Meggie's limber fingers ran the last Scarlatti arpeggio, hit the last cord, perhaps too forte, since she used quite a bit of muscle, but it didn't matter. She waited just a moment to see if perhaps the conversation had shifted to someone besides perfect Charlotte or the perfect stud.

It hadn't.

Meggie said finally, in a very loud voice as she rose from the piano stool, "How are Uncle Ryder and Aunt Sophie?"

Jeremy, who been detailing every improvement he'd made on the stud-in only three months, mind you-and the plans he had for Leo, said, startled, "What? Oh, they are just fine, Meggie." He grinned, and Meggie felt her heart lurch. Well, blessed hell. "Yes, Ryder tells me the Sherbrooke boys have quite taken over Oxford. He says that when a letter arrives from Grayson, he's loathe to open it, fearing the worst." Now his grin turned fatuous. "I know you love to ride, Meggie. Did I tell you how much Charlotte adores this one mare I bought for her, a beautiful bay mare with a white blaze on her nose and white fetlocks. She is as lovely a mare as Charlotte is a woman. I will breed her, naturally. Her name is Dido, so fitting, don't you think?"

"No," Meggie said. "To escape her husband, Dido built a funeral pyre, stabbed herself, and threw herself on it."

He paused a moment, frowning. "I thought she founded Carthage, something both the mare and Charlotte will do, that is, they will both found a dynasty."

"She did, then she stabbed herself."

"Hmm," said Jeremy, "now that I think about it, I'm not certain that I should allow Charlotte to ride all that much now, since she is carrying my child."

"It is her child too," Meggie said, her voice rising an octave. "She's the one doing all the work."

"Well, yes, but she tells me over and over that she is having this child for me and that it will be a boy because that is what I want." He gave her a brainless self-satisfied grin.

This was nauseating. Her heart wasn't lurching in pain and regret now. Meggie said, her fingers tapping on the lovely cherrywood piano case, "I would only care if my child were healthy and that it managed to survive its first year on this blessed earth. I wouldn't care whether or not it was a boy or girl." She added, her voice even louder now, "Perhaps Charlotte can decide for herself when she should stop riding her beautiful mare that you bought her, whose namesake stabbed herself."

Jeremy gave her what she'd thought only four hours before was the most seductive smile in all of Christendom. Now it looked superior and smug. He said, all patient and condescending, "Meggie, as is proper, since I am Charlotte's husband, she looks to me to guide her, to tell her what is best for her."

"What a wonderful parent you will be, Jeremy," Meggie said, her own smile as false as Mr. McCardle's leg, "just look at all the practice you're gaining since you married Charlotte. But you know, I simply can't imagine what is proper about treating your wife like a child and a nitwit.".

"Charlotte a nitwit? A child? That is absurd, Meggie. Oh, I see, you're jesting."

To keep the nausea at bay, Meggie played another song. She was quite aware that Mary Rose had cocked her head to one side, sending her glorious mass of curly red hair halfway down her arm, no doubt wondering why Meggie had lost her manners.

Meggie stopped playing in time to hear Jeremy say to her father, ignoring both her and Mary Rose, "Since you have approved, Uncle Tysen, Leo will be coming to me at the end of his term at Oxford. He is a natural with horses. He and I will do very well together. He writes me with new ideas. He is studying the science of horse breeding, he tells me." This was said with an indulgent grin.

"Leo knows more about horses than you do," Meggie said.

Tysen said easily, "Now, Meggie, Leo knows quite a lot, that's true, but he doesn't yet have Jeremy's years of experience."

"Does Charlotte think Leo will do well too?" Meggie asked.

Jeremy leaned back against the sofa back, smiling. "My dearest Charlotte has no idea what Leo will do since she is a woman and can't really understand the needs and requirements for someone to succeed at building a successful stud."

More nausea. How could he be so utterly obtuse? She couldn't believe the nonsense flowing from his mouth. Why hadn't Uncle Ryder beaten that out of him? Surely after four hours of it, he would have realized a good blow would do the trick.

Meggie nodded ever so pleasantly and said, "Oh yes indeed. How true. I, myself, have often wondered how God could have been so remiss as to have made women, when they are so very useless. He wasted his time."

"But Charlotte is pregnant," Jeremy said, looking at her, blinking, confused.

Meggie said, "Surely God could have found an easier way to provide boy children for men rather than forcing them to have to deal with women, don't you think? Imagine, Charlotte hasn't the brains to even understand how horses mate. Imagine, you have to tell her even when she should no longer ride a horse. Imagine, she will welcome Leo with no idea what he will do."

"Meggie." This from her father, who knew from her tone of voice that she'd gone too far. "Jeremy didn't mean that. You are misunderstanding him."

Of course her father doubtless wondered why she was quite ready to clout Jeremy in the head. Oh goodness, she had to stop being such a shrew. Her feelings for Jeremy-this was something Meggie never wanted either him or Mary Rose to know. It was too humiliating.

But something she couldn't control made her ignore her father and say, "I believe he said that Charlotte is stupid, unlike him or Leo since they are men and seem to know what's what." She looked at Jeremy straight in the face. "When I met Charlotte, I never thought she was stupid. Indeed, if I'd had the opportunity, I would have asked her if she had any ideas about training racing cats."

Jeremy looked like a calm, reasoned man who suddenly had an eccentric cousin on his hands. He said easily, "Meggie, you played a lovely song. Why don't you play another?"

"It was a Scarlatti sonata, not a song. It has no words. Oh goodness, how foolish of me. You, a man, would know that even without being told, wouldn't you?"

"Scarlatti was a man, dammit!"

"Wouldn't you say that perhaps dear Scarlatti had ample time to do his composing since he didn't have to birth children, wash clothes, scrub floors, or pander endlessly to all the males around him?"

"Hmmm," Mary Rose said, leaping to her feet. "Do you know, I have a headache. It started a good while ago. Meggie, would you please press a rosewater cloth to my forehead? You do it so very well. Come along."

Mary Rose held out her hand. Meggie had no choice. She said as she walked to her stepmother, "Shouldn't you ask Papa how it is best done? Or is that one of the very simplest of tasks to accomplish-like birthing children-so that I have a chance of learning to do it?"

"Meggie, my headache is going to split my brow apart."

"Good night, Mary Rose, Meggie," said Tysen. "Ah, my dearest daughter, I hope you will apologize to Jeremy before you bid us a pleasant good night."

"I apologize, Jeremy. Surely you can forgive me. I am much too stupid to understand my own insults."

Mary Rose had hauled her out of the drawing room, even pausing to shut the door behind her.

Tysen said to Jeremy, "Although Meggie was rude to you, my boy, your opinion of women would raise most female's hackles. I believe you should think about this."

Jeremy, however, was grinning, a thoroughly wicked grin. He said, very quietly, because Meggie was known to eavesdrop, "Do you think I baited her too much, Uncle Tysen?"

"You were acting like a jackass to make her lose her head, which she, naturally, did. It was well done."

"Not at first, but then she was so appalled, so furious at me, I couldn't help myself."