“Did you wait six months?”
“Actually, the entire case is still intact. I haven’t had any brandy since that night.”
“Oh Thomas, that’s a wonderful tale. Our children will enjoy it. Did you sail one of your ships here to England when you came back to Glenclose-on-Rowan?”
“Yes, she’s in between trips right now. We decided some English goods bound for the West Indies would be an excellent thing. She’s being fitted and goods bought as we speak.”
“What is the name of your ship?”
“The Hope.”
“I can’t wait to see her. How much longer will she be here?”
“Another week, in Portsmouth.”
“I am so very proud of you.”
He flushed, just couldn’t help it.
“You will see, everything will be all right. Oh dear, please find the person who struck me on the head.”
“Yes,” he said slowly, giving her some laudanum now in a glass of water, “I will.”
* * *
Chapter 25
WHY IS WILLIAM here?”
Thomas said, “I asked him. He said he’d heard that I’d married and he wanted to meet you.”
“What does he want to meet me for? Perhaps to seduce me?”
“Meggie—”
“He’s a rotter, Thomas.”
“He’s young, Meggie, very young.”
“So are you and so am I, and I know that neither of us would have never done something as dishonorable as what he did. Just imagine, he let you shoulder all the blame for getting Melissa Winters with child. He probably fully expected you to shoulder all the blame. I’m afraid it will be difficult for me ever to come to accept him, Thomas.”
He looked bemused, and said slowly, going to what was the most important thing to him, “You really believe I’m honorable?”
“Well, of course. I wouldn’t have married you otherwise. Would you ever, Thomas, let someone else accept the consequences for something you did?”
He said, his voice still deep and slow, “No, I don’t believe I would ever do that.”
“He doesn’t know that I know what he did to you? To Melissa Winters?”
Thomas shook his head.
“Who hit me?”
He sighed. “I don’t know. Everyone claims to have been sleeping until the storm started last night. Everyone also claims to have woken up when the lightning and thunder struck and the rain started coming down in torrents. It was so heavy, a couple of windowpanes were blown in. No one heard anything at all. What would you expect, Meggie?”
“Why would someone want to hurt me, Thomas?”
There it was, stark and clear, in the open, heavy and frightening, deadening the air between them.
Thomas rose from her bed and began pacing the White Room. He looked back to see his bride sitting up, white covers pulled to her waist, a white nightgown spilling lovely lace from her shoulders, and a white bandage around her head. And she was in the middle of a stark white room. He shook his head. “You look like a virgin who protesteth too much.”
It took her an instant to understand him, and then she laughed, raising a hand to hold her head because laughing made it hurt. “Too much virginal white, I guess you mean. The good Lord knows I’m not a virgin anymore. Did I tell you that I’m pleased not being a virgin anymore, Thomas, in fact—” She paused a moment, and he knew, just knew all the way to his boots, that she was thinking about him kissing her, probably on top of her, going wild, and he shook with it.
“Don’t look at me like that, Meggie. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Oh, you mean my head.”
“Yes.” He was as hard as the heavy door latch, but he grinned, just couldn’t help himself. “Yes, I mean your head.” It seemed as every day passed, he had to simply think of her and he wanted her. It was unnerving, particularly now. And mixed with that lust he felt just thinking her name, just seeing that vivid hair of hers in his mind’s eye, mixed with that was the fact that someone in the dark of night had sneaked into the White Room and hit her on the head.
And he had no idea who it was.