He said against her left ear, “Perhaps I will set Tansie up in a quilt business.”
She laughed and lightly bit his collarbone, even as she groaned at the taste of the sticky brandy on the front of his shirt.
Jeremy Stanton-Greville left at nine o’clock the following morning, feeling just a bit guilty because Meggie was obviously still angry at him. He’d wanted to hug her and punch her arm, tell her that soon she would learn that men could be led about like pigs with rings in their noses. No, not a good image. Well, maybe some day he would tell her that he’d just been jesting. She’d been so defensive, so ready to tear his throat out at his steady stream of insults.
Fact was, he had insulted her and her sex quite thoroughly, but not when he’d said that a wife’s well-being should be the husband’s responsibility. When Meggie was married, she would learn that was one of the main uses for a husband. That and sex. He grinned vacuously and began whistling between his thoroughbred’s ears.
Not seven minutes later, Thomas Malcombe, seventh earl of Lancaster, knocked on the vicarage door.
Mary Rose, who was devoutly grateful that Jeremy had taken his leave, fearing that Meggie would go over the edge and try to stuff him up the chimney, blinked at the sight of Thomas Malcombe, beautifully garbed in riding clothes, so grateful that it was he and not Jeremy returning for some reason, that she nearly threw her arms around him and squeezed hard. He was carrying a riding crop in his right hand, his hat in his left. His dark hair was immaculate and she suspected that he hadn’t set that hat on his head at all this morning. He was, she realized, a very handsome man.
She gave him her hand. “Good morning, Thomas. What a delightful surprise. Meggie is visiting with Mrs. Beach, who suffers from asthma and was wheezing quite dreadfully all last night.”
“I am sorry about Mrs. Beach. However, I am here to see the vicar, Mary Rose.”
“Ah. May I ask why? You see, Tysen is dreadfully busy right now, or at least he’s trying to be busy. Every time he looks at Rory, he still must pick him up and toss him over his head just to hear him shriek with laughter. That’s why the sermon is lagging behind.”
“I don’t plan to keep him from either Rory or his sermon for very long. I just want to ask him if I can marry his daughter.”
Mary Rose didn’t hesitate, gave him a big smile, and said, “Oh, I am so very pleased, Thomas, so very pleased indeed. Meggie has been so unhappy, although you wouldn’t readily see it, but her father and I know her very well, and we’ve worried so much about her since we didn’t know what was wrong. Then you came and wooed her, and just look what has happened. Oh my, both Rory and Tysen will be delighted to see you. Come this way, Thomas.”
Thomas set his hands on her shoulders before she turned to dance away down the corridor. “I hope the vicar will accept me. He is a fine man. I think you would make a magnificent mother-in-law.”
“Now that’s a frightening thought,” Mary Rose said. “I will try not to become a shrew and a tyrant, like my own mother-in-law, who, I am convinced, will outlive even her grandchildren. Tysen! Come here, Thomas Malcombe wishes to speak to you.”
When Tysen asked her to come in a few minutes later, Mary Rose said, “We will have champagne, in just a moment. How delightful that Meggie will live here. We had always feared the day she wed that she would move to a faraway land and we would scarce see her.”
“Well,” Thomas said, “we won’t be living here all the time, Mary Rose. I have other homes.”
When Meggie followed the commotion into her father’s study, she realized that Thomas had already done the deed.
“Well,” she said from the doorway, dangling her straw bonnet by its ribbons, “will my father allow this business to proceed, Thomas?”
“Oh yes,” Mary Rose said, and rushed to enfold her stepdaughter in her arms.