Pendragon

He didn't leave her, although he wanted to. He couldn't. There was a madman out there who wanted her dead. He couldn't leave her alone.

But he wanted to. He wanted to hoard his misery, wallow in his misery by himself. He didn't want to hear her breathing beside him, feel her body pressed against him and know that he would be hard in an instant, and know too that she could be dreaming of that bastard.

Then something happened, something hard and vicious and he recognized it. It was rage and it was what he'd felt on his wedding night.

He wouldn't let his rage overwhelm him, he was a man who could control himself. He wouldn't ravage her again like he had on their wedding night. But he itched to punish her, to hurt her the way she'd hurt him.

He took one of the blankets, carried a chair to the windows and watched the dawn break through the gray rain.

Chapter 28

Pendragon Two weeks later

WILLIAM WAS ON his knees, trying to pet Miss Crittenden's head. She snarled and tried to bite him. "There now, nice kitty," he said, and stuck out his hand again. Meggie gave him a disgusted look.

"She is a racer, not some lazy creature to sit on your lap and take treats from you, William. Take care or she'll nip off the end of your finger. What are you doing here? I'm busy."

He rose and dusted off his hands on his tan riding pants. "You don't like me, Meggie."

"No," she said, not looking up from the brushing she was giving Miss Crittenden, a reward for her excellent leaping, this time a ru

"Why? Whatever did I do to you?"

Meggie said, "Why haven't you left to go back to Oxford, William? Perhaps a serious bit of study would improve you."

"Well, I can't go back. You see, I didn't tell Thomas the precise truth. I was sent down, but just for this term. I will go back again, it's just a matter of time."

"Why were you sent down?"

He flushed, turned, and tried to pet Oscar DeGrasse, one of Lord Kipper's mousers, long, lean, short-haired, black as a moonless night, with a chewed-up left ear. Oscar arched his back and purred.

Meggie didn't have much hope for Oscar. True racing cats were born with a goodly amount of arrogance, a cold and snarling sense of self, and woe be to any other cat who challenged him. They were disdainful, they were tough. They would burst their hearts to win. Oscar was asking to be petted. It wasn't a good sign. She'd asked Lord Kipper why the name DeGrasse, and he'd said, quite in a straightforward way, that it was the last name of one of his long-ago mistresses who'd been an excellent mouser in her own right, very dedicated to catching her prey and consuming it. When Meggie had asked him what that meant, he'd just laughed, and lightly touched his fingertip to her mouth. "A roundabout allusion to something you should know about by now."

She'd jerked away. He was a dangerous man; it was stupid ever to be alone with him. Unfortunately he was undoubtedly one of the guards who, when he visited, stuck close to her. Too close for Meggie's comfort. There were always two guards, not just one. Meggie sighed. She wished William would go away. She wanted Thomas. She wanted him to smile at her, kiss her, tell her what had happened to make him go away from her.

She wondered where he was right now. During the day she was never alone, thus here was William. And, of course, Thomas slept with her every night She would lie there on her side of the bed listening to his deep smooth breathing.

He hadn't touched her in two weeks. She'd tried only once to initiate lovemaking with him, and he'd pulled away, saying only, "I'm tired, Meggie. I'm also not interested. Go to sleep."

It was worse than a slap in the face. She wanted to scream, perhaps even yell right in his face, but in the end, she whispered, "What's wrong, Thomas? I don't understand."

And he'd said his favorite litany, "I don't wish to speak of it. Go to sleep."

She hadn't touched him since. He had fast become a stranger who stayed close to her at night, to protect her. At least he didn't want her dead. He just didn't want her for a wife either.

And now here was William hanging about her, and she knew that Thomas had set him to be another guard.

"Why were you sent down, William?" she asked again even as she thought of Ezra, big, fast, and gray with a white face, from Horton Manor. The squire's wife claimed he could fly faster and straighter than an arrow on the wing. What she'd seen of Ezra's talents the day Thomas took her to visit was him rolling across the floor with one of the squire's children. She decided that she would simply have to set up a competition of sorts to see how many country folk hereabouts were interested.

William was still stroking Oscar, now on his back, all four paws sticking into the air. "That's disgraceful," Meggie said, frowning at the cat. "That cat has no sense of self-worth. Why were you sent down?"

William cleared his throat when he saw her eyebrow arched at him.

"I, er, got a local girl pregnant, maybe, one really never knows, and her father wanted to kill me."

"Not an uncommon reaction, I should say. Was she prettier than Melissa Winters?"

William's jaw dropped. He tried to say something, then shut his mouth fast as a clam trap.

"You are a miserable human being, William," Meggie said, so furious with her half brother-in-law that if she wouldn't hang for it, she would have cheerfully stomped him into the ground. "You probably should have been strangled at birth. Saved everyone a lot of difficulties, particularly the female of the species."

"But it wasn't my fault," William said, and Meggie knew a whine when she heard it, having four brothers and so many dratted boy cousins about. She was so furious with him that she jumped to her feet, her fists at the ready. She wanted to fight him, to sock him in the jaw.

"The girls just hold you down, William, and rip off your clothes?"

He looked shocked that she, a vicar's daughter, would speak so bluntly. She just stared him down until he said, shrugging, "Well, no, but they're the kind of girls who are with ever so many men, and I'm just the one who always gets caught. It wasn't my fault. But you didn't like me before you saw me, Meggie. Why?"

"Melissa Winters, you dolt. I know all about how you blamed Thomas for that. You're a dishonorable cretin, William."

"But it was Thomas who got her with child," William said. "At the time I was in Glasgow with Aunt Augusta."

Meggie couldn't help herself. She slammed her fist into his jaw, a really solid hit that sent him reeling backward, his flailing arms nearly hitting Oscar DeGrasse. Oscar screeched and leaped straight up and backward, an amazing feat that Meggie couldn't help but admire. William couldn't catch himself and went crashing down on his back. He didn't move, just stared up at her, trying to catch his breath.

"Thomas is honorable," she said between fiercely gritted teeth. "You ever say something like that again, and I will kick you in the ribs after I've knocked you down."

William whimpered and didn't move.

"Thank you."

Meggie whirled about to see her husband standing in the doorway to this big sparsely furnished room, his arms crossed over his chest, one of his favorite poses. The irony of that thank-you had hit her square in the nose. She raised her chin. "You are many things, Thomas, but dishonorable isn't one of them."

"No," he said. "I'm not." He walked over to William and held out his hand. William looked at that hand, and Meggie thought for a moment that William would whimper. She said, "Oh, for goodness' sake, William, be a man and take your brother's hand. He won't kill you. He is more civilized about things like that than I."