for the moment, he didn't give a damn about her feelings, about that damnable Jeremy. He wanted to punish her for what she'd done to him. He came down hard over her and went inside her again just as she yelled, “Don't you dare have the nerve to hurt me more, you bastard.”

Then she shuddered.

He felt her muscles clenching around him, he was deep inside her, it was driving him mad, and this time, the rage banked, the desire to punish, to gain revenge on her both for what she'd done and hadn't done, fell to his own need, his own wild urgency and that was more powerful than anything else. He pushed again. “Oh God,” he said, panting until he thought his heart would burst from his chest, “I don't want this. Damnation. This will kill me.”

“Probably not, you clod. Get off me, damn you!”

He fell forward, flattened her, kissed her and shoved hard again and again. It was over again in less than a minute. He was heaving and panting, nearly crying because his body felt so very fine—nothing but soul-deep satisfaction and the overwhelming urge to sleep, to forget what he'd just done. Damn him and damn her. At least no one could take her from him now. Damn her honor. He'd been rough with her. He was sorry he'd hurt her, but in the end, she would have to learn that whatever he did, she had no say in it.

He thought about that life-changing conversation between father and daughter he'd overheard in the vicarage gardens not three hours after she'd become his wife. His wife whom he'd wanted to pull behind a shrubbery and kiss her silly, but that hadn't happened. He'd seen her father, taken a step forward to ask if he'd seen Meggie, but then he'd heard her say in a voice stumbling with pain, “I truly didn't want him to speak to me, Papa, but Jeremy believed that since I'd married Thomas, he could now redeem himself because obviously I didn't love him anymore and it bothered him that I believed he was an idiot. Papa, Jeremy is honorable. I should never have believed that wretched act of his. He did it to make me stop loving him, oh God—so noble and I hated him, scorned him.”

Her father had held her close and whispered against her hair, “It will be all right. You've got a fine husband. You will come to love him, dearest. You will see.”

And Meggie cried against her father's shoulder, and Thomas Malcombe's life, as he'd known it, as he'd anticipated it would be with his new wife, fell into pieces at his feet.

 

The candle was nearly gutted when he rolled off her onto his back. She was up in an instant, ready to clout him when, her fist hard and ready, ready to strike, he snored.

Meggie couldn't believe it, just couldn't. She wanted to kill him for what he had done, damn him a million times more than she'd already damned him.

She looked down at him, waved her fist not an inch from his nose, and whispered, “Blessed hell.”

Slowly she got off the other side of the bed and managed to stand straight. Every part of her hurt, but nothing compared to the pain deep inside her, where he'd poked and pushed and shoved, and no, she still wanted to kill him, very badly. She felt wet and sticky and her legs were shaking. She could barely stand up.

She'd trusted him.

She'd been an idiot.

Was this the way things were always done? First a man left a woman's body and the second time he didn't? Was it some sort of strange ritual? Did her father do this to Mary Rose? Her brain shied away from that. What about Jeremy? Had he done that to his precious Charlotte their wedding night? Meggie had been eaten up with jealousy at the thought of Jeremy kissing Charlotte, not her, but if it had led to this utter humiliation, then her jealousy was ridiculous. Meggie walked over to the small table that held a basin of clean water and washed herself. She winced at the pain and saw that the water was red with her blood. He'd done that to her the first time just before he'd jerked away from her.

Then she headed straight to the table where the remains of their meal still were, and immediately picked up the champagne bottle. Thank the good lord it wasn't empty.

She downed the rest of it. Warm or not, bubbles or not, it was quickly down her throat. She didn't stop drinking until the bottle was empty. Then she stood there, staring out over the English Channel, at the magnificent moonlight that was a wide swatch across the water, making it glitter. Hah, glitter. Here she was admiring the beauty of nature when that man who was her husband was lying on his back, naked, snoring, on that wretched bed where he'd behaved so strangely. Surely a husband wasn't supposed to do that to his wife. She wouldn't believe that Jeremy had done that to Charlotte, that that was simply the way men behaved. Very well, if men weren't all like this, then why had Thomas done it to her? Because he didn't love
her and thus didn't care if he hurt her or not? That just made no sense. He'd laughed with her, saved Rory's life, wanted to marry her. Meggie just stood there looking out over the moon shining onto the water, and wondered what to do.

She tipped the champagne bottle again, but the wretched thing was empty. She wondered what the innkeeper would think if she ordered another bottle, and then she just didn't care. She pulled on Thomas's dressing gown that he'd tossed over the end of the bed, an old burgundy velvet, its elbows nearly worn through, and tied it tightly around her waist. She left the room, walked barefoot down the hall and down the stairs. Mrs. Miggs was the only person in the taproom. Her hair was coming out of the tight knot at the back of her head, her apron was spotted, but she was humming as she wiped a wet cloth over the wooden tabletops.

“Hello, Mrs. Miggs.”

“Oh my,” Mrs. Miggs said, startled, her hand holding the wet cloth, clutched over her breast. “Lady Lancaster? Goodness, it is nearly midnight. What is the problem?”

“I would like another bottle of champagne.”

Mrs. Miggs nearly dropped the cloth she was so surprised. Then she really looked at the tousled girl in front of her, barefoot, wearing a man's dressing gown that dragged the floor, very pale in the dim candlelight, and said slowly, “It's very late, my lady. I do not see your husband. You are obviously alone. Thank heavens I sent the rest of the men on their way a few minutes ago.”

“I'm glad, too. I wouldn't have come in if there had been men. They're dreadful, men are. May I have another bottle of champagne.”

“Why?”

Meggie looked down at her toes and said with no hesitation at all, “It's my wedding night and I don't feel very good about things at all. After I've drunk the champagne I'm wondering if I should bash my new husband over the head with the bottle. I finished the bottle upstairs, gripped it about its neck, tested its weight, but decided rather than
killing him right at that moment, I wanted to drink some more champagne. To consider it more at length. What do you think?”

“What does your new husband have to say?”

“The clod is sleeping in the middle of the bed, snoring.”

“Let me get you the champagne.”

Meggie didn't realize she was weaving about a bit when Mrs. Miggs returned with a very cold bottle, but Mrs. Miggs did. The young lady had been shocked to her bare toes, and her new husband obviously hadn't behaved well. She was too pale, and that worried Mrs. Miggs. She said, “You just sit yourself down on that bench, that's right, just slide right on in and I'll open the bottle for you.” She popped the cork out efficiently, then put two glasses on a table. “Come, let us talk about this new marriage of yours. Shall, ah, we toast it?”

Meggie grumbled even as she slid across the wooden bench, but she quickly accepted a glass from Mrs. Miggs. “I don't want to toast my marriage. There is nothing to toast. Please don't call me ‘my lady.' My name is Meggie and this is my wedding night. It was awful. I wasn't expecting any of it. He ambushed me.”

Mrs. Miggs, thick in the middle now from birthing five children and her own excellent cooking, said, “Wedding nights can be bad sometimes for the woman.”

“He left me the first time and then the second time—goodness, it was only a minute or so later—he turned into an animal. I wasn't expecting any of that. The kissing was nice, but that didn't last for long. He kissed me before we were married and I really liked it. He put his tongue in my mouth. That was odd, but I knew I could get used to it.”

“Kissing usually is nice. Tongues, too.”

“Ah, but the rest of it—I was hopeful, I actually trusted him, and what happened? You truly do not want to know, Mrs. Miggs.”

Meggie clicked her glass to Mrs. Miggs's. She said, “Here's to this bottle of champagne and to the witching
hour that will chime in not more than four minutes from now.”

“Hear, hear,” said Mrs. Miggs.

Meggie said, frowning at the bubbles in her glass, “Are men all like that lout upstairs snoring to the rafters? They get you all interested, and then they do as they please? They leave you and just hunch over you, gone from you, and shudder and shake and moan?”

“I don't know what you mean about him being gone, my lady—Meggie.”

“He left me before he did anything.”

Mrs. Miggs frowned. “A man does that when he doesn't wish to impregnate a woman.”

Meggie hadn't thought of that. She shook her head as she said, “That can't be right, Mrs. Miggs. We're married. Why would he do that on our wedding night? It doesn't make sense because then he did it, I mean he went all the way to the end with the business. I didn't like it either time, not at all. It was like he was someone else, not Thomas.”

Mrs. Miggs drank, and said slowly, “Men are not a patient lot, so aye, just maybe many men are too rough and maybe too they change their minds, just can't help themselves. After all, they're really a weak lot, now aren't they?”

Meggie didn't know about that. He changed his mind? About her? About their marriage and he didn't care if she liked this lovemaking business or not? “What about your wedding night, Mrs. Miggs?”

Mrs. Miggs poured each of them another glass. They clicked their glasses together again and drank.

“Well, let me see if I can remember that far back. A full long number of years ago that was. Hmmm, well, my Mr. Miggs, he was a big 'un, all full of fire and hops—because he always liked his ale—even when he was just a young man. We got hitched and the neighbors and our folks gave us a fine party and then Mr. Miggs lifted me up into the cart and off we went, to spend several days at my aunt's house over in Fowey. Ah, but Mr. Miggs, he
just couldn't wait to get us to Fowey and to a bed. No, he—”

Meggie, mesmerized, held up her empty glass. Mrs. Miggs filled it to the top, then her own. She looked thoughtful.

“Come, tell me. What happened, Mrs. Miggs?”

“Mr. Miggs stopped the cart, patted that big mare on her rump, then jerked me over his shoulder and carried me into a field of wildflowers.”

“That sounds terribly romantic.”

“It was February.”

“Oh.”

“Aye, it was so cold I can't believe now that Mr. Miggs managed to get himself upright, if you know what I mean.”

Meggie didn't, but nodded just the same. She drank more champagne; so did Mrs. Miggs.

“Aye, he hauled me into that field, then yanked off his coat and laid me on it. Of course the coat wasn't big enough and my lower parts were on the bare ground. It was over in under a half a minute and I was just lying there on my back, looking up into that cold gray sky and wanting to kick him. He looked like a blissful ass, just lying there on his back, maybe he was even whistling, I forget. I didn't say a word to him. Instead, I got up, walked back to the cart, leaving him there panting and grinning like an idiot, so happy and pleased with himself. I yelled to him that he was a selfish pig, and then I drove away.”

Meggie was vastly impressed. She applauded after she'd carefully set her champagne glass down on the wooden table. She sighed, then said, “He might have been too rough, but he did get it done, didn't he? That first time?”

“Aye, he got it done, all right.”

“Unfortunately I can't leave my husband. I can't imagine that our driver would be willing to leave his master here. We're in a carriage pulled by two horses, and unfortunately I don't know how to drive two horses.”

Mrs. Miggs nodded. “Have some more champagne.”