“And so don’t you look down that very elegant nose of yours at me, just like she does. Don’t forget, my lord, that I gave you remarkable pleasure last night if your grunts and groans are any measure of pleasure, which they are, I know that firsthand.” She gave him a smile that made him want to jump on her and take her down to the deck.
She said, “One would think you would perhaps wish to reminisce a bit, perhaps smile a bit vacantly, but here you are, thin-lipped, and I have no idea why.”
All right. He would forget Jeremy for a moment and his ridiculous house in Fowey. Dragon’s Jaw, a really stupid name, so precious it was nauseating. He didn’t want her to guess that he was beyond jealous. He looked at her, saw the wind had burned her cheeks bright red. He also saw that she was so proud of herself, and now that he thought about it, she had pushed him right over the edge, and he’d happily fallen and fallen yet again, until he wouldn’t have cared if the bloody roof of Squire Billings’s house had come crashing down on his back.
He took her mittened hand and looked toward the distant shore, listened to the wind howl and poor Tim McCulver vomiting over the side of the boat, thankfully downwind.
“Yes,” Meggie said after a moment. “Pendragon—it is a vastly romantic name, just flows off the tongue and makes you shiver with the feel of it—so unlike our home in Scotland—Kildrummy Castle. That is utterly pragmatic and down-to-earth, feet firmly planted. Tell me about it.”
“I much prefer it to Bowden Close. You will see it yourself this afternoon.”
“Where did the name Pendragon come from? Is it named after an ancient Irish warrior?”
“No. My great-uncle changed the name from Belleek Castle to Pendragon. Uther Pendragon wasn’t Irish, he was Celtic or early English, the father of King Arthur. My great-uncle was obsessed with King Arthur. I believe he dreamed of finding Arthur’s burial site on Pendragon land. I heard rumors a couple of years back that North Nightingale, Lord Chilton, had found King Arthur’s sword Excalibur when a cliff wall collapsed into an ancient cave. Probably nonsense, but I would like to meet him someday and ask about it.
“My great-uncle always used to say that Tintagal was nothing but a heap of rocks, that Arthur could have easily sailed to Ireland, to Pendragon, and spent his final days there. But I wonder.”
“Oh, I remember that now. Pendragon.” She grinned at him. “Let me roll it about on my tongue for a moment.”
He watched her and her tongue rolling around, could practically feel her tongue rolling about on and in his own mouth, and got harder than the mast.
She said, “Do you plan to live most of the time at Pendragon?”
“I haven’t yet decided. Bowden Close is now also my responsibility. Your family is there. We will visit often.”
“That’s good. I would miss my family.”
“Yes, I know. As I said, I don’t wish Bowden Close to be left only in a steward’s hands.”
“My uncle Douglas says that a man is a fool if he ignores what is his.”
“I agree.”
“My father agrees too, which is why he traveled to Kildrummy Castle when he inherited it. We couldn’t live there, however, and we were very lucky. Oliver manages Kildrummy Castle. Actually now it is as much his home as it is ours. Did you know that Oliver was one of my uncle Ryder’s first Beloved Ones?”
“Yes. Your uncle Ryder found him trying to pull himself out of an alley so he could beg for food. His leg was badly broken, you see, and he couldn’t walk.”
“My uncle took care of him until he was eighteen, and then he went to Oxford. He was going to be my uncle Douglas’s steward, but the instant he saw Kildrummy Castle, he fell in love with it. Oliver is very smart and married my uncle’s daughter, Jenny. You met Jenny and Oliver at the wedding. They are very happy.”
Meggie shook his sleeve. “Now, my lord, when will you thank me for last night? When are you going to sing my praises? Tell me you have never experienced such a woman as I? Goodness, Thomas, I laid you lower than a slug.”