Pendragon

Meggie didn't have the breath to yell again or to curse or the will to move. It was very simple, really. She knew he'd killed her, a body couldn't continue after what he'd done. She realized that she'd been told a very big lie. Surely a man didn't treat a woman like this if he loved her, surely. But then again Thomas had never said he loved her.

He suddenly stopped cold, and he was staring down at her again, looking right into her eyes, and he seemed to be fighting with himself about something she couldn't begin to understand. He said, "No, I can't do this. Not with you feeling the way you do. I can't, just can't." And he moaned, deep in his throat even as he jerked out of her, came to his knees, stiffened, and climaxed. Then he hung there, his head bowed.

Meggie hurt inside, he'd made her bleed, she just knew it, and then he'd left her, rejected her. She yelled now, but not with pain, it wasn't all that bad now, truth be told, but she yelled at the top of her lungs with resentment, with rage that she'd actually been excited, actually anticipated this lovemaking business, and just look what he'd done-he'd hurt her, then left her. A man wasn't supposed to do that, was he?

He was breathing hard, his head bowed, and he'd not wanted to stay with her. And now she'd bleed. She should have demanded to know about the bleeding business before she'd even let him unfasten all those nice safe buttons on her gown. But no, she was an idiot, she'd trusted him, and now he was on his knees between her legs, heaving, looking at if he were dying. It was as if a sort of cataclysm had racked him all the way to the soles of his wretched feet.

He looked up at her then, and she saw that his jaw was locked, his eyes glazed, and all of him was pulsing madly. His seed was on himself, on the sheet, on her belly. It was an overwhelming upheaval that she couldn't begin to understand, really didn't want to understand, but she did know one thing for certain-he was a liar. It was obvious he knew very little about this lovemaking business.

She hurt really badly. She hated what he'd done to her and wanted to hurl him out of the window. And what had he meant that he couldn't do it? Do what? Stay inside her? What was he talking about?

She didn't care. Then he stopped his quivering, his shuddering, and just hung there over her, not breathing quite so hard now, his eyes closed, saying nothing, doing nothing.

She said loudly, right up into his face, "You shouldn't have done what you did. It wasn't right. You hurt me and then you just came out of me. I am going to kill you."

Chapter 15

THOMAS COULDN'T THINK, just couldn't gather his wits together. He'd managed to come out of her, he'd actually managed to make his body obey his will, and he hated it.

Suddenly Meggie lurched up and bit his shoulder as hard as she could. She hoped she'd make him bleed.

That brought him back to his brain and miserable body. He managed to straighten. He blinked at her. "My God," he said slowly, disbelieving, "you bit me."

"Yes, you hurt me."

"It happened." She'd actually bit him. He'd come out of her, not his fault, he'd simply had to. Well, for the moment, he didn't give a damn about her feelings, about that damnable Jeremy. He wanted to punish her for what she'd done to him. He came down hard over her and went inside her again just as she yelled, "Don't you dare have the nerve to hurt me more, you bastard."

Then she shuddered.

He felt her muscles clenching around him, he was deep inside her, it was driving him mad, and this time, the rage banked, the desire to punish, to gain revenge on her both for what she'd done and hadn't done, fell to his own need, his own wild urgency and that was more powerful than anything else. He pushed again. "Oh God," he said, panting until he thought his heart would burst from his chest, "I don't want this. Damnation. This will kill me."

"Probably not, you clod. Get off me, damn you!" He fell forward, flattened her, kissed her and shoved hard again and again. It was over again in less than a minute. He was heaving and panting, nearly crying because his body felt so very fine-nothing but soul-deep satisfaction and the overwhelming urge to sleep, to forget what he'd just done. Damn him and damn her. At least no one could take her from him now. Damn her honor. He'd been rough with her. He was sorry he'd hurt her, but in the end, she would have to learn that whatever he did, she had no say in it.

He thought about that life-changing conversation between father and daughter he'd overheard in the vicarage gardens not three hours after she'd become his wife. His wife whom he'd wanted to pull behind a shrubbery and kiss her silly, but that hadn't happened. He'd seen her father, taken a step forward to ask if he'd seen Meggie, but then he'd heard her say in a voice stumbling with pain, "I truly didn't want him to speak to me, Papa, but Jeremy believed that since I'd married Thomas, he could now redeem himself because obviously I didn't love him anymore and it bothered him that I believed he was an idiot. Papa, Jeremy is honorable. I should never have believed that wretched act of his. He did it to make me stop loving him, oh God-so noble and I hated him, scorned him."

Her father had held her close and whispered against her hair, "It will be all right. You've got a fine husband. You will come to love him, dearest. You will see."

And Meggie cried against her father's shoulder, and Thomas Malcombe's life, as he'd known it, as he'd anticipated it would be with his new wife, fell into pieces at his feet.

The candle was nearly gutted when he rolled off her onto his back. She was up in an instant, ready to clout him when, her fist hard and ready, ready to strike, he snored. Meggie couldn't believe it, just couldn't. She wanted to kill him for what he had done, damn him a million times more than she'd already damned him.

She looked down at him, waved her fist not an inch from his nose, and whispered, "Blessed hell."

Slowly she got off the other side of the bed and managed to stand straight. Every part of her hurt, but nothing compared to the pain deep inside her, where he'd poked and pushed and shoved, and no, she still wanted to kill him, very badly. She felt wet and sticky and her legs were shaking. She could barely stand up.

She'd trusted him.

She'd been an idiot.

Was this the way things were always done? First a man left a woman's body and the second time he didn't? Was it some sort of strange ritual? Did her father do this to Mary Rose? Her brain shied away from that. What about Jeremy? Had he done that to his precious Charlotte their wedding night? Meggie had been eaten up with jealousy at the thought of Jeremy kissing Charlotte, not her, but if it had led to this utter humiliation, then her jealousy was ridiculous. Meggie walked over to the small table that held a basin of clean water and washed herself. She winced at the pain and saw that the water was red with her blood. He'd done that to her the first time just before he'd jerked away from her.

Then she headed straight to the table where the remains of their meal still were, and immediately picked up the champagne bottle. Thank the good lord it wasn't empty.

She downed the rest of it. Warm or not, bubbles or not, it was quickly down her throat. She didn't stop drinking until the bottle was empty. Then she stood there, staring out over the English Cha