And he'd said his favorite litany, "I don't wish to speak of it. Go to sleep."
She hadn't touched him since. He had fast become a stranger who stayed close to her at night, to protect her. At least he didn't want her dead. He just didn't want her for a wife either.
And now here was William hanging about her, and she knew that Thomas had set him to be another guard.
"Why were you sent down, William?" she asked again even as she thought of Ezra, big, fast, and gray with a white face, from Horton Manor. The squire's wife claimed he could fly faster and straighter than an arrow on the wing. What she'd seen of Ezra's talents the day Thomas took her to visit was him rolling across the floor with one of the squire's children. She decided that she would simply have to set up a competition of sorts to see how many country folk hereabouts were interested.
William was still stroking Oscar, now on his back, all four paws sticking into the air. "That's disgraceful," Meggie said, frowning at the cat. "That cat has no sense of self-worth. Why were you sent down?"
William cleared his throat when he saw her eyebrow arched at him.
"I, er, got a local girl pregnant, maybe, one really never knows, and her father wanted to kill me."
"Not an uncommon reaction, I should say. Was she prettier than Melissa Winters?"
William's jaw dropped. He tried to say something, then shut his mouth fast as a clam trap.
"You are a miserable human being, William," Meggie said, so furious with her half brother-in-law that if she wouldn't hang for it, she would have cheerfully stomped him into the ground. "You probably should have been strangled at birth. Saved everyone a lot of difficulties, particularly the female of the species."
"But it wasn't my fault," William said, and Meggie knew a whine when she heard it, having four brothers and so many dratted boy cousins about. She was so furious with him that she jumped to her feet, her fists at the ready. She wanted to fight him, to sock him in the jaw.
"The girls just hold you down, William, and rip off your clothes?"
He looked shocked that she, a vicar's daughter, would speak so bluntly. She just stared him down until he said, shrugging, "Well, no, but they're the kind of girls who are with ever so many men, and I'm just the one who always gets caught. It wasn't my fault. But you didn't like me before you saw me, Meggie. Why?"
"Melissa Winters, you dolt. I know all about how you blamed Thomas for that. You're a dishonorable cretin, William."
"But it was Thomas who got her with child," William said. "At the time I was in Glasgow with Aunt Augusta."
Meggie couldn't help herself. She slammed her fist into his jaw, a really solid hit that sent him reeling backward, his flailing arms nearly hitting Oscar DeGrasse. Oscar screeched and leaped straight up and backward, an amazing feat that Meggie couldn't help but admire. William couldn't catch himself and went crashing down on his back. He didn't move, just stared up at her, trying to catch his breath.
"Thomas is honorable," she said between fiercely gritted teeth. "You ever say something like that again, and I will kick you in the ribs after I've knocked you down."
William whimpered and didn't move.
"Thank you."
Meggie whirled about to see her husband standing in the doorway to this big sparsely furnished room, his arms crossed over his chest, one of his favorite poses. The irony of that thank-you had hit her square in the nose. She raised her chin. "You are many things, Thomas, but dishonorable isn't one of them."
"No," he said. "I'm not." He walked over to William and held out his hand. William looked at that hand, and Meggie thought for a moment that William would whimper. She said, "Oh, for goodness' sake, William, be a man and take your brother's hand. He won't kill you. He is more civilized about things like that than I."
"But you still might."
"That is true. Go away. I'm trying to train these cats."
William dusted himself off, gave his brother a very uncertain look, and was out of the room very quickly.
Thomas said slowly, "You defended me."
"What would you expect me to do? Tell your dimwitted half brother that you ignore your new wife, that you treat her like she bores you silly, and thus he can say anything at all he likes about you?"
"No. You're not like that."
"Is it possible that another man did impregnate Melissa Winters?"
"No."
"William said he was in Glasgow with Aunt Augusta."
"He was. I sent him there after I beat him to within an inch of his life."
"Well, good." Meggie wiped her hands on her skirt, looked over at Oscar, who was now curled into a tight ball, sleeping in a corner. "He doesn't look like much of a winner, does he?"
"Niles says he's fast."
"Did you see him execute that backward leap?"
"I wasn't looking at him at the time."
"What's wrong, Thomas?"
"I came to get you for tea, Meggie. My mother, Libby, and Lord Kipper are in the drawing room. Cook has already brought the tea and cakes. You're the only one missing."
"And William."
"Undoubtedly Barnacle will nab him."
"I see. All right," Meggie said, then looked over to see Barnacle grimacing toward them, his face contorted in awful agony.
She just looked at him, an eyebrow arched. "You're supposed to nab William."
"I'll nab him all right, but this is more important. It's vital to set things in their proper order and his lordship-our lordship, that is, my lady-is the most important thing hereabouts in any order. He has told me to tell you that he wishes to see you at your convenience in the estate room. And here he is telling you all by himself-and here I am doing the telling as well, but no matter. Two times is better than a chance on none doing the telling."
"I am very afraid, Barnacle," Thomas said, "that I understood you."
Barnacle beamed at him before he remembered, and reset his face into a fearful grimace.
Meggie gave the old man a smile and a very light pat on the back. "Yes, he has told me himself, Barnacle, and now so have you. I surely haven't a chance of forgetting now. Thank you." When he hobbled out, moaning with each stiff step, Meggie turned again to her husband. "You said tea. Barnacle said you wanted to see me in the estate room. What's going on, Thomas?"
"I just wanted to tell you that there is another package from your family." He paused a moment, examined his fingernails, and said easily, "Perhaps it's another gift from your almost cousin."
"Jeremy? Another gift? Probably not."
Then Meggie paused. There'd been something different in his voice when he'd said that, something just out of her reach.
"Tea or the package first, my lord?"
"That would depend on how excited you are about receiving another present from your almost cousin."
This time it smacked her in the nose. Jeremy, he was jealous of Jeremy. Had he heard something? No, surely neither her father nor Mary Rose would have said anything. Goodness, Mary Rose didn't even know. She was shaking her head even as she knew that he couldn't know, just couldn't. Then what was going on?
"His name is Jeremy Stanton-Greville," she said. "You met him at our wedding. He is five years older than you. He is married, his wife expecting a child. It is no more likely to be a present from him than from any other cousin or uncle or aunt or brother."
"I see," he said, and she wanted to hit him for that snide tone.
"I must go now and straighten myself before presenting myself in the drawing room with your blessed mother. I will look at my package later."