It wasn’t Thomas.
Meggie felt the sun break over her head. The explanation—it had burst forth and it was clean and pure with no murky gray to muck things up. She felt such relief, such profound joy, she wanted to shout. She said, “How old is William?”
“He’s twenty-one, much younger for a male than it is for a female. Using myself as a measuring stick, I have determined that youth tends to encourage stupid behavior. Haven’t you done foolish things, Meggie?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation, “but I have never searched out a boy to seduce him.”
This effortless charm of hers. It washed over him, whether he wanted it to or no. “No,” he said, “you wouldn’t.”
“Why did you let Mr. and Mrs. Winters believe you were the one?”
He shrugged. “Evidently Melissa was afraid to tell her parents the truth, so she told them it was me. Since I am now head of this family, I am responsible for William, and he knows it. He made a mistake. I have taken care of it. Hopefully, both he and Melissa are now a bit wiser.”
“My father always says that one must be accountable for one’s own mistakes.”
“Perhaps, but it is done and I cannot now change it. I will say, though, that William is on a much shorter leash now.”
“He should have married her.”
“He refused. However, I made it perfectly clear to him that if the child survived, then he would be its father. I
told him I would cut him off if he did not agree to this. He agreed.”
“Well, that’s something. I am sorry, Thomas, but I am not going to much like William.”
“Perhaps not. I am hopeful that he will improve as he adds a few more years.” He paused a moment, then said, his voice every bit as austere as her father’s when faced with wickedness, “I am disappointed in you for not trusting me.”
“Don’t put on that righteous act with me, Thomas. Actually the evidence would have hanged you.”
She hadn’t apologized, just smacked him in the jaw with the unvarnished truth. “All right, I accept that. Now, would you like me to go reassure your father?”
Meggie gave him a brilliant smile. “Yes, please do, sir. Oh, Thomas, will we live in Italy?”
He said slowly, “Perhaps, Meggie. Perhaps. Would you like that?”
“Immensely.” She ran around his desk, went up on her tiptoes, kissed his check, then stared at him a moment, kissed his mouth, hers tightly seamed, and it didn’t matter a bit. He watched her rush out into the enclosed garden, her skirts rustling, her bonnet dangling from her fingertips nearly to the ground. He knew she would snag it on a rosebush, and she did, but again, it didn’t matter.
*****
Glenclose-on-Rowan April 1824
The wedding of Thomas Malcombe, earl of Lancaster, to Margaret Beatrice Lydia Sherbrooke, spinster, was attended by four hundred people, another hundred or so milling about outside the church for word of what was happening. The men who’d managed to beg off were in the tavern, drinking ale, listening to Mr. Mortimer Fulsome’s advice on married life, something none of them paid the least attention to since he’d buried four wives, none of them lasting more than two years, and he was eighty years old now and could barely be heard above the toasts.
Tysen led his daughter down the aisle to where Lord Lancaster and Bishop Arlington of Brighton waited, a twinkle in the bishop’s eye. He had known Tysen since he’d been born, Meggie as well. He was completely bald and the sunlight pouring through the stained-glass window above him sent a wash of colors across his head.
“He looks like God wearing a rainbow,” Meggie said out of the side of her mouth.
“He’s nearly blind,” Tysen said to his daughter as they walked past people who had known her all her life. “Stand as close as possible to him. Tell Thomas to do the same. And don’t stare at his head.”
It was a glorious Friday morning in mid-April, the air was fresh from a rain that had dutifully stopped at midnight the evening before. Clouds were strewn in a very blue sky.