She watched him plow his fingers through his dark hair, nice and thick that hair, a bit shaggy for popular tastes. “Meggie, you’re right, I shouldn’t have done that, but it was just a kiss, after all, not a mauling or a serious attempt at seduction. I apologize for taking advantage of our situation.” His voice softened and deepened. He couldn’t help the dollop of masculine pride that crept in. “It was your first kiss. I gave you your first kiss.”
“Ha,” Meggie said. “Ha ha. You are mistaken, my lord. I have been kissed many times.”
“Thomas,” he said. “My name is Thomas.”
“Yes, I know your name. Let me tell you, I have kissed so many boys I can scare remember all of them.”
“This was all during your Season last year?”
“Well, no, to be honest about this, and I suppose that I must be honest since my father is the vicar and this business of honesty is quite important to him, all the boys were my dratted cousins. I asked them, you see, when I was thirteen years old, to kiss me. I didn’t ask any of the older ones, only the dratted cousins who were my age or younger.”
“Jeremy was older?”
“Yes, he was much older,” and she thought, no, not Jeremy, never Jeremy. She’d wanted to, more than anything, but she’d known she’d probably sink into a puddle at his feet if he’d kissed her, and her father would have been appalled. Doubtless Jeremy would have been appalled as well. She said, “The older male cousins thought it a great jest, but I ignored them.” Jeremy, she recalled, had laughed his head off. Why had he asked specifically about Jeremy?
“What did you do?”
“I lined up all the dratted boy cousins. Each stepped forward when I called his name and puckered his lips and did it.”
8
HE COULD ONLY stare down at her. She was without guile. She also had an outrageous streak that was a good mile wide. She’d lined up her cousins? “You simply wished to experiment?”
“Well, yes. You see, Max and Leo, my brothers, absolutely refused to kiss me, so they announced that they would judge which cousin kissed the best. But as I think about it now, I think I should have been the judge, not two boys who knew nothing about anything.”
“It makes sense to me. What criteria did Max and Leo use to choose the winner?”
Meggie thought back to that splendid day, at the line of dratted cousins, all of them nervous, afraid, knowing there was a lot on the line here, but each eager. “Hmm. They picked Grayson, my uncle Ryder’s son. But the criteria—they claimed they awarded Grayson on form. But come to think of it, they might have picked Grayson no matter what the contest. You know, Grayson tells marvelous stories—ghost stories, adventure stories, really scary gnarly stories—and he’d told them a hair-raising ghost story just the night before about midnight. It was about this old man whose wife shoved him into a well and left him there to die, but his ghost came after her, did all sorts of gruesome things, and Max and Leo were so scared, so happy, wanting so badly to hear Grayson tell another story, that they didn’t even hesitate. Do you know, they announced Grayson the winner before poor James was barely finished.”
“This is an amazing story,” he said slowly. He tried to remember a single evening in his growing-up years that could possibly have been as delightful as this one. He couldn’t dredge a single one up. Then he remembered Nathan had taught him how to dive into the ocean from the cliff that summer of his tenth year. Nathan, who’d left, joined the army, and died in Spain so many years ago.
He shook this off. “Who is James?” he asked.
“He is my uncle Douglas’s oldest son. He and Jason are twins, born only about thirty minutes apart. James will be the earl of Northcliffe someday. Did you know that they are quite the most beautiful young men in the world?”
“No, I didn’t know. They weren’t beautiful then? You weren’t infatuated with one of them when you were younger?”
“Oh no. Both of them have very bad habits. I was always trying to make them better. Now it will be up to their wives to improve upon them, if they ever marry, that is. My uncle Douglas always despaired for their characters since they are so beautiful. In all fairness to other males, though, it’s really unfortunate that today they are quite unspoiled—only male sorts of bad habits that one simply cannot eradicate—but in their hearts, they are not rotten at all.”
“Not rotten at all?”
“No more rotten now than any of their contemporaries. You know, they curse and brag and steal their father’s brandy, run races at midnight and nearly break their necks, lay wagers on who can spit the farthest, that sort of thing. They don’t gamble or get sent down from Oxford or seduce local girls.”
Thomas doubted that last sincerely. They were young men. That was what young men did, rotten or not. Hopefully, they really had outgrown the worst of it. “May I kiss you again?”
“Whyever for?”
He said slowly, even as he lowered his head, “I want to see if you compare me favorably to your cousins.”
“But that was a long time ago and we were all children and—”
He kissed her. This time it wasn’t just touching mouth to mouth. This time there was a bit of pressure, a bit more coaxing, and lots of warmth. His hands were on her arms, slowly bringing her closer. Then he opened his mouth.
He actually opened his mouth, Meggie thought, appalled, like he was going to speak or eat his dinner or butcher a high note like that Milanese soprano.
She felt his tongue lightly pressing against her lips, but she kept her mouth shut. Meggie blinked up at him. His eyes weren’t closed. When he saw the shock in her eyes, he drew back.
She didn’t jump back or slap him. She simply stood there, looking thoughtful, staring up at him. Finally she said, “That was very strange. Since you have lived outside England for a very long time, perhaps you have forgotten English customs, my lord. That, I am quite certain, cannot be one of them. You opened your mouth, you touched your tongue to my lower lip, my upper lip as well, and you sort of licked me. Surely that isn’t done here in England, only in some foreign country where there is permission to explore shameless sorts of things.”
He had to smile. “Actually, Meggie, I swear to you it is the done thing.”
He saw that she wasn’t quite ready to accept that. She said, “So it is the done thing where you have lived all these years? Did someone instruct you to do this where you were brought up? Where you grew into manhood?”
“Oh yes, but instruction really isn’t necessary. Well, perhaps some instruction would be helpful to some young men. What is necessary is practice, a great deal of it, although by its very nature, there is a lot of built-in practice involved in the process.”
“What process?”
“The lovemaking process. Kissing simply sets the whole business off.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, it is done all the time. It is even done in China.” He was lightly stroking his hands up and down her arms. The velvet riding habit was still a bit damp. “Actually, Meggie, there is something that you need to know since you are now a woman.”
“What is that?”
“It is even done here in England.”
“You are certain about this? This tongue business?”
“Oh yes.”
“Really in China as well as in England?”
“Oh yes.”
And she realized: Then Jeremy must do this to Charlotte. He opens his mouth when he kisses her. Does she open her mouth as well? No, no, don’t think about that.
“Did you find it distasteful?”
Meggie thought about that a moment, considered it. Her forehead was furrowed, and she chewed on her bottom lip. He wanted to touch his fingertip to her bottom lip, perhaps stroke her bottom lip with his tongue.
“No, it wasn’t distasteful, just very curious. Goodness, I wonder if my father and Mary Rose do that.”
She looked utterly appalled as she said the words, looked as though she’d give anything to take the words back, to take back
the fact that she’d even thought of it. Again, he held back a laugh, and said, “I am not so deranged to comment on the marital habits of a vicar and his wife.”
“You’re right. I shouldn’t either.” Meggie sighed. “Is that a sliver of weak sun?”
“It is. And look, it is no longer raining.”
She didn’t know whether to be pleased or disappointed. This had been a very strange morning.
“I wonder,” she said, “if Max and Leo would judge you to be the kissing winner now.”
“Yes,” he said, “they most certainly would.”
She laughed, but it wasn’t full and delighted, it was reedy and wary because she was thinking about his mouth against hers, about feeling him against her as well, his big hands stroking her, and it was as frightening as it was fascinating.
He looked at her upturned face and thought, Well, I’ve taught you something and it both worries and interests you. It’s a good start.
He said easily, “You see, to ensure that they would select me the winner, I would tell them an excellent story about scaly fire-breathing dragons and the witless knights who had nothing better to do than track them to their caves.”
“I fear Max and Leo are no longer bribed with good stories. Actually, I’m not sure what would sway them now. They are young men and I simply no longer know. The problem is the male brain—it is wholly mysterious and unpredictable. It’s rather like a mass of confusion in your head.” She sighed then. “I really did my best raising them. Max is going to be a vicar, like Papa, so he can’t be too wicked, can he?”
“Oh no. So you’re telling me that you raised your brothers?”
“Oh yes, at least until my father married Mary Rose. I was ten and a good-sized girl, lots bigger and stronger than they were. I could pound them whenever they needed it, which was quite often, being that they were boys, and had no sense at all. Yes, they required a great deal of discipline, and a vigilant eye. Leo was the prankster. I’ll never forget the time he cut a strip out of the back of my gown. I threw him in the bushes for that stunt.”
He laughed. He realized he’d laughed more since he’d met her than in a very long time.
They led their horses out of the barn. Pen whinnied, delighted to have escaped, hide intact. Leaves dripped water, the ground was spongy. He gave her a leg up, saying as she smoothed her skirts over her legs, “I hear from Dr. Dreyfus that Rory will be up to all sorts of mischief by the end of the week.”
“Oh yes. Let me thank you again, my lord.”
“You can thank me by calling me Thomas.”
“If you put it that way. All right. Thomas. It is a good name, a solid name. I will use it. Since you’ve kissed me, using your tongue, I suppose I know you well enough.”
“Yes, I believe you do, at last. Dr. Dreyfus also wants to analyze all the medicines my partner in Italy sent me. He has asked me to have that maringo root sent here to see if it can be grown in England. He is very excited about it.”
Meggie wasn’t really listening. Thomas Malcombe wasn’t a cousin. She’d known him such a short time, and he’d opened his mouth when he’d kissed her that second time.
He wasn’t Jeremy.
She managed to bring herself back to the point. “There was another case of the virulent fever, and Dr. Dreyfus immediately administered your drug. Little Melissa perked up very quickly.”
“Yes, everyone in the village told me about it.”
“Everyone in the village is also singing your praises. The men are toasting you in the taproom. The ladies are so fulsome in their praise that your ears should be burning. You are rapidly working up to local hero.”
“I like that,” he said, and lightly laid his hands over hers. “I would like to see the Channel.”
Meggie raised her face to the watery sun, and smiled. “I should like that as well,” she said.
She wondered if perhaps she should kiss him again. Was the female supposed to open her mouth as well? Perhaps touch his mouth with her tongue?
She shivered. This was new ground, probably unsafe ground. She wasn’t at all certain that she wanted to walk here. She thought of Jeremy kissing her, knowing it would spin her off her feet, and felt a deep shaft of pain. He said, “Perhaps you could be specific about what the ladies are saying about me and my magnificence. I would like my ears to burn a bit. They never have before.”
“I’m not sure that is such a good idea,” Meggie said. “I think you could grow far too used to being worshipped,” and nudged her boot heels into Survivor’s sides.
9
“THAT IS QUITE the longest leap Cleo has ever made,” Meggie said, reading the distance stick again. “Yes, that’s right—three feet and about four inches. Just excellent, my sweet girl.”
“It’s that new training method, Meggie,” Alec said, humming under his breath. He stroked the cat’s back, long light strokes. Cleo began to purr and arch her back.
Like what Thomas Malcombe did to me. At least I had the sense not to purr and squirm.
Oh dear, better concentrate on training methods. She wrapped the long length of pale yellow ribbon around her hand. A good foot of it was shredded by Cleo catching it, her claws seaming it, so that it was now five skinny strings of ribbon.
Alec said, “She might just beat Mr. Cork on Saturday.”
“I have worked with Mr. Cork as well, and you know he has more endurance. He is very taken with smells, as you know. I tried a new one on him—mackerel. I chopped it up, added a dash of garlic, and dried it. Then I wrapped it in a netted bag. He nearly ran his legs off trying to get close enough to get a really strong whiff of it. It must replace the dead trout.”
“Meggie, you will surely beat out the Harker brothers in the creativity of your training methods. They’re entering three cats in this race.”
“Never underestimate their ingenuity, Alec. I hear that Jamie, the head stable lad at the Mountvale mews, has come up with a new limerick to sing to the Black Rocket. It’s so effective—all Jamie has to do is stand at the finish line and sing his heart out, and the Black Rocket will spead toward him like a bullet.”
“The Black Rocket has very mean eyes,” Alec said thoughtfully. “I think Mr. Cork needs to bring him down a peg. I need to think about this.”
Thomas Malcombe listened to brother and sister discuss the Black Rocket—whatever sort of racing cat that was. He liked that name, it was quite menacing. He’d seen Mr. Cork, his gold and white body stretched out, all muscled and long in the sun, with just a bit of shade over one leg from one of Mrs. Sherbrooke’s rosebushes.
He’d never had a cat, even when he’d been a boy. There were the barn cats, feral, all of them good mousers.
“Lord Lancaster, how nice to see you. Do you like thin ham slices? They’re Cook’s specialty. Do join us for luncheon.”
He turned to see Mrs. Sherbrooke coming around the side of the vicarage. “Good day, Mrs. Sherbrooke. I merely came to see if Rory was well enough yet to train with the racing cats. I have no wish to intrude.”
Mary Rose took his hand. “You saved my son’s life, my lord. I want you to intrude until you are quite tired of all of us. Do call me Mary Rose.”
Meggie overheard this and nodded vigorously as she joined the two of them. “Thomas, welcome. I’m delighted you could visit. The last time I saw Rory, he was climbing the trellis that divides Mary Rose’s hydrangeas from her daffodils, the one with the red climbing roses on it.”
Mary Rose’s eyes nearly crossed. “Oh no, tell me you made that up, Meggie! Oh goodness, he can’t. That trellis isn’t all that sturdy. I swear that as of right now, I will no longer look at him and thank God endlessly. No, I will pull my resolve together and swat his bottom. Well, perhaps if he is more than two feet from the ground I will swat him. My lord, I will see you in the dining room in no more than five minutes. Rory! Get down off that trellis!”
And Mary Rose was gone, holding her skirt up to her knees and running toward the east side of the vicarage.
&nb
sp; Meggie grinned after her. “This is a good sign. She’s been hovering over him, so afraid he will stop breathing again.”
“Being hovered over doesn’t sound like a bad thing,” Thomas said.
Meggie grinned. “Hovering in this case means she’s always petting him, kissing him, squeezing him, stuffing food down his gullet, driving the little boy quite distracted, a very independent little boy, let me add.”
“You mean you made that trellis story up to get your mother back on an even keel?”
“I wouldn’t call it precisely a lie,” Meggie said. “Perhaps Rory was looking longingly at the trellis. Now, I am delighted you came to visit. Cook’s ham slices are so thin you can see yourself through them. No one knows how she manages it and everyone is always lurking about to watch when she slices the ham. Come along now. You needn’t worry that she will try to poison you. The only person she ever mutters about is Mr. Samuel Pritchert, my father’s curate.”
“The very dour man who never smiles even when he eats a bite of apple tart?”
“That’s the one.”
“He’s in a bad way.”
“Yes. But do you know, he has but to look at someone, and that someone will spill his innards to Samuel. My father thinks it’s amazing.”
“I don’t believe you.”
She just laughed, took his hand, and pulled him toward the vicarage door. They heard Mary Rose yelling at Rory, who had, evidently, climbed the trellis, because she was telling him that she was going to swat him but good when she got him down from that great height. Goodness, he’d climbed at least eighteen inches and he deserved a good swat.
“That,” Meggie said, “makes you wonder about the nature of deception, doesn’t it?”
Jeremy’s visit the following Wednesday was unannounced, thank God, or Meggie would have been an incoherent bundle of nerves. As it was, all she felt was longing and an immense pain at what couldn’t be.
Jeremy Stanton-Greville was so happy. So incredibly, blessedly happy. He gushed; he grinned like a fool. He oozed contentment and smugness. He rubbed his hands together, so proud of himself, so pleased with life, so uncaring, so blind, to the one person who would have gladly played Sir Walter Raleigh to his Queen Elizabeth and thrown every cloak she owned at his feet. Thus, just seeing him, knowing he wasn’t ever to belong to her, made her want to hide under the stairs and weep, but naturally, she couldn’t. She was stoic. She endured, even managed, when a jest nearly punched her in the nose, to dutifully smile.
Catherine Coulter the Sherbrooke Series Novels 6-10 (9781101562123) Page 39