"I always go around that chandelier, don't you know?" Paddy said, shaking his head. "I'll do that, my lady, don't worry about it. And the gardens, I'll find the best men in the area. Mrs. Black is singing, so happy she is with the women we brought in from the village. Ah, here's his new lordship."
"Paddy, I must speak to my wife in private for a moment. Please come back in a half hour." The door no sooner closed on Paddy than Thomas said without preamble, "My mother trapped me in the corridor just beneath a portrait of my great-great-uncle Mortimer who went to Wales just after his elder brother came into the title, so furious that he went into a coal mine and the roof caved in on him and killed him."
"She's your mother. I suppose that she has a right to trap you whenever she wishes to."
"She did. She demanded to know if I was trying my best to get you pregnant."
Meggie gave him the wickedest smile. No daughter of a vicar should smile like that. "Are you, Thomas? Trying your very best?"
"Dammit," he said, and grabbed her. He moaned in her mouth, and that sweet sound, the taste of him, made her wild. Her hands were on his britches' buttons before he managed to pull away. He leaned his forehead against hers. He was breathing very hard, trying to get hold of himself. "Oh God," he whispered, leaned down to kiss her, cursed, and took four steps back.
"Why did you dismiss Paddy if you didn't want to kiss me until I jumped on you and carried you to the floor?"
He laughed, just couldn't help himself. "I dismissed Paddy because I wanted to know what you spoke to my mother about. Her eyes were nearly red, Meggie, so furious with you she was sputtering."
"So she's angry, is she?"
"Yes. You sound very pleased with yourself."
Meggie felt a jab of unworthiness. "Don't worry about it, Thomas. She and I will learn to deal with each other. Ah, did she tell you exactly what she was angry about?"
"She just said you needed discipline and I was to beat you, that it was obvious I hadn't brought you to heel yet."
"Well," Meggie said, giving him a sunny smile. "Perhaps you can bring me to heel if we go riding."
"Your head, Meggie. You shouldn't ride until tomorrow at the earliest. You should lie down now and rest."
He was right and she said, "Blessed Hell, all right." Her hair was long and curling to the middle of her back, tied back with a length of black velvet ribbon. He knew, knew all the way to the oak floor beneath his feet, that she was distracted because she wanted him, and she wanted to hit him because he'd pulled away from her. She might not love him, but she wanted him and surely that was an excellent beginning. He would have her yet, or he didn't know what he'd do. He was an optimistic man. He had to hold to that. He heard her say, a bit of a sulk in her voice, "Yes, I will feed Aisling carrots and explore Pendragon grounds. I wish to plant more trees. I must see what sort grow well here."
"Meggie-"
When she turned, her eyebrow up, he looked at her closely for a very long moment, then slowly shook his head. Let her stew. "Please, be careful and don't walk too far from the castle." He didn't tell her that one of the smaller stable lads would be following her everywhere at a discreet distance.
"Ah, that person who struck me last night might be lurking about to do it again?"
"Everyone is accounted for," he said, lying easily. "No, I just don't want you to overdo." Actually, he knew the exact location of everyone in the castle, including Mrs. Black and Barnacle, who was currently lying on his back on the kitchen floor, arms flung out, groaning. Mrs. Black merely stepped over him.
She left him. She wanted to kiss him again, feel that moan of his in her mouth.
Lord Kipper found Meggie in the center of a maze that had fallen to ruin at least twenty years before. She was standing there, staring about at all the yew bushes, wondering how she could fix it, when she heard him say from behind her, "Ah, my beautiful young bride."
She raised an eyebrow up at that, knew he'd said it exactly that way on purpose, and said, "Thank you, Lord Kipper."
"I wish I had seen you first, but alas, I didn't."
"My father would have howled had you inquired about me, sir, since you are even his senior by many years."
"When it involves men and women, years don't matter."
"I shouldn't like to be a widow at twenty-one because my husband died of old age."
"How old are you now?"
"I am nineteen. That would give us two years of bliss before you croaked it."
He stared at her, as if she were, Meggie thought, some strange bird that had just dropped out of the sky, as if he didn't know whether to shoot her or stroke her feathers. Then he laughed, threw back his head and laughed and laughed.
Meggie just looked at this beautiful man, and now that he was laughing, he looked more than beautiful, he looked dazzling, surrounded by overgrown yew bushes, a watery sun shining down on his head.
"I understand that Libby isn't at all certain that you are serious about admiring her."
He was still grinning when he said, "That's true. But we will see, won't we?"
"You will, certainly. What do you want, Lord Kipper? You are certainly far afield from the castle as well as far afield from your own home."
"I heard that someone struck you on the head. You saw absolutely nothing at all?"
"I heard some harsh breathing when the thunder had just boomed and the lightning had just lit up the bedchamber, and I saw a shadow of someone, wearing black.
Nothing more. Why? Were you the one in my bedchamber, Lord Kipper?"
That remark sent one of his perfectly slanted eyebrows straight up. "I? No, my dear, I was sleeping, as I recall, in the arms of a very pleasant young woman in Cork."
"I did ask, didn't I?" Meggie looked heavenward.
"Yes, you did. You are not at all what I would expect from a vicar's daughter." He paused, his eyes darkened. "Thomas doesn't deserve to be a widower when he is so young."
Meggie laughed, just couldn't help herself. "Indeed he doesn't. You have been a terror, haven't you, sir?"
"Oh yes," he said, and looked around. "I am still able to, thank God." He looked about for a moment, then pointed. "There was a lovely old bench here at one time. It's quite a mess, isn't it?"
"Yes. Ah, there's the bench, but it's very dirty."
"No matter." Lord Kipper pulled a clean handkerchief from his pocket and wiped off the bench. "Do sit down, my lady."
Meggie sat.
"Does your head hurt?"
"Just a bit now. Do you know what is happening here at Pendragon, sir?"
"Call me Niles. No, I don't."
"Someone tried to kill me. I've only been here two days. Surely that's too short a time to make anyone hate me enough to crack open my head. I have been thinking about this. Someone knew I was coming and because I was me-Meggie Sherbrooke-I was hated enough for that someone to want to kill me. Does that make sense?"
"You mean," Lord Kipper said slowly, looking deeply into her Sherbrooke blue eyes, "that someone hated you before they even met you?"
"Or hated my family perhaps. Or the person believed Thomas would be with me, only he wasn't. I am very worried that this person is after Thomas, not me."
"I also heard that Madeleine wants you pregnant, by tomorrow if that's possible. She was even mumbling about putting an aphrodisiac in your tea. She even asked me to give you advice on how to seduce Thomas if he tired after only one or two encounters."
Meggie nearly fell off the bench she was so shocked. "I-sir, you can't speak like that, surely. An aphrodisiac? You're making that up just to make me turn red and stutter."