"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.