expected you to shoulder all the blame. I'm afraid it will be difficult for me ever to come to accept him, Thomas.'
He looked bemused, and said slowly, going to what was the most important thing to him, 'You really believe I'm honorable?'
'Well, of course. I wouldn't have married you otherwise. Would you ever, Thomas, let someone else accept the consequences for something you did?'
He said, his voice still deep and slow, 'No, I don't believe I would ever do that.'
'He doesn't know that I know what he did to you? To Melissa Winters?'
Thomas shook his head.
'Who hit me?'
He sighed. 'I don't know. Everyone claims to have been sleeping until the storm started last night. Everyone also claims to have woken up when the lightning and thunder struck and the rain started coming down in torrents. It was so heavy, a couple of windowpanes were blown in. No one heard anything at all. What would you expect, Meggie?'
'Why would someone want to hurt me, Thomas?'
There it was, stark and clear, in the open, heavy and frightening, deadening the air between them.
Thomas rose from her bed and began pacing the White Room. He looked back to see his bride sitting up, white covers pulled to her waist, a white nightgown spilling lovely lace from her shoulders, and a white bandage around her head. And she was in the middle of a stark white room. He shook his head. 'You look like a virgin who protesteth too much.'
It took her an instant to understand him, and then she laughed, raising a hand to hold her head because laughing made it hurt. 'Too much virginal white, I guess you mean. The good Lord knows I'm not a virgin anymore. Did I tell you that I'm pleased not being a virgin anymore, Thomas, in fact-' She paused a moment, and he knew, just knew all the way to his boots, that she was thinking about him kissing her, probably on top of her, going wild, and he shook with it.
'Don't look at me like that, Meggie. I don't want to hurt you.'
'Oh, you mean my head.'
'Yes.' He was as hard as the heavy door latch, but he grinned, just couldn't help himself. 'Yes, I mean your head.' It seemed as every day passed, he had to simply think of her and he wanted her. It was unnerving, particularly now. And mixed with that lust he felt just thinking her name, just seeing that vivid hair of hers in his mind's eye, mixed with that was the fact that someone in the dark of night had sneaked into the White Room and hit her on the head.
And he had no idea who it was.
He said, wanting it to be true, willing it to be true just by saying the words, 'It has to be someone from outside, Meggie. Someone who doesn't like me, someone who wants revenge, someone who's lived here and knows Pendragon, how to get in and how to get out again.'
'Do you have any ideas about who it could be?'
'I've thought and thought about it, but no, I really can't think of anyone. But that's not saying much. Every old castle has shadows, mysteries, if you will, things hidden for a very long time, but-' He shrugged, then there was a fierce look in those dark eyes of his. 'I won't let anything else happen to you, Meggie, I swear it.'
'If you had slept with me, Thomas, maybe you would have been the one hurt, maybe the person who did this believed we did sleep in here together. Maybe you were the one he was after. Oh dear, I want you safe, Thomas. All right, here it is. I've decided that I want you to continue to sleep in your bedchamber and I will lock the door between our rooms. That way no one can get to you.'
He felt intense pleasure flow through him as he said very matter-of-factly, 'Don't be an idiot, Meggie. The person hit you, not me. It was your bedchamber, not mine. I dare say that that person now knows that you were quite alone. No, Meggie, we will sleep together, but we will make certain the doors are locked.' He cocked his head to her, swallowed as he said, 'I am considering sleeping on top of you to further protect you.'
'Oh my.'
He swallowed again, cleared his throat, mumbled under his breath, 'Sorry, forget I said that. Now isn't the time.'
That was a pity. 'Maybe,' Meggie said, wrapping her arms around her knees, unable to get that image out of her mind, 'just maybe there are some secret passages in this wonderful old place. What do you think? Are there any you know about?'
Thomas plowed his fingers through his hair, making it stand on end. For an instant she was sure he looked frightened. 'No, no,' he said at last. 'There have been rumors about passages, my uncle occasionally whispered about them, but I've never actually seen one.'
'Your mother doesn't particularly seem enthralled with me. You have my dowry and maybe she thinks I'm no longer necessary. Then there's William. Maybe he's found out that I know what he did to Melissa Winters, maybe-'
'My mother is eccentric, that's for certain, but to the best of my knowledge she wouldn't even kill my father, and she hated him more than one can imagine. As for William, I can't imagine he would care if all of Cork and Kinsale knew he was a little lecher. Why would he care if you knew or not?'
Meggie sighed. 'I wish to get up now, Thomas. I'm bored and my head hurts only a bit. Also, someone could simply open the bedchamber door, take one step inside, and shoot me. I'm rather helpless here, amidst all this virginal white.'
His eyes nearly crossed. God, he wanted her, right now, and he didn't want to leave her, he wanted to pump into her, deeper and deeper and yell his pleasure to the rafters of this drafty old castle and fill her with his seed. And lie on top of her, to protect her. He was in a bad way and he knew it. And she didn't. It was amazing. He said, 'No one is going to come in here and shoot you, all this white or no.' Then, because he just couldn't help himself, he said, 'By God, you look delicious.'
This was interesting and she gave him what she believed to be a very warm smile, one filled with the promise of wicked things. He didn't move a muscle.
He was being noble, bless him. Truth be told, her particular place in the world didn't feel all that steady right now. She realized she was scared, but she wasn't about to say that out loud. She said, 'I'm getting up now.'
He looked like he would protest, then shook his head, at himself, not at her. 'I'll send Alvy to you.' And he was gone. Guilt had driven him away, of that she was certain. He didn't want to take a chance of hurting her head anymore. Yes, he wanted her and now that Meggie knew what this wanting was all about, she wished he would come back. He could leave her aching head to her. She smiled as she swung her legs over the side of that stark white bed. Yes, she was quite certain his eyes had become glazed, fixed on her face. She wondered if she were the first of all the cousins to make love, then frowned. All her dratted cousins were boys, and outrageous, just like their fathers, even her brothers, Max and Leo, seemed to know things, yes, even Max the Latin scholar. She'd seen him speaking to Leo just a couple of months ago, there had been this fixed smile on his face, really a rather stupid smile, and she hadn't understood then. Now she did. She'd worn that stupid smile a couple of times now; she'd seen it in the mirror.
Ah, marital sorts of things were all well and good, but when all was said and done, when everything was right there, ready to smack her in the face, what was important was that someone had hit her on her head. As he'd said, an old place like Pendragon was filled with secrets, with mysteries. It was up to her to discover if any of them had come out of hiding and didn't like seeing her as the countess sleeping in the White Room.
Meggie began pacing her bedchamber, her white nightgown disappearing amongst all the other white, the only thing keeping her set apart from the furnishings was the flapping gown at her ankles as she paced.
His mother, Meggie thought. She had to be the keeper of Pendragon secrets. Madeleine, who didn't like her and didn't bother to hide it. Madeleine, who wrote journals in both French and English. Why not beard the lioness in her den?
Was his mother mad?
She was becoming hysterical, just like Maude Free-berry, whose wails could be heard every third night throughout Glenclose-on-Rowan when her husband stumbled home drunk.
Well, if Madeleine wasn't mad, she certainly was unpleasant, and perhaps, just perhaps-
'Why,' Meggie said aloud to the empty white room, stripping off her virginal white nightgown, 'is Aunt Libby
