“What does he want to meet me for? Perhaps to seduce me?”
“Meggie—”
“He’s a rotter, Thomas.”
“He’s young, Meggie, very young.”
“So are you and so am I, and I know that neither of us would have done something as dishonorable as what he did. Just imagine, he let you shoulder all the blame for getting Melissa Winters with child. He probably fully expected you to shoulder all the blame. I’m afraid it will be difficult for me ever to come to accept him, Thomas.”
He looked bemused, and said slowly, going to what was the most important thing to him, “You really believe I’m honorable?”
“Well, of course. I wouldn’t have married you otherwise. Would you ever, Thomas, let someone else accept the consequences for something you did?”
He said, his voice still deep and slow, “No, I don’t believe I would ever do that.”
“He doesn’t know that I know what he did to you? To Melissa Winters?”
Thomas shook his head.
“Who hit me?”
He sighed. “I don’t know. Everyone claims to have been sleeping until the storm started last night. Everyone also claims to have woken up when the lightning and thunder struck and the rain started coming down in torrents. It was so heavy, a couple of windowpanes were blown in. No one heard anything at all. What would you expect, Meggie?”
“Why would someone want to hurt me, Thomas?”
There it was, stark and clear, in the open, heavy and frightening, deadening the air between them.
Thomas rose from her bed and began pacing the White Room. He looked back to see his bride sitting up, white covers pulled to her waist, a white nightgown spilling lovely lace from her shoulders, and a white bandage around her head. And she was in the middle of a stark white room. He shook his head. “You look like a virgin who protesteth too much.”
It took her an instant to understand him, and then she laughed, raising a hand to hold her head because laughing made it hurt. “Too much virginal white, I guess you mean. The good Lord knows I’m not a virgin anymore. Did I tell you that I’m pleased not being a virgin anymore, Thomas, in fact—” She paused a moment, and he knew, just knew all the way to his boots, that she was thinking about him kissing her, probably on top of her, going wild, and he shook with it.
“Don’t look at me like that, Meggie. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Oh, you mean my head.”
“Yes.” He was as hard as the heavy door latch, but he grinned, just couldn’t help himself. “Yes, I mean your head.” It seemed as every day passed, he had to simply think of her and he wanted her. It was unnerving, particularly now. And mixed with that lust he felt just thinking her name, just seeing that vivid hair of hers in his mind’s eye, mixed with that was the fact that someone in the dark of night had sneaked into the White Room and hit her on the head.
And he had no idea who it was.
He said, wanting it to be true, willing it to be true just by saying the words, “It has to be someone from outside, Meggie. Someone who doesn’t like me, someone who wants revenge, someone who’s lived here and knows Pendragon, how to get in and how to get out again.”
“Do you have any ideas about who it could be?”
“I’ve thought and thought about it, but no, I really can’t think of anyone. But that’s not saying much. Every old castle has shadows, mysteries, if you will, things hidden for a very long time, but—” He shrugged, then there was a fierce look in those dark eyes of his. “I won’t let anything else happen to you, Meggie, I swear it.”
“If you had slept with me, Thomas, maybe you would have been the one hurt, maybe the person who did this believed we did sleep in here together. Maybe you were the one he was after. Oh dear, I want you safe, Thomas. All right, here it is. I’ve decided that I want you to continue to sleep in your bedchamber and I will lock the door between our rooms. That way no one can get to you.”
He felt intense pleasure flow through him as he said very matter-of-factly, “Don’t be an idiot, Meggie. The person hit you, not me. It was your bedchamber, not mine. I dare say that that person now knows that you were quite alone. No, Meggie, we will sleep together, but we will make certain the doors are locked.” He cocked his head to her, swallowed as he said, “I am considering sleeping on top of you to further protect you.”
“Oh my.”
He swallowed again, cleared his throat, mumbled under his breath, “Sorry, forget I said that. Now isn’t the time.”
That was a pity. “Maybe,” Meggie said, wrapping her arms around her knees, unable to get that image out of her mind, “just maybe there are some secret passages in this wonderful old place. What do you think? Are there any you know about?”
Thomas plowed his fingers through his hair, making it stand on end. For an instant she was sure he looked frightened. “No, no,” he said at last. “There have been rumors about passages, my uncle occasionally whispered about them, but I’ve never actually seen one.”
“Your mother doesn’t particularly seem enthralled with me. You have my dowry and maybe she thinks I’m no longer necessary. Then there’s William. Maybe he’s found out that I know what he did to Melissa Winters, maybe—”