Catherine Coulter the Sherbrooke Series Novels 6-10 (9781101562123)

by Coulter, Catherine

  Oh dear, Meggie thought, she didn’t want her maid to be in love with her husband.

  Just after nine o’clock that evening, Thomas led her into the White Room, dismissed Alvy, ignoring her look of abject adoration, and said, “I have decided to sleep with you, Meggie.”

  “Good. Then I can begin improvements on you immediately.”

  He laughed even as he unfastened the long march of buttons down her back. “Cook—Mrs. Mullins—came here to Pendragon with my mother. That’s why you had English fare.”

  Another area needing improvement. “You liked the beef, Thomas?”

  “Oh no, but no matter. She has been with us as long as I’ve been on the earth. When I am really hungry, I ride into Kinsale to visit a friend and beg my dinner. However, you will have a pleasant surprise at breakfast.”

  “Perhaps I can give her some new recipes that will improve upon the meals.”

  “Just go easy, that’s all I ask, Meggie.” He pulled her sleeves down to her elbows, trapping her arms to her sides. Slowly he turned her to face him. “I like the dark blue against all this white. A splash of color in the snow.”

  She raised her face and he kissed her.

  “Oh my,” she said when he finally raised his head some time later. “Oh my. That is so very nice, Thomas. Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps you are wicked, in the very best of ways.”

  He was pleased with his wickedness when he brought her to orgasm some fifteen minutes later, had her shuddering with such deep pleasure that she looked ready to expire from it. She lay panting on the beautiful white bed with its white counterpane and white sheets with him still deep inside her, and she loved the feel of him, the sound of his voice as he said love words to her and sex words, many of which she didn’t understand, for after all, she was a vicar’s daughter. Many of them, however, she did understand because she was, after all, also her uncles’ niece.

  “Thomas,” she whispered against his shoulder, then lightly bit him and licked his salty flesh.

  “Ah, don’t,” he said, but it was already too late. He groaned, harsh and low that groan that bespoke his innards were being stomped on as he spilled his seed so wonderfully deep inside her.

  When he was breathing again, his eyes focused on her face, she said, “That was very nice, too, Thomas, very nice indeed.”

  A vast understatement. He was too far gone to talk. How could she manage to speak coherently?

  After some time, Thomas managed to lean over and douse the row of candles in the filthy silver holder. When it was dark, when she was lying on her back, staring up at the white ceiling which she now couldn’t see, she said, “I like children. I remember I was so pleased when Mary Rose birthed Alec and—”

  “Go to sleep, Meggie.”

  “The ten years—perhaps I can accomplish it in nine years.”

  “What ten years? Nine years? What are you talking about?”

  “To make you the perfect man.”

  He laughed and pulled her against him. He felt her warm breath on his flesh. He was asleep long before she was. He didn’t snore.

  The next morning when Meggie walked down to the small family dining room that Alvy told her about, in between more choice comments about the new earl, she heard a man’s voice. It wasn’t Thomas.

  Barnacle said from behind her, “Ye didn’t walk on me back, milady, now did ye? Ye forgot.”

  “I’m sorry, Barnacle. After breakfast I will meet you in the kitchen. I will walk on your back in there.”

  He gave her a nod, a small salute, and staggered back to the front door.

  She should have asked him who was in the dining room. She walked in the small dark room. What a dreadful room, what with the curtains drawn tightly over the two bay windows that gave onto something, what, she had no clue, and she found herself staring at a young man who looked a great deal like Aunt Libby.

  He saw her, rose slowly from his chair, and said, “You are Thomas’s new wife.”

  She nodded, walked to the draperies and pulled them open, fastening them with the wide golden ropes. Light flooded into the room. It made it look even worse, but at least now she could see outdoors.

  She looked at the fine-looking young man. He was blond and fresh-faced, tall, not as tall as Thomas, but very nearly, and he was giving her a fat smile. “Yes, I’m Meggie Malcombe. And who are you?”

  “Oh, I’m William Malcombe, Thomas’s half brother.”

  He was, Meggie realized in that moment, as she looked across the table, Aunt Libby’s son. He was the young man who had impregnated Melissa Winters and let Thomas take the blame and the responsibility.

  What was going on here?

  23

  “MY WILLIAM ARRIVED late last night,” Aunt Libby said, and patted his arm. “Sit down, my love, and let me serve you some nice bacon that’s just barely been waved over a flame, just as you like it. My, look at all the light in here. I had no idea there was even any sun to be had. Does it make me look wrinkled?”

  “No, Mother, you look beautiful,” William said, and took his seat again beside her. “You always do.”

  “What a sweet boy you are, William.”

  “No one else ever says that to me, Mother.”

  Meggie certainly believed that. She saw that Madeleine was eating at a fine clip, not paying any attention, and eased herself into the empty chair next to what she assumed was Thomas’s chair.

  She said, “Does anyone mind that I opened the draperies?”

  “You are doubtless trying to show us all that you are the important one here now,” Madeleine said, her mouth full of eggs.

  “No, ma’am, I’m not, truly. It’s just that I would like to see who is at the breakfast table this morning and what is on my plate.”

  Cook suddenly appeared out of the wall. No, it was a narrow door cut very cleverly into the wall, its seams fitted perfectly to the striped wallpaper, her arms filled with covered trays. “Och, the new countess. Hello, milady. It’s a fine breakfast I’ve made for you, now isn’t it?” And without another word, Cook broke into song as she served Meggie’s plate, piling it high with scrambled eggs with four nutty buns arranged around the eggs.

  “Hey Ho—it’s a fine day for the nutty buns!

  Hey Ho, Hey Ho—here come the Nutty Buns!

  Hey Ho, Hey Ho, Hey Ho—NUTTY BUNS!”

  A new experience for a Sherbrooke at a breakfast table, Meggie thought, wanting to laugh, but she only smiled, nodding toward Mrs. Mullins. “That was lovely. Thank you, Cook. May I have a cup of tea?”

  Cook continued singing even as she poured the tea. Soon every nutty bun was in capital letters. Then, with a final hey ho, she disappeared back through the wall.

  No one saw anything amiss with anything. Just another breakfast at Pendragon.

  Meggie ate. The eggs were delicious, as were the nutty buns. So Cook made a perfectly wonderful breakfast, just as Thomas had told her, but why, then, was the dinner so abysmal? She would write to Mary Rose immediately for recipes. Wait, maybe she needed to have a song to accompany the dinner dishes she prepared. Hmmm. Meggie hadn’t ever tried to write a song before, but now she would.

  William Malcombe said, a limp piece of bacon draped over one finger, “You’re a very pretty girl.”

  “Thank you, William. You are a very nice-looking boy. You look like your mother. Are you really sweet?”

  Libby said, “A pretty compliment. Madeleine, did you hear that?”

  “I heard. Where is Thomas, young lady? Did you exhaust him last night?”

  Thomas said in a very loud voice from the doorway, “Mother, forgive me for being late. I wanted to see that Pen was all right after his soaking yesterday. He is. Meggie, you have met William, I see. He is visiting us from Oxford. A surprise visit.”

  “Yes, I have met William.”

  She said nothing while Cook served Thomas scrambled eggs and nutty buns. She wasn’t singing now. Meggie continued to say nothing when Madeleine said, “What are your plans today, Thomas?”
/>
  “I am taking Meggie about the property. Would you like to introduce her to Mrs. Black?” He added to his bride, “She is our housekeeper.”

  “Here from before you were born?”

  “That’s right,” he said, all pleasant and easy, and ate a nutty bun.

  “I will need a horse,” Meggie said.

  “I have selected Aisling for you. That means ‘dream’ in Gaelic. She is a bay with one white stocking, and on a good day she can beat Pen in a race.”

  “Prepare, my lord, to eat dirt.”

  He laughed. “After Survivor, I couldn’t very well provide you with a nag, now could I?”

  Closer to two hours later, since Meggie had agreed to walk on Barnacle’s back in the kitchen, she joined her husband at the Pendragon stables to meet her new mare, Aisling, and give her two carrots.

  When they were riding down the long drive, the sun hot overhead, she said, “I met Mrs. Black in the kitchen. She is very nice. She is also nearly blind, Thomas.”

  “Yes.”

  “She can’t see dirt.”

  “No, probably not much.”

  “Then why hasn’t your mother seen to it that Pendragon is cleaned and the furniture waxed and the draperies replaced since Mrs. Black is blind?”

  “I never asked. However, now you will see to it. At last I will have a clean house.” She was so startled she nearly got knocked off Aisling’s back when the mare swerved too close to an oak tree branch.

  “Have a care, Meggie.”

  “Oh yes, I’m sorry, Aisling. Goodness, you have noticed that the place is a mess then?”

  “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.

  She shivered beneath the thick covers. It was turning cold, a storm was coming, and very soon now, a big storm with lightning, pounding thunder and torrents of wild rain. But the moon was still so bright. She felt tears sting her eyes and swallowed. She wanted him beside her. What was wrong?

  “Damn you, Thomas,” she said, then willed herself to sleep. She’d written to her father and Mary Rose, telling them about Pendragon, the lovely stretch of coastline, asking for recipes, asking Alec and Rory to write a cooking song for her, praising, for example, a buttock of beef done in the French way. She’d sounded happy because she penned her words to make it seem that way, but she wasn’t, not completely. So many strange people here at Pendragon.

  Her mother-in-law had read from her journal, dated from the fall of 1808, for two hours, without pause. Unfortunately it was in French and Meggie understood perhaps one word in five. She’d finally rolled her eyes toward her husband, and he had stood up and taken her hand. “Meggie is very tired, Mother.”

  They’d left William, his mo
ther and Madeleine, her journal still open, in the drawing room. Barnacle was hovering just outside. He said, shaking his head, “I remember it was five years ago now, she read those very same pages. It was 1808, was it not?”

  “It was,” Meggie said. “You’ve an excellent memory, Barnacle. Do you speak French?”

  “One must when one’s back hurts this much,” and he screwed up his face into such agony, that Meggie automatically stepped forward.

  “I’ll walk on your back tomorrow, if you wish, Barnacle. Did today help?”

  “A bit, milady, a meager bit. Naturally I speak French.”

  Meggie fell asleep. She didn’t know what woke her, but it was something she hadn’t heard before in this strange house. A mouse scurrying across the wooden floor? A moth trapped against the windowpane? Just the crackle and heaviness of thunder in the air, not quite ready to strike yet?

  She was suddenly very afraid.

  24

  MEGGIE LAY THERE, eyes wide open, perfectly still, adjusting her hearing, her vision. Waiting, waiting for another sound. The moonlight no longer sliced into the white room. There were only clouds now cloaking the sky, thick, bloated, black as the bottom of a cauldron. It was nearly black inside the bedchamber. The storm was here, the wind coming hard through the partially open window, too cold now. Rain would begin any time now. She’d heard nothing, for how long now?

  She’d been a fool. She started to get up to close the window when she heard it again. It wasn’t a scurrying sound, it was quite something else. It was close, very close. Too close. She didn’t see anything. But that didn’t matter. She rolled to the side of the bed that gave onto the dressing room, and when she jumped up, she tangled in the covers. She staggered, fighting to get free of the covers, when suddenly lightning lit up the black sky, once, again, and then the thunder rolled and boomed, making Pendragon shudder as those huge hits shook it to the ground. She heard someone’s intake of breath, and that someone was right behind her, she could hear the breathing, low and fast and something else, something—She yelled even as she whirled about to see who was there.