Pendragon

raucous day, water whipped up by the wind, tearing and whipping about the boat. Today the sea was as rough and pure and wild as the frigid North Sea that slammed into the rocks near her home Kildrummy Castle in Scotland.

Then, suddenly, a gleaming sliver of sun slid through a sky full of fat gray clouds, knifing into the high waves just ahead of their boat. As for the boat-The Kelpie-it rocked madly, lifted to the top of a wave, then slammed down hard into a deep trough. It was like slicing a knife into bread, fast and deep. Then holding steady, a long pause, as if the boat were holding its breath, then up again, towering on top of the cresting waves.

She'd never experienced anything like this. It was magnificent, exciting, and she loved every instant of it. She thought she'd even go so far as to say that she loved it as much as she'd loved the pleasure she'd wallowed in the previous night. Then, of course, morning had come as it always did, and even though one just wanted to lie there and smile and do nothing at all, except reach for her husband and begin it all again, it wasn't possible because her husband had been gone. Long gone and it was only six o'clock in the morning, a stormy morning that would have made staying in bed, sipping chocolate, and kissing until her mouth was numb, a very lovely thing indeed.

It was not to be, dammit. And then he was there beside her, looking up at the billowing storm clouds overhead, feeling the harsh sea wind whip his hair around his face.

He said, 'We'll be landing soon in Cork Harbour.'

She had her hand firmly on her bonnet. She turned to see her husband, his dark eyes watering from the sea winds whipping about his head. He looked immensely wonderful, but he had changed again. This wasn't the man who'd groaned and yelled and kissed her numb the previous night. What was wrong with men? Were they all like this-utterly unpredictable, without a single idea how nice it would be to smile and kiss?

'I hope it storms before we land. I love storms.'

'The horses don't. They don't like this pitching about a bit. Add rain to the mix and they would want to stomp until they toppled into the sea.'

'It is a pity that they don't have thumbs-then they could hang on to something.'

He smiled, remembering how he'd hated to leave her, she'd been so warm and soft, a slight smile playing about her mouth. She'd opened her eyes then, looked at him and saw only him, he knew it, smiled at only him. He'd had to leave her, there was so much to be done.

He said, 'Pendragon lies only two hours south, right on the coast, at the end of a short promontory. It was built four centuries ago, a sentinel at the edge of the land to watch for enemies. It was burned by Cromwell because the Kavanaghs refused to surrender, then rebuilt by Charles II.'

'The Kavanaghs?'

'My great-uncle, Rodney Malcombe, my grandfather's younger brother, bought Pendragon with his inheritance when the Kavanaghs found themselves betrayed by the French toward the end of the last century.'

'Napoleon betrayed them?'

Thomas nodded. 'It was a question of turning on their neighbors. It was said that the Kavanaghs would butcher a neighbor's cattle without thinking twice about it, but they simply would not kill the neighbors' families. The French made them promises, then broke them. The Kavanaghs took what money my uncle paid for Pendragon and went to the Colonies, to a town called Boston, I believe. Pendragon is a grand old place, Meggie.'

Her eyes were shining with excitement even as the wild whipped her bonnet off her head.

Thomas caught it before it whirled overboard and set it back onto her tangled hair. He lightly patted her cheek, leaned down, and kissed her. 'I wish I could have stayed with you this morning,' he said, and kissed her again.

Meggie leaned into him, licked his bottom lip, and he stepped back to tie her ribbons beneath her chin. 'It simply won't do for the earl of Lancaster to make love to his bride on the deck of a pitching boat.'

'Why not?'

'Be quiet, Meggie,' he said, stroked his knuckles over her jaw, and grinned at her. He cleared his throat. 'We have our own small harbour where our local fishermen moor their boats. We have a small village, Pendragon, that sports a few small shops for the hundred or so people who live around us. Mostly we ride to Kinsale for supplies, just to the south of us.'

'Pendragon,' she said. 'It has taste, that word, the taste of adventure and secrets and old passages that no one knows about.' She rolled the name around in her mouth, said it out loud again. 'Pendragon. My cousin Jeremy's home in Fowey is called Dragon's Jaw. Isn't that a marvelous name as well? I so wanted to-well, that's silly, now isn't it? No, I wanted to visit Dragon's Jaw. There are these sharp rocks at the base of the cliff just below the house and thus, its name.'

If Jeremy had magically appeared, Thomas would have hurled him overboard without a second thought. She was thinking about living at his home. He was so angry he wanted to curse the billowing sails down, but he knew he couldn't, and so he said, 'Pendragon is very old. It was once very important. Now it is simply beautiful. Now it simply endures.'

Meggie frowned up at him. 'What's wrong, Thomas? You sound as cold and sharp as my grandmother Lady Lydia who can both slice ham and a witless neighbor with just a single glare. She lives at Northcliffe Hall with my uncle Douglas and aunt Alex. She couldn't come to our wedding because she was ill. However, given the letter she wrote me, she is very pleased that I married an earl who's an Englishman, not a dreaded Scot like my uncle Colin. Still, given five minutes she could still find something significant lacking in your character.

'And so don't you look down that very elegant nose of yours at me, just like she does. Don't forget, my lord, that I gave you remarkable pleasure last night if your grunts and groans are any measure of pleasure, which they are, I know that firsthand.' She gave him a smile that made him want to jump on her and take her down to the deck.

She said, 'One would think you would perhaps wish to reminisce a bit, perhaps smile a bit vacantly, but here you are, thin-lipped, and I have no idea why.'

All right. He would forget Jeremy for a moment and his ridiculous house in Fowey. Dragon's Jaw, a really stupid name, so precious it was nauseating. He didn't want her to guess that he was beyond jealous. He looked at her, saw the wind had burned her cheeks bright red. He also saw that she was so proud of herself, and now that he thought about it, she had pushed him right over the edge, and he'd happily fallen and fallen yet again, until he wouldn't have cared if the bloody roof of Squire Billings's house had come crashing down on his back.

He took her mittened hand and looked toward the distant shore, listened to the wind howl and poor Tim McCulver vomiting over the side of the boat, thankfully downwind.

'Yes,' Meggie said after a moment. 'Pendragon-it is a vastly romantic name, just flows off the tongue and makes you shiver with the feel of it-so unlike our home in Scotland-Kildrummy Castle. That is utterly pragmatic and down-to-earth, feet firmly planted. Tell me about it.'

'I much prefer it to Bowden Close. You will see it yourself this afternoon.'

'Where did the name Pendragon come from? Is it named after an ancient Irish warrior?'

'No. My great-uncle changed the name from Belleek Castle to Pendragon. Uther Pendragon wasn't Irish, he was Celtic or early English, the father of King Arthur. My great-uncle was obsessed with King Arthur. I believe he dreamed of finding Arthur's burial site on Pendragon land. I heard rumors a couple of years back that North Nightingale, Lord Chilton, had found King Arthur's sword Excalibur when a cliff wall collapsed into an ancient cave. Probably nonsense, but I would like to meet him someday and ask about it.

'My great-uncle always used to say that Tintagal was nothing but a heap of rocks, that Arthur could have easily sailed to Ireland, to Pendragon, and spent his final days there. But I wonder.'

'Oh, I remember that now. Pendragon.' She grinned at him. 'Let me roll it about on my tongue for a moment.'

He watched her and her tongue rolling around, could practically feel her tongue rolling about on and in his own mouth, and got harder than the mast.

She said, 'Do you plan to live most of the time at Pendragon?'

'I haven't yet decided. Bowden Close is now also my responsibility. Your family is there. We will visit often.'

'That's good. I would miss my family.'

'Yes, I know. As I said, I don't wish Bowden Close to be left only in a steward's hands.'

'My uncle Douglas says that a man is a fool if he ignores what is his.'

'I agree.'