Catherine Coulter - Pendragon

"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."

"Take care, Meggie. Five minutes, no more. Otherwise I will send someone for you."

"I doubt someone will try to bash me on the head on my way to my bedchamber."

"Five minutes."

She merely nodded and stalked out of the room. How could he possibly be jealous of Jeremy? It made no sense at all. But his voice had been different. She sighed. She just didn't know, had no idea, and she'd thought and thought about what she could have done to alienate him so very much. All she could figure out was that her husband had gotten himself in a snit because Jeremy sent her a carving of Mr. Cork. It was ridiculous.

She nearly knocked over her mother-in-law she was so deeply immersed in her own thoughts.

"Watch your direction, Missy!"

"What? Oh, ma'am, sorry I nearly plowed you down. It would surely be different if I'd meant to, but I didn't."

"You are entirely too smart for your own good. Just look at that dreadful chandelier overhead with all that raw-looking rope holding it up. My ancestors are thumping in their graves."

"You don't have any ancestors to thump here, ma'am. It's the Kavanaughs, don't you remember?"

"A low lot, the Kavanaughs," Madeleine said, staring at that rope, "so low they don't deserve to have ancestors here. No matter. Now, as for you, Missy-"

"It's my lady."

"Bah. I can tell that my dearest son is already tired of you. He keeps his distance from you, just plain avoids you, everyone has noticed it. Didn't take him long, did it? You are boring, obviously, you no longer amuse him, and he bitterly regrets marrying you. At least he got a lovely big dowry out of it. Well, are you pregnant yet?"

"Ask your son, ma'am," Meggie said, and nearly knocked her mother-in-law down on purpose this time. She managed to hold her temper, and forced herself to breathe in the wonderful fresh lemon wax that had shined up every bit of furniture and armor in the castle. There wasn't a single cobweb in any corner. Everything shone. Even though Mrs. Black couldn't see into any corners, she claimed she could always hear spiders weaving their webs and she didn't hear a single thing now.

Meggie was smiling as she strode away from her mother-in-law, shoulders finely squared, her step light until she thought of Thomas and knew that his mother was right. He was bored with her, tired of her, whatever. What had happened? What had she done? Surely it couldn't have anything to do with Jeremy.

I'm not boring, she thought, and pulled an early blooming rose from a vase that sparkled with cleanliness and crushed it in her fist. I train champion cat racers. How can that be boring?

Madeleine called after her, "I will prove to you that I can train racing cats better than you can."

Meggie didn't even pause. But she did smile, just for a moment. Madeleine just didn't give up.

The package from home-it was a painting of her family. She wasn't aware that she was crying until Thomas said, all stiff and hard, "It is a fairly good painting. I do believe though that Mary Rose's hair is not quite as red as that rendered by the artist. Also, Max has a sharper chin. As for Leo, he looks ready to vault over a fence and race around the fields. All in all, it is excellent. Stop crying."

Meggie sniffed, then set the painting on a table against the wall, backed up, and stared at it. "It's just excellent. My father knew I would be terribly homesick. He's the best father in the world."

Thomas didn't say anything. "Shall we take it downstairs and show it to everyone? Too bad your uncle the earl isn't in it. My mother would surely appreciate you more if reminded of your high-ranking relatives. I forgot to tell her that your aunt is the daughter of a duke. Hmmm. Maybe you can salvage her yet."

"She still calls me Missy. I've corrected her twice, just a bit on the snide side. I don't think she'll ever stop."

Thomas nodded. "Probably not. Let's go." He carried the painting all the way to the drawing room, set it atop the mantel, and stepped back.

Libby said, "Goodness, Meggie, your father is a fine figure of a man. Does he truly have silver wings in his hair?"

"I believe so," Meggie said.

"She is too young to be your mother," Lord Kipper said, both his eyes on Mary Rose. "Wonderful features, interesting the way she is leaning toward your father, you can feel it, even though she appears to be sitting straight."

"You cannot seduce her, Niles," Madeleine said.

Lord Kipper turned and smiled. "Would you like to wager on that, my dear?"

"Mary Rose is Meggie's stepmother. She's Scottish," Thomas said, turned from the painting, and added toward his wife, "Would you be so kind as to serve us tea?"

And so she did. She knew everyone's taste in tea now and moved quickly. Cook had made scones for her, and they were really quite good. Cook now made, besides a brilliant breakfast, a very acceptable luncheon. She never sang except delivering the nutty buns to the breakfast table each morning. Dinner, however, still strained her abilities. She needed a song, Meggie knew, and felt guilty because she hadn't thought about it.

She said more to herself than to Thomas, "I should be receiving some more recipes from Mary Rose soon now."

"Cook will butcher them," William said, coming into the drawing room. "Give her a haunch of beef and she will turn it into a fence rail." So saying, he cast Meggie a wary look.

Meggie frowned at him and began rearranging the scones on the platter. "Oh, stop looking like a whipped dog, William. Would you like tea?"

He nodded and managed to slink all the way across the huge room to stand behind a very old wing chair that Meggie planned to replace just as soon as-She frowned into her teacup. She had to go to Dublin to the Gibbs Furniture Warehouse. She wondered what her husband of three weeks would say when she asked him about that.

"I say, that's your father, Meggie. The vicar."

"That's right. You caused a very fine mess, William, and he was the one to resolve it, he and your brother."