Pendragon

Thomas wanted to yell down the moon, which was bright overhead tonight, not a single cloud in the Irish sky, a perfect spring night, the air soft and fragrant with the scent of new flowers, but he didn't want her anymore now. His sense of betrayal was greater now that she'd admitted to it.

'Well, damn you, you didn't get over your feelings for the bastard. Then you married me.'

'Yes, I did.'

'But he was married and he didn't want you?'

'No, but he was betrothed, something I didn't know about until it was too late.'

'I see. If Jeremy walked through that door this very instant, told you he wanted you, would you go with him?'

'No.'

'Because you're a damned vicar's daughter.'

'Because I don't break my promises.'

He plowed his hand through his hair, making it stand straight up. Meggie smiled.

'So I am stuck with a wife who loves another man,' he said finally, and hated the words as they poured out of his mouth, hated them to his gut. They were stark and ugly, those damnable words, sounded like nails in a coffin lid.

'Listen to me, Thomas. I have a very high regard for you. I very much like it when you kiss me, when you love me. You have given me great pleasure just as, I trust, I have given you. Jeremy isn't part of my life now. Only you are. I am your wife and I will protect you and honor you until I die.'

'Wonderful,' Thomas said, and began pacing, his dressing gown flapping at his ankles. 'Just bloody wonderful. An honorable wife who's already betrayed me. Damnation.' The fingers went through the hair again.

She said suddenly, 'That is why you were so very rough with me on our wedding night, wasn't it? You were thinking about Jeremy and you wanted to punish me.'

'I'm not proud of it, but yes. I heard you talking about him and I couldn't bear it. I hurt you.' He paced again. She could feel anger radiating off him. She realized fully what she'd done to him.

'I'm very sorry, Thomas.'

'Yes, naturally you are because you're so damned honorable and you recognize that you've done a very wrong thing.'

'Yes, but you are my husband, Thomas, forever.'

'Isn't that just dandy?'

'Why did you withdraw from me again? Two weeks ago.'

'You dreamed about him. You said his name aloud.' He slammed his fist against the wall. 'Damn you, Meggie, I had just given you immense pleasure and you dreamed about that damned bastard! I wanted to kill him-I still do.'

'What do you want to do to me?'

'I don't know. I've thought about it, but I just don't know. I don't want to hurt you again, not with sex. Never with sex again.'

'I don't remember dreaming about Jeremy. To be perfectly honest here, Thomas, I don't think of him all that often anymore. You are my husband. Pendragon is my home. I want to be your wife, in all ways. I hate that you distrust me, that you blame me, that you don't want me anymore.'

'Oh, God knows I want you, Meggie. I am a young man, young men are randier than goats, and I have grown up hearing that goats will bed anything that wags a tail or chews a boot.'

'That's vulgar,' Meggie said, and laughed. It dried up very quickly. She said slowly, looking at him intently, 'Do you think perhaps that we can start over, Thomas?'

'Start over? Start over what? This sham of a marriage?'

She'd been wallowing in guilt, knowing she'd been profoundly wrong. She'd been trying to exert reason and logic, trying to make him see how hideously sorry she was, but now she felt anger filling her, coming right out of her mouth. 'This isn't a sham marriage! Blessed Hell, Thomas, I wouldn't let a man do what you do to me, and I surely wouldn't let a man hear me scream in pleasure, if this were a damned sham marriage! I am your bloody wife. Do you hear me? I will grow old with you. Get used to it!'

She was breathing so hard that she was panting now. She realized in that instant that he was looking at her breasts, heaving and pressing against that wicked peach satin. She, the vicar's daughter, straightened her shoulders, stuck her chest out, and said, 'So what are you going to do about it, Thomas?'

He slammed out of the White Room.

Meggie stared at the still vibrating door. This was not good. She knew she'd hurt him very badly. But she couldn't control her dreams. She tried and tried, but she simply couldn't remember even dreaming about Jeremy. Oh yes, it had been after he'd sent her the carved statue of Mr. Cork. What could it have been?

And then she remembered.

She bounded out of bed and burst through the adjoining door into his grand and massive and very gloomy bedchamber, which she'd had cleaned, but not really paid much attention to since Thomas spent so little time in here. He was standing by one of the long skinny windows, staring out over the sea.

'Thomas, I remember.'

He turned slowly. 'You follow me, even into my bedchamber, where I should have privacy if I wish it?'

'Climb down from your hobbyhorse, you ass. I remember the dream about Jeremy.'

'You have had time to make something up, Meggie.'

She ran straight across the room, right at him, and grabbed his dressing gown lapels. She stood on her tiptoes and said right into his face, 'I haven't made up a single thing. Listen to me. I dreamed about him right after he sent me Mr. Cork. Naturally he was on my mind, but not in the way you think. I dreamed about a cat race.'

'Ha.'

'Shut your trap, curse you. I dreamed that Mr. Cork was running, he was way ahead of the other racing cats. Then he began changing-he turned black, his eyes were bright orange, and then, he was suddenly fat, his belly nearly hanging to the ground. I just couldn't believe it. And then Jeremy was saying that he would have to rewhittle him, make me a whole new statue and it would take him more time than he had, but he had to so he could be faithful to the real Mr. Cork. And I was begging him not to. I wanted my own Mr. Cork back, not this monstrous thing.'

'Do you honestly want me to believe that, Meggie?' He spoke very quietly.

She backed away from him, a good two steps. She said slowly, 'Have I ever lied to you?'

'You lied by omission.'

'Ah, that's a grand sin, isn't it? Will you chew on that until your jaw locks? No, that was rhetorical. Have I ever lied to you, Thomas?'

He was silent. She opened her mouth, but he raised his hand. 'No, be quiet. I'm thinking. We were together a goodly amount of time before we married. I'm trying to remember if you lied to me.'

Now it was Meggie who began pacing that dismal gloomy room. It was filled with shadows and every step she took sent her into deeper gloom. She hated gloom, she knew too well how it felt inside her. He turned to look out the window again, at the beautiful moon that glistened over the water.

It was magic, a night like this.

'No,' he said at last. 'I don't remember you ever lying to me.'

'Well, good,' she said, nearly at a loss for words since she'd fully expected him to come up with something. She was only human, after all. 'Then may we please try to begin again, Thomas?'

'Meggie,' he said, staying where he was, which was very far away from her indeed, 'what if I loved another woman and couldn't have her, then I married you, all without telling you a thing about her.'

Meggie stopped cold. She was shaking her head, then she stopped that too. She stared across the gloom at him. 'Oh dear,' she whispered. 'Oh dear.'

'Yes,' he said. 'There is that, isn't there?'

'I would throttle you if I found out. I would stomp you into the mud. I would shave your head and blacken your eyes, both of them. Oh dear. I hadn't thought of the shoe on the other foot.'

He was pleased, but he wasn't about to let her see it. 'What I did to you was bad enough-forcing you on our wedding night.'

'No, what was worse was the last time when you just went away from me and didn't say a single thing. That is