Pendragon

moment, he didn't give a damn about her feelings, about that damnable Jeremy. He wanted to punish her for what she'd done to him. He came down hard over her and went inside her again just as she yelled, 'Don't you dare have the nerve to hurt me more, you bastard.'

Then she shuddered.

He felt her muscles clenching around him, he was deep inside her, it was driving him mad, and this time, the rage banked, the desire to punish, to gain revenge on her both for what she'd done and hadn't done, fell to his own need, his own wild urgency and that was more powerful than anything else. He pushed again. 'Oh God,' he said, panting until he thought his heart would burst from his chest, 'I don't want this. Damnation. This will kill me.'

'Probably not, you clod. Get off me, damn you!' He fell forward, flattened her, kissed her and shoved hard again and again. It was over again in less than a minute. He was heaving and panting, nearly crying because his body felt so very fine-nothing but soul-deep satisfaction and the overwhelming urge to sleep, to forget what he'd just done. Damn him and damn her. At least no one could take her from him now. Damn her honor. He'd been rough with her. He was sorry he'd hurt her, but in the end, she would have to learn that whatever he did, she had no say in it.

He thought about that life-changing conversation between father and daughter he'd overheard in the vicarage gardens not three hours after she'd become his wife. His wife whom he'd wanted to pull behind a shrubbery and kiss her silly, but that hadn't happened. He'd seen her father, taken a step forward to ask if he'd seen Meggie, but then he'd heard her say in a voice stumbling with pain, 'I truly didn't want him to speak to me, Papa, but Jeremy believed that since I'd married Thomas, he could now redeem himself because obviously I didn't love him anymore and it bothered him that I believed he was an idiot. Papa, Jeremy is honorable. I should never have believed that wretched act of his. He did it to make me stop loving him, oh God-so noble and I hated him, scorned him.'

Her father had held her close and whispered against her hair, 'It will be all right. You've got a fine husband. You will come to love him, dearest. You will see.'

And Meggie cried against her father's shoulder, and Thomas Malcombe's life, as he'd known it, as he'd anticipated it would be with his new wife, fell into pieces at his feet.

The candle was nearly gutted when he rolled off her onto his back. She was up in an instant, ready to clout him when, her fist hard and ready, ready to strike, he snored. Meggie couldn't believe it, just couldn't. She wanted to kill him for what he had done, damn him a million times more than she'd already damned him.

She looked down at him, waved her fist not an inch from his nose, and whispered, 'Blessed hell.'

Slowly she got off the other side of the bed and managed to stand straight. Every part of her hurt, but nothing compared to the pain deep inside her, where he'd poked and pushed and shoved, and no, she still wanted to kill him, very badly. She felt wet and sticky and her legs were shaking. She could barely stand up.

She'd trusted him.

She'd been an idiot.

Was this the way things were always done? First a man left a woman's body and the second time he didn't? Was it some sort of strange ritual? Did her father do this to Mary Rose? Her brain shied away from that. What about Jeremy? Had he done that to his precious Charlotte their wedding night? Meggie had been eaten up with jealousy at the thought of Jeremy kissing Charlotte, not her, but if it had led to this utter humiliation, then her jealousy was ridiculous. Meggie walked over to the small table that held a basin of clean water and washed herself. She winced at the pain and saw that the water was red with her blood. He'd done that to her the first time just before he'd jerked away from her.

Then she headed straight to the table where the remains of their meal still were, and immediately picked up the champagne bottle. Thank the good lord it wasn't empty.

She downed the rest of it. Warm or not, bubbles or not, it was quickly down her throat. She didn't stop drinking until the bottle was empty. Then she stood there, staring out over the English Channel, at the magnificent moonlight that was a wide swatch across the water, making it glitter. Hah, glitter. Here she was admiring the beauty of nature when that man who was her husband was lying on his back, naked, snoring, on that wretched bed where he'd behaved so strangely. Surely a husband wasn't supposed to do that to his wife. She wouldn't believe that Jeremy had done that to Charlotte, that that was simply the way men behaved. Very well, if men weren't all like this, then why had Thomas done it to her? Because he didn't love her and thus didn't care if he hurt her or not? That just made no sense. He'd laughed with her, saved Rory's life, wanted to marry her. Meggie just stood there looking out over the moon shining onto the water, and wondered what to do.

She tipped the champagne bottle again, but the wretched thing was empty. She wondered what the innkeeper would think if she ordered another bottle, and then she just didn't care. She pulled on Thomas's dressing gown that he'd tossed over the end of the bed, an old burgundy velvet, its elbows nearly worn through, and tied it tightly around her waist. She left the room, walked barefoot down the hall and down the stairs. Mrs. Miggs was the only person in the taproom. Her hair was coming out of the tight knot at the back of her head, her apron was spotted, but she was humming as she wiped a wet cloth over the wooden tabletops. 'Hello, Mrs. Miggs.'

'Oh my,' Mrs. Miggs said, startled, her hand holding the wet cloth, clutched over her breast. 'Lady Lancaster? Goodness, it is nearly midnight. What is the problem?'

'I would like another bottle of champagne.' Mrs. Miggs nearly dropped the cloth she was so surprised. Then she really looked at the tousled girl in front of her, barefoot, wearing a man's dressing gown that dragged the floor, very pale in the dim candlelight, and said slowly, 'It's very late, my lady. I do not see your husband. You are obviously alone. Thank heavens I sent the rest of the men on their way a few minutes ago.'

'I'm glad, too. I wouldn't have come in if there had been men. They're dreadful, men are. May I have another bottle of champagne.'

'Why?'

Meggie looked down at her toes and said with no hesitation at all, 'It's my wedding night and I don't feel very good about things at all. After I've drunk the champagne I'm wondering if I should bash my new husband over the head with the bottle. I finished the bottle upstairs, gripped it about its neck, tested its weight, but decided rather than killing him right at that moment, I wanted to drink some more champagne. To consider it more at length. What do you think?'

'What does your new husband have to say?'

'The clod is sleeping in the middle of the bed, snoring.'

'Let me get you the champagne.'

Meggie didn't realize she was weaving about a bit when Mrs. Miggs returned with a very cold bottle, but Mrs. Miggs did. The young lady had been shocked to her bare toes, and her new husband obviously hadn't behaved well. She was too pale, and that worried Mrs. Miggs. She said, 'You just sit yourself down on that bench, that's right, just slide right on in and I'll open the bottle for you.' She popped the cork out efficiently, then put two glasses on a table. 'Come, let us talk about this new marriage of yours. Shall, ah, we toast it?'

Meggie grumbled even as she slid across the wooden bench, but she quickly accepted a glass from Mrs. Miggs. 'I don't want to toast my marriage. There is nothing to toast. Please don't call me 'my lady.' My name is Meggie and this is my wedding night. It was awful. I wasn't expecting any of it. He ambushed me.'

Mrs. Miggs, thick in the middle now from birthing five children and her own excellent cooking, said, 'Wedding nights can be bad sometimes for the woman.'

'He left me the first time and then the second time-goodness, it was only a minute or so later-he turned into an animal. I wasn't expecting any of that. The kissing was nice, but that didn't last for long. He kissed me before we were married and I really liked it. He put his tongue in my mouth. That was odd, but I knew I could get used to it.'

'Kissing usually is nice. Tongues, too.'

'Ah, but the rest of it-I was hopeful, I actually trusted him, and what happened? You truly do not want to know, Mrs. Miggs.'

Meggie clicked her glass to Mrs. Miggs's. She said, 'Here's to this bottle of champagne and to the witching hour that will chime in not more than four minutes from now.'

'Hear, hear,' said Mrs. Miggs.

Meggie said, frowning at the bubbles in her glass, 'Are men all like that lout upstairs snoring to the rafters? They get you all interested, and then they do as they please? They leave you and just hunch over you, gone from you, and shudder and shake and moan?'

'I don't know what you mean about him being gone, my lady-Meggie.'

'He left me before he did anything.' Mrs. Miggs frowned. 'A man does that when he doesn't wish to