“You’re welcome on all three counts. I hate this, but I really do think you should return with them, Meggie. Actually, I’m here to talk you into it.”
“Very well, I’m not stupid. I don’t wish to be shot again; maybe the next time it would be just my luck to be low tide. I agree. I will do as everyone wishes.”
“I don’t believe you,” he said slowly, staring at her. “You would never agree to leave me.”
Meggie laughed. “It’s about time you believed that down to the soles of your big feet. You’re perfectly right. But don’t you see? It is very easy to agree. By the time I am well enough to travel, all this will be resolved.”
“That is another thing about you—you are an optimist beyond anything I have ever seen.”
“No, listen, Thomas. The person responsible for all this misery, he or she must be becoming quite frantic—nothing has worked. I’m alive and three more people are here to watch over me. I have this feeling that something is going to happen very soon simply because this person will burst if he doesn’t try to finish it. Now, come to bed, Thomas, if, that is, you can swear to me that there isn’t murder being committed in the drawing room.”
“Actually, there might be, depending on how competitive your father and mother are when playing whist.”
“Oh dear. Your mother is partnering Jeremy?”
“Yes.”
“They will win; my parents don’t stand a chance. You see, Papa and Mary Rose will keep laughing and comparing hands and gossiping about this and that. It drives serious players quite mad.”
“I don’t like the sound of that. My mother is very serious about her journals and about whist. What about Jeremy?”
“He’s a killer at whist. I do hope that Charlotte plays well.”
She sounded like Jeremy was nothing more than an acquaintance, perhaps a distant relation. It made him feel very good indeed. He said, his voice light, easy, “Isn’t it nice that we’re not involved in any of it?”
“Very nice.” She smiled at him.
Thomas eyed her one last time, rose and stripped off his clothes. When he was naked, he walked back toward the bed, in truth, thinking about where they would search tomorrow at dawn for Jenny MacGraff and also trying to come up with some way to draw out the killer and stop the madness.
“Oh my.”
Those two very short words brought him back immediately to the fact that he was standing naked and that his wife was staring at his groin. He looked down at himself. Predictably, he was hard as the peach pit he’d seen Barnacle throw across the entrance hall for Miss Crittenden to chase down this afternoon. A training technique her ladyship would surely approve, Barnacle had told him.
Thomas took a step back. He stayed hard, got even harder. He was very pleased that his wife admired his body. He was now so hard he hurt. He wanted to weep as he said, “You’re not well, Meggie. Forget all your lustful thoughts. To help you get a grip on your self, remember that your father, who just happens to be a vicar, is seated downstairs in our drawing room.”
She smiled at him, a smile he didn’t trust for a minute. Well, damnation, who cared?
She said, “You’re right. At least you will hold me, will you not?”
Oh yes, he would certainly hold her, dammit.
When she was settled against his side, her breath warm against his flesh, no, her breath was really quite hot now, he felt her hand glide down his belly.
Oh God. “Meggie, you really don’t want to do that.”
“Do be quiet, my lord,” she said, and he nearly wept again at the sound of those wonderful words of hers.
He had to be noble, he had to stop her. It nearly killed him, but he said, “But you’re still not well enough, you’re not—”
“It’s just my hand, Thomas. I won’t hurt myself.”
“All right.”
“I’ve been thinking quite a bit of taking advantage of you,” and she did.
Before he fell asleep, Thomas found himself thinking for the first time that his mother could be the one who wanted Meggie dead. She could be determined and vicious, he’d seen it too many times over the years. Her mind didn’t really work like other people’s did. She went to extremes, both in her speech and in her actions. But why would she hate Meggie enough to kill her? And if she did have a reason, why then, who would she have hired to shoot Meggie off the cliff?