Pendragon

Chapter 19

Off the coast of southwestern Ireland Between Cork Harbour and Kinsale

DECIDED SHE loved the Celtic Sea. This morning it looked like the English Channel on a very bad day, a gray raucous day, water whipped up by the wind, tearing and whipping about the boat. Today the sea was as rough and pure and wild as the frigid North Sea that slammed into the rocks near her home Kildrummy Castle in Scotland.

Then, suddenly, a gleaming sliver of sun slid through a sky full of fat gray clouds, knifing into the high waves just ahead of their boat. As for the boat-The Kelpie-it rocked madly, lifted to the top of a wave, then slammed down hard into a deep trough. It was like slicing a knife into bread, fast and deep. Then holding steady, a long pause, as if the boat were holding its breath, then up again, towering on top of the cresting waves.

She'd never experienced anything like this. It was magnificent, exciting, and she loved every instant of it. She thought she'd even go so far as to say that she loved it as much as she'd loved the pleasure she'd wallowed in the previous night. Then, of course, morning had come as it always did, and even though one just wanted to lie there and smile and do nothing at all, except reach for her husband and begin it all again, it wasn't possible because her husband had been gone. Long gone and it was only six o'clock in the morning, a stormy morning that would have made staying in bed, sipping chocolate, and kissing until her mouth was numb, a very lovely thing indeed.

It was not to be, dammit. And then he was there beside her, looking up at the billowing storm clouds overhead, feeling the harsh sea wind whip his hair around his face.

He said, "We'll be landing soon in Cork Harbour."

She had her hand firmly on her bonnet. She turned to see her husband, his dark eyes watering from the sea winds whipping about his head. He looked immensely wonderful, but he had changed again. This wasn't the man who'd groaned and yelled and kissed her numb the previous night. What was wrong with men? Were they all like this-utterly unpredictable, without a single idea how nice it would be to smile and kiss?

"I hope it storms before we land. I love storms."

"The horses don't. They don't like this pitching about a bit. Add rain to the mix and they would want to stomp until they toppled into the sea."

"It is a pity that they don't have thumbs-then they could hang on to something."

He smiled, remembering how he'd hated to leave her, she'd been so warm and soft, a slight smile playing about her mouth. She'd opened her eyes then, looked at him and saw only him, he knew it, smiled at only him. He'd had to leave her, there was so much to be done.

He said, "Pendragon lies only two hours south, right on the coast, at the end of a short promontory. It was built four centuries ago, a sentinel at the edge of the land to watch for enemies. It was burned by Cromwell because the Kavanaghs refused to surrender, then rebuilt by Charles II."

"The Kavanaghs?"

"My great-uncle, Rodney Malcombe, my grandfather's younger brother, bought Pendragon with his inheritance when the Kavanaghs found themselves betrayed by the French toward the end of the last century."

"Napoleon betrayed them?"

Thomas nodded. "It was a question of turning on their neighbors. It was said that the Kavanaghs would butcher a neighbor's cattle without thinking twice about it, but they simply would not kill the neighbors' families. The French made them promises, then broke them. The Kavanaghs took what money my uncle paid for Pendragon and went to the Colonies, to a town called Boston, I believe. Pendragon is a grand old place, Meggie."

Her eyes were shining with excitement even as the wild whipped her bonnet off her head.

Thomas caught it before it whirled overboard and set it back onto her tangled hair. He lightly patted her cheek, leaned down, and kissed her. "I wish I could have stayed with you this morning," he said, and kissed her again.

Meggie leaned into him, licked his bottom lip, and he stepped back to tie her ribbons beneath her chin. "It simply won't do for the earl of Lancaster to make love to his bride on the deck of a pitching boat."

"Why not?"

"Be quiet, Meggie," he said, stroked his knuckles over her jaw, and grinned at her. He cleared his throat. "We have our own small harbour where our local fishermen moor their boats. We have a small village, Pendragon, that sports a few small shops for the hundred or so people who live around us. Mostly we ride to Kinsale for supplies, just to the south of us."

"Pendragon," she said. "It has taste, that word, the taste of adventure and secrets and old passages that no one knows about." She rolled the name around in her mouth, said it out loud again. "Pendragon. My cousin Jeremy's home in Fowey is called Dragon's Jaw. Isn't that a marvelous name as well? I so wanted to-well, that's silly, now isn't it? No, I wanted to visit Dragon's Jaw. There are these sharp rocks at the base of the cliff just below the house and thus, its name."

If Jeremy had magically appeared, Thomas would have hurled him overboard without a second thought. She was thinking about living at his home. He was so angry he wanted to curse the billowing sails down, but he knew he couldn't, and so he said, "Pendragon is very old. It was once very important. Now it is simply beautiful. Now it simply endures."

Meggie frowned up at him. "What's wrong, Thomas? You sound as cold and sharp as my grandmother Lady Lydia who can both slice ham and a witless neighbor with just a single glare. She lives at Northcliffe Hall with my uncle Douglas and aunt Alex. She couldn't come to our wedding because she was ill. However, given the letter she wrote me, she is very pleased that I married an earl who's an Englishman, not a dreaded Scot like my uncle Colin. Still, given five minutes she could still find something significant lacking in your character.

"And so don't you look down that very elegant nose of yours at me, just like she does. Don't forget, my lord, that I gave you remarkable pleasure last night if your grunts and groans are any measure of pleasure, which they are, I know that firsthand." She gave him a smile that made him want to jump on her and take her down to the deck.

She said, "One would think you would perhaps wish to reminisce a bit, perhaps smile a bit vacantly, but here you are, thin-lipped, and I have no idea why."

All right. He would forget Jeremy for a moment and his ridiculous house in Fowey. Dragon's Jaw, a really stupid name, so precious it was nauseating. He didn't want her to guess that he was beyond jealous. He looked at her, saw the wind had burned her cheeks bright red. He also saw that she was so proud of herself, and now that he thought about it, she had pushed him right over the edge, and he'd happily fallen and fallen yet again, until he wouldn't have cared if the bloody roof of Squire Billings's house had come crashing down on his back.

He took her mittened hand and looked toward the distant shore, listened to the wind howl and poor Tim McCulver vomiting over the side of the boat, thankfully downwind.

"Yes," Meggie said after a moment. "Pendragon-it is a vastly romantic name, just flows off the tongue and makes you shiver with the feel of it-so unlike our home in Scotland-Kildrummy Castle. That is utterly pragmatic and down-to-earth, feet firmly planted. Tell me about it."

"I much prefer it to Bowden Close. You will see it yourself this afternoon."

"Where did the name Pendragon come from? Is it named after an ancient Irish warrior?"

"No. My great-uncle changed the name from Belleek Castle to Pendragon. Uther Pendragon wasn't Irish, he was Celtic or early English, the father of King Arthur. My great-uncle was obsessed with King Arthur. I believe he dreamed of finding Arthur's burial site on Pendragon land. I heard rumors a couple of years back that North Nightingale, Lord Chilton, had found King Arthur's sword Excalibur when a cliff wall collapsed into an ancient cave. Probably nonsense, but I would like to meet him someday and ask about it.

"My great-uncle always used to say that Tintagal was nothing but a heap of rocks, that Arthur could have easily sailed to Ireland, to Pendragon, and spent his final days there. But I wonder."

"Oh, I remember that now. Pendragon." She grinned at him. "Let me roll it about on my tongue for a moment."

He watched her and her tongue rolling around, could practically feel her tongue rolling about on and in his own mouth, and got harder than the mast.

She said, "Do you plan to live most of the time at Pendragon?"

"I haven't yet decided. Bowden Close is now also my responsibility. Your family is there. We will visit often."

"That's good. I would miss my family."

"Yes, I know. As I said, I don't wish Bowden Close to be left only in a steward's hands."

"My uncle Douglas says that a man is a fool if he ignores what is his."

"I agree."

"My father agrees too, which is why he traveled to Kildrummy Castle when he inherited it. We couldn't live there, however, and we were very lucky. Oliver manages Kildrummy Castle. Actually now it is as much his home as it is ours. Did you know that Oliver was one of my uncle Ryder's first Beloved Ones?"

"Yes. Your uncle Ryder found him trying to pull himself out of an alley so he could beg for food. His leg was badly broken, you see, and he couldn't walk."

"My uncle took care of him until he was eighteen, and then he went to Oxford. He was going to be my uncle Douglas's steward, but the instant he saw Kildrummy Castle, he fell in love with it. Oliver is very smart and married my uncle's daughter, Jenny. You met Jenny and Oliver at the wedding. They are very happy."

Meggie shook his sleeve. "Now, my lord, when will you thank me for last night? When are you going to sing my praises? Tell me you have never experienced such a woman as I? Goodness, Thomas, I laid you lower than a slug."

"I don't like the sound of that. You do know that you're ignorant as a stick," he added, and lightly touched his palm to her the underside of her breast. "But I have high hopes."

Meggie didn't move, became still as a statue and looked up at him, not saying a word. Then she leaned forward, pressing her breast into his palm. Thomas's breath hitched. He saw one of the sailors coming and regretfully dropped his hand to his side. "Yes," he said, "lower than a slug. Now, let's think about the pleasure I gave you. Meggie, the look on your face when I kissed you."

"Well, I love to kiss you. You make my mouth tingle."

"No, not on the mouth, Meggie."

He laughed when she turned even redder, none of it from windburn.

He couldn't help himself. He smiled down at her, at the loose hair pulled from beneath her bonnet, whipping against her face. "If I hadn't pleasured you, would you have shot me after you felled me?"

She pursed her lips and he knew, knew all the way to his boots, that she was giving this due thought. Finally she said, "Well, that's a real possibility. Who knows what you would have demanded to do? Our wedding night was memorable, but I wouldn't precisely say that it was a memory that I will cherish when I am an old woman. Yes, I might have shot you."

She was so likable, so damned open and giving. Not a reticent bone in that ever so white body of hers. Her body. No, he wouldn't think about that, not now, not on board a wildly rocking boat.

He looked out over the billowing wave that would slap the side of the boat in another instant. He waited, put his arm on hers to keep her steady, and felt the taste of the water in his mouth from the wild spray.

He said after a moment, "My mother lives at Pendragon."

"I shouldn't be surprised," she said slowly, "but you hadn't told me where she was living. Remember I asked you if your mother would come to our wedding, and you just shook your head and said something about her being ill."

"That is true. She was ill, just like your grandmother. As a rule she dislikes leaving Pendragon. When I was five, she took me to her brother's home, to Pendragon. I was raised there."

"I look forward to meeting her," Meggie said.

Thomas said not another word.

They turned into Cork Harbour within the hour, where the water was much calmer because of the long curving mole that broke the storm's might.

A mother-in-law, Meggie was thinking. She hadn't given the actual flesh-and-blood lady much thought until now that she was going to meet her in a very short time. She thought of her grandmother Lady Lydia and spent a good five minutes praying hard.