Catherine Coulter the Sherbrooke Series Novels 6-10 (9781101562123)

by Coulter, Catherine

  After an hour, however, Meggie was feeling less and less like bursting into tears when she looked at him. Actually, she wanted less and less for him to stare at her, just her, with regret and nameless hunger in his beautiful eyes. She wanted less and less for him to realize his tragic mistake that would keep them apart forever.

  No, after an hour, Meggie was ready to smash him. She began to drum her fingers against the arm of her chair as he talked on and on about his dearest Charlotte, his beautiful, elegant Charlotte, so sweet, so clever—the embodiment of perfection, a flawless example of womanhood. Then he went on to his stud at Fowey. After a while, both the stud and Charlotte sported the same attributes.

  Jeremy never stopped talking about either Charlotte and the stud, even after dinner when the adults were finally having tea in the drawing room.

  Hour upon hour of his braying went on. Meggie knew it would never end unless someone shot him. She was ready.

  His endless braying had become the fifth circle of Hell. He was still beautiful, of course, no change there, and he still made her heart sigh and ache, but enough was enough. To keep her mouth shut, Meggie moved to the piano and played vigorously, to drown out his endless praise of himself and what he himself had found and fashioned. But he just didn’t stop. Her father looked mildly amused, and to Meggie’s eye a bit distracted, and she knew he was likely composing next Sunday’s sermon while he was the perfect host. Mary Rose was constantly patting Jeremy’s hand, as if to congratulate him on his brilliance, perhaps to keep herself from slapping him silly.

  Meggie’s limber fingers ran the last Scarlatti arpeggio, hit the last cord, perhaps too forte, since she used quite a bit of muscle, but it didn’t matter. She waited just a moment to see if perhaps the conversation had shifted to someone besides perfect Charlotte or the perfect stud.

  It hadn’t.

  Meggie said finally, in a very loud voice as she rose from the piano stool, “How are Uncle Ryder and Aunt Sophie?”

  Jeremy, who been detailing every improvement he’d made on the stud—in only three months, mind you—and the plans he had for Leo, said, startled, “What? Oh, they are just fine, Meggie.” He grinned, and Meggie felt her heart lurch. Well, blessed hell. “Yes, Ryder tells me the Sherbrooke boys have quite taken over Oxford. He says that when a letter arrives from Grayson, he’s loathe to open it, fearing the worst.” Now his grin turned fatuous. “I know you love to ride, Meggie. Did I tell you how much Charlotte adores this one mare I bought for her, a beautiful bay mare with a white blaze on her nose and white fetlocks. She is as lovely a mare as Charlotte is a woman. I will breed her, naturally. Her name is Dido, so fitting, don’t you think?”

  “No,” Meggie said. “To escape her husband, Dido built a funeral pyre, stabbed herself, and threw herself on it.”

  He paused a moment, frowning. “I thought she founded Carthage, something both the mare and Charlotte will do, that is, they will both found a dynasty.”

  “She did, then she stabbed herself.”

  “Hmm,” said Jeremy, “now that I think about it, I’m not certain that I should allow Charlotte to ride all that much now, since she is carrying my child.”

  “It is her child too,” Meggie said, her voice rising an octave. “She’s the one doing all the work.”

  “Well, yes, but she tells me over and over that she is having this child for me and that it will be a boy because that is what I want.” He gave her a brainless self-satisfied grin.

  This was nauseating. Her heart wasn’t lurching in pain and regret now. Meggie said, her fingers tapping on the lovely cherrywood piano case, “I would only care if my child were healthy and that it managed to survive its first year on this blessed earth. I wouldn’t care whether or not it was a boy or girl.” She added, her voice even louder now, “Perhaps Charlotte can decide for herself when she should stop riding her beautiful mare that you bought her, whose namesake stabbed herself.”

  Jeremy gave her what she’d thought only four hours before was the most seductive smile in all of Christendom. Now it looked superior and smug. He said, all patient and condescending, “Meggie, as is proper, since I am Charlotte’s husband, she looks to me to guide her, to tell her what is best for her.”

  “What a wonderful parent you will be, Jeremy,” Meggie said, her own smile as false as Mr. McCardle’s leg, “just look at all the practice you’re gaining since you married Charlotte. But you know, I simply can’t imagine what is proper about treating your wife like a child and a nitwit.”

  “Charlotte a nitwit? A child? That is absurd, Meggie. Oh, I see, you’re jesting.”

  To keep the nausea at bay, Meggie played another song. She was quite aware that Mary Rose had cocked her head to one side, sending her glorious mass of curly red hair halfway down her arm, no doubt wondering why Meggie had lost her manners.

  Meggie stopped playing in time to hear Jeremy say to her father, ignoring both her and Mary Rose, “Since you have approved, Uncle Tysen, Leo will be coming to me at the end of his term at Oxford. He is a natural with horses. He and I will do very well together. He writes me with new ideas. He is studying the science of horse breeding, he tells me.” This was said with an indulgent grin.

  “Leo knows more about horses than you do,” Meggie said.

  Tysen said easily, “Now, Meggie, Leo knows quite a lot, that’s true, but he doesn’t yet have Jeremy’s years of experience.”

  “Does Charlotte think Leo will do well too?” Meggie asked.

  Jeremy leaned back against the sofa back, smiling. “My dearest Charlotte has no idea what Leo will do since she is a woman and can’t really understand the needs and requirements for someone to succeed at building a successful stud.”

  More nausea. How could he be so utterly obtuse? She couldn’t believe the nonsense flowing from his mouth. Why hadn’t Uncle Ryder beaten that out of him? Surely after four hours of it, he would have realized a good blow would do the trick.

  Meggie nodded ever so pleasantly and said, “Oh yes indeed. How true. I, myself, have often wondered how God could have been so remiss as to have made women, when they are so very useless. He wasted his time.”

  “But Charlotte is pregnant,” Jeremy said, looking at her, blinking, confused.

  Meggie said, “Surely God could have found an easier way to provide boy children for men rather than forcing them to have to deal with women, don’t you think? Imagine, Charlotte hasn’t the brains to even understand how horses mate. Imagine, you have to tell her even when she should no longer ride a horse. Imagine, she will welcome Leo with no idea what he will do.”

  “Meggie.” This from her father, who knew from her tone of voice that she’d gone too far. “Jeremy didn’t mean that. You are misunderstanding him.”

  Of course her father doubtless wondered why she was quite ready to clout Jeremy in the head. Oh goodness, she had to stop being such a shrew. Her feelings for Jeremy—this was something Meggie never wanted either him or Mary Rose to know. It was too humiliating.

  But something she couldn’t control made her ignore her father and say, “I believe he said that Charlotte is stupid, unlike him or Leo since they are men and seem to know what’s what.” She looked at Jeremy straight in the face. “When I met Charlotte, I never thought she was stupid. Indeed, if I’d had the opportunity, I would have asked her if she had any ideas about training racing cats.”

  Jeremy looked like a calm, reasoned man who suddenly had an eccentric cousin on his hands. He said easily, “Meggie, you played a lovely song. Why don’t you play another?”

  “It was a Scarlatti sonata, not a song. It has no words. Oh goodness, how foolish of me. You, a man, would know that even without being told, wouldn’t you?”

  “Scarlatti was a man, dammit!”

  “Wouldn’t you say that perhaps dear Scarlatti had ample time to do his composing since he didn’t have to birth children, wash clothes, scrub floors, or pander endlessly to all the males around him?”

  “Hmmm,” Mary Rose said, lea
ping to her feet. “Do you know, I have a headache. It started a good while ago. Meggie, would you please press a rosewater cloth to my forehead? You do it so very well. Come along.”

  Mary Rose held out her hand. Meggie had no choice. She said as she walked to her stepmother, “Shouldn’t you ask Papa how it is best done? Or is that one of the very simplest of tasks to accomplish—like birthing children—so that I have a chance of learning to do it?”

  “Meggie, my headache is going to split my brow apart.”

  “Good night, Mary Rose, Meggie,” said Tysen. “Ah, my dearest daughter, I hope you will apologize to Jeremy before you bid us a pleasant good night.”

  “I apologize, Jeremy. Surely you can forgive me. I am much too stupid to understand my own insults.”

  Mary Rose had hauled her out of the drawing room, even pausing to shut the door behind her.

  Tysen said to Jeremy, “Although Meggie was rude to you, my boy, your opinion of women would raise most female’s hackles. I believe you should think about this.”

  Jeremy, however, was grinning, a thoroughly wicked grin. He said, very quietly, because Meggie was known to eavesdrop, “Do you think I baited her too much, Uncle Tysen?”

  “You were acting like a jackass to make her lose her head, which she, naturally, did. It was well done.”

  “Not at first, but then she was so appalled, so furious at me, I couldn’t help myself.”

  Suddenly Meggie appeared in the doorway. Jeremy said without pause, “I don’t understand, Uncle Tysen. I am a man and Charlotte is a woman. We each have our own roles, our own responsibilities. Is Meggie feeling ill? Perhaps in her head?”

  Meggie, no matter how important her reason for coming back, now turned on her heel, cursed under her breath, but not under enough for the two gentlemen, one of them her father and a vicar, and ran up the stairs.

  Tysen just shook his head. “Do tell me more about this Arabian stallion you wish to buy from Spain.”

  Jeremy said, “Meggie is growing up fast.”

  “No. Actually, she’s already well grown. She has very firm ideas about things.”

  “She always has. What a joy to tease her until the smoke came out of her ears.” And he grinned again. “Now, about that Arabian. The fellow’s nasty as a cock who’s been kicked out of the hen yard. He’s also as fast as the fox who managed to break in just last week and eat one of our best setters. He made a big mistake, however.” Jeremy laughed.

  Tysen arched an eyebrow.

  “He tried to bite Charlotte, and she smacked the toe of her boot against his nose.”

  10

  IT WAS TOO soon. Thomas knew he made her laugh, perhaps she’d even found his two kisses more than interesting, not that he could know for sure. Dammit. He forced himself back to the task at hand, making himself finish writing the letter to his steward.

  He didn’t know what made him look up, but he did, and there she was, striding like a long-legged boy into his garden. He slowly rose, rounded his desk, and opened the French door. She was flushed, breathing hard, her breasts pumping up and down, a rather nice sight.

  What the devil had happened? He opened the door wide.

  “Mistress Sherbrooke,” he said formally, giving her a small bow, “do come into my humble estate room. I didn’t realize that small private gate still opened.”

  “I forced it,” Meggie said. “Good afternoon, Thomas. It isn’t raining. Have you finally allowed Mr. Hengis some potato sticks?”

  “No. Morgana informed me that Mr. Hengis—Benjie—was a poltroon, that you, little sweetling that you are, got a soaking because he misread his nose and you could have easily succumbed to an inflammation of the lungs.”

  He watched her calm, even smile at his jest, regain her bearings. He said then, “Come in and sit down.”

  She did, saying nothing more. She eased down in the leather chair across from the big mahogany desk.

  He sat on the edge of his desk and swung his leg, content to watch her for a few moments. She was really quite upset.

  “All right, tell me what happened before you spit nails on my carpet.”

  “Nothing, dammit.”

  He very nearly laughed. “You, the vicar’s daughter, shouldn’t tell lies, Meggie. You probably shouldn’t curse either. Something bad is bound to happen, like your tongue might rot off.”

  “Why would you care? What is my tongue to you?” The instant the words were out of her mouth, she remembered all too well that kiss in Martins’ barn. “Never mind, don’t you dare say anything. All that tongue business was very improper. I am so angry, Thomas, I could kick something.”

  “That moldering old hassock is at your disposal.”

  Meggie leapt to her feet, gave the hassock a hard kick, so hard she nearly knocked herself backward. She turned and smiled at him. “Thank you.”

  “A person should never allow ire to build to high levels. It clogs the body’s pathways and leads many times to bad things, such as cursing.”

  “Blessed hell, surely that is nonsense.”

  “Oh no. I once knew a man who worried all the time, even worried when he discovered that his watch was several minutes slow and how many people he’d offended by being late. He never said much, just walked about with a frown on his face and bucketfuls of worry in his heart. Finally, one day when he was worrying about how his hog would ever find enough mud to wallow in since there hadn’t been much rain, he just fell over dead, his pathways all clogged. So the moral to this tale is to spit it out when you’re upset about something and kick something. Now, would you like a bit of brandy?”

  “Brandy? Goodness, I haven’t tasted brandy since Leo, Max, and I once stole Papa’s bottle, hid behind one of the big tombstones in the cemetery, and drank it empty. All three of us were vilely sick. Papa, as I remember, didn’t give us a hiding, just said that we now knew firsthand what stupidity tasted like.”

  Thomas laughed. “A taste does not stupidity make.”

  “Who said that?”

  “Some long ago brilliant fellow.”

  “You’re lying, but all right, I will try my first taste of brandy as a grown-up person.”

  He poured her a bit and himself a bit more. He clicked his snifter to hers. “Here’s to the demise of the obnoxious person who made you angry enough to spit.”

  She choked, spewing the mouthful of brandy all over the front of his white shirt. She dropped the snifter, and stared at the darkening stain on that pristine white shirt. “Oh no, I don’t believe I did that. This is awful, just look at that stain. It’s such a beautiful shirt and I’ve ruined it. I spit on you. I’ve never done that before. I’m so sorry, Thomas.”

  He set down his own snifter and took her hands between his. “It’s all right. It’s just a shirt. No, Meggie, please don’t try to suck it clean like little Rory tried to do to your skirt that morning at the church.” She looked as if she would burst into tears and laughter, both at the same time.

  He didn’t think, just leaned down and kissed her. He tasted brandy and that sweet scent of her that had tantalized him when he’d kissed her before, a scent he’d never before tasted on another woman.

  He touched his tongue to her mouth, urging hers to open, and she did, just a bit. When he eased his tongue into her mouth, she jumped, pushed away from him, backed up three fast steps, tripped over the hassock she’d kicked and landed on her bottom not on the soft Axminster carpet, but onto the oak floor.

  “Meggie! Are you all right?”

  She blinked up at him. “I think I’ve jarred my innards,” she said, “but nothing that will kill me.”

  “Your bottom is well padded. Your innards should be safe.”

  She shook her head, came up to her knees, and stayed there a moment, looking fixedly into the corner of the estate room.

  “Why did you jump away from me?”

  “This time I just happened to leave my mouth open and you slid in your tongue. It’s very strange, well—very personal—you know what I mean?” />
  “If you will just hold still and give it a chance, just maybe you will like it. Meggie, why are you staring off across the room?”

  “There’s a dead mouse in the corner.”

  He laughed, the latest laugh in the long line of laughs that had come from deep within him since he’d come here and met this woman. He said, “That must mean that Tansie was making another quilt rather than cleaning properly. I will tell Morgana and she will either forbid Tansie potato sticks or have her go eat mushrooms in the forest.”

  Meggie laughed. She just couldn’t help it. “I do wish you would stop that.”

  “Stop what? Making you forget that you want to be angry and miserable and that your bottom hurts?”

  “Yes, all of that.” She sighed and pulled herself up. He watched her rub her bottom, even as she chewed on her bottom lip and stared at one of his shirt buttons.

  “The brandy has already stained your lovely shirt. I am so sorry. If anyone sees you they will believe you a drunkard. I will have to defend you, but alas, here is your shirt as a silent witness, and thus no one will believe me. So, may I take it back to Mrs. Priddle? She can remove any stain in Christendom.”

  “If it means that much to you, and to save my reputation,” he said, and begun to unfasten his shirt.

  Meggie grabbed his hands. “You can’t do that! What is wrong with you? You can’t take off your clothes in your estate room, particularly since I’m standing right in front of you. My father is the damned vicar!”

  And he doubled over with laughter, and the feel of that laughter was deep and full and he was growing quite used to it. He said, knowing he shouldn’t, knew it was too soon, but unable to prevent the words from bursting out of his mouth, “Meggie, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”