“Dr. Pritchart is here to see you, my lady.”
She frowned, not realizing at first why he would come to Pendragon. Oh, her head. She turned and smiled at Alvy. “I will see him shortly in the drawing room. Please let Barnacle know, Alvy.”
Ten minutes later Meggie, Thomas beside her, greeted Dr. Pritchart, who was sipping at a cup of Cook’s tea and scratching his ear.
“There is a rash on your ear, Dr. Pritchart,” Meggie said, walking to him. “Is it all right?”
He paused and looked at her, for a very long time, didn’t say anything, just looked. “You’ll do,” he said, snapped the cup into its saucer, and gave her a brief bow. He said to Thomas, “If she suffers a relapse, you will call me. Good day to you both. The rash comes twice a year, one of those times is right now, in April. It’s nothing at all.” And he was gone.
“Well,” Meggie said. “I wonder how much his bill will be for that visit.”
“He thinks you’re fine. That’s all I wanted to know. He’s had that rash twice a year since for as long as I can remember.” He crossed to her, pulled her against him, and kissed her.
Meggie was nothing loathe and kissed him back. She said into his mouth, “This is so much nicer than those dreadful things you did to me on our wedding night.” She pulled back and looked up into his face. “I know, you don’t want to talk about it.”
“No,” he said against her ear, then stroked his thumb along her jawline. His hands were on her hips when there was a clearing voice from the doorway. Thomas slowly raised his head. “Damnation.”
He turned to see his mother standing there, and she didn’t look at all happy.
“Yes, Mother?”
“Lord Kipper has decided to take Libby for a ride in his curricle. He told her he had a very lovely spot to show her and that she would truly appreciate it, especially since it wasn’t raining. He told her how much he admired her. I told her he was lying, that he didn’t like women with as much flesh as she has. He was just going to drive her to this nice spot and bed her on a blanket just because there was no one else about for the moment, no one with less flesh than she has. She was merely a temporary convenience, I told her, surely she realized that. She called me horrid nasty names and slammed out of the castle. It was unforgivable. I’m thinking of having her live elsewhere.”
Thomas stared at his mother, then laughed.
Meggie, fascinated, said, “What did she call you, ma’am?”
“She had the absolute gall to call me a pernicious old tart. Can you imagine?”
“Well, no, I can’t,” Meggie said.
“Imagine calling me a tart. I never slept with any man other than your father and Lord Kipper, and who wouldn’t bed him if they had a chance? He was beautiful twenty years ago and he’s beautiful today, and ever so talented. I’ll wager that little wife of yours would take him to her bed in an instant if he crooked his finger at her.”
“Niles enjoys life too much to try that, Mother.”
“You would shoot him if your wife here were unfaithful to you?”
“In an instant.”
“And what, may I ask, would be her punishment?”
“Since this will never happen, then I really don’t have to think of one, do I?”
“I saw her looking at Lord Kipper, Thomas, just like Miss Crittenden looked at that bit of sea bass Cook served for dinner before you arrived.”
Thomas just smiled, but there was something in his eyes, something dark and hidden from her. Meggie frowned.
“I didn’t realize Libby knew such a deadly word as pernicious” he said.
Madeleine said, “I didn’t either. Pernicious. I am here to look it up in that dictionary on your desk. I hope I have the spelling right. I ask you, what good is a dictionary if you don’t already now how to spell the word? Stand aside.”
Thomas took Meggie’s hand and led her from the estate room. They were half a dozen steps beyond the room when they heard his mother squawk.