The Scottish Bride (15 page)

Colin said, lowering his newspaper so he could see over it, “Yes, Mary Rose, you may trust my wife. I trust her with my life, and she has protected me very well indeed. Oh, yes, do call me Colin.”

 

There was no way to rid himself of the Griffins aside from tossing them out into the courtyard on their respective ears. Not a bad thought. After two cups of strong tea, Tysen inquired yet again, “Why have you returned?”

“You see how he tries to be as imperious as Old Tyronne,” Mrs. Griffin said to her husband. Then she turned her cannon on him with a goodly amount of enthusiasm. “It will not work, boy. No matter what you want, you will not marry Mary Rose Fordyce. I will not allow you to marry her. She is a bastard. If she is received anywhere, it is only because of her very respectable aunt and uncle. No, her sort will not be the mistress of Kildrummy.”

Tysen lost every word in his brain at that moment. Wed with Mary Rose? Such a thought had never—no, he was merely protecting her, as a man of God, it was his duty to see that Erickson didn't rape her, that nothing or no one forced her to do anything against her will, that—he closed his eyes and managed to dredge up words for a simple prayer. They were very straightforward, those words that made up his prayer:
Lord, if I strangle this woman, will you find forgiveness for me?

“My dearest wife is concerned about your reputation, my lord,” said Mr. Griffin. “She is worried that you not besmirch the family name.”

Mrs. Griffin saluted her husband over her teacup. It was her fourth cup, and Tysen found, despite being wordless and dazed, that one had to be impressed at her capacity. She then bent her look on Tysen, her black mustache quivering. “Even now, my lord, you may be certain that everyone north of Edinburgh is talking of how the new Lord Barthwick—namely, you—has an unmarried bastard female in his bed. According to Mrs. MacFardle, you
stayed
with her all night and took care of her
intimately
, and she is even wearing
your
nightshirt, and isn't that—one hesitates to say it, but I must—yes, it is utterly depraved, even for an Englishman.”

Tysen, normally fluent in his speech, smoothly cultured, and quite self-possessed, lost not only his ability to reason and speak again, but also nearly every semblance of life. He stood rigid as a board, frozen in place, staring not at Mrs. Griffin but into himself, deep inside himself where one seldom has reason to look because there are many times shadows there, and doors that are better left closed. But he looked, regardless. What he saw, what he finally fully realized, what was staring him right in the face, was the realization that the miserable old hag was right.

Oh, dear God, he had taken intimate care of her, as if she were his child or his wife. He hadn't hesitated. By all that was holy, what had he done to Mary Rose? And all for the best motives, all to protect her, to save her, to be the buffer between her and MacPhail. She was wearing his nightshirt, he had taken care of her, looked at her, fully appreciated every white inch of her, which he shouldn't have done, but since he was a man, there'd been no hope for it.

“Well, my lord? Have you nothing to say for yourself? Did you bed Mary Rose? One doubts she was a virgin because a bastard is seldom a virgin, no matter her age. Will she, a bastard, deliver another bastard into this world? Her dear aunt and uncle, so well respected in these parts, in all their goodness, allowed her to be raised with their own sweet Donnatella. Mary Rose should never have remained in a respectable home. Just look what has happened. She is upstairs lying in your bed. And you, my lord, you allowed it. You freely partook in it. And still you let her stay.”

Tysen slowly shook his head, back and forth. He had looked deep into himself, seen the truth, recognized what he must do, and now he must act. He turned and walked out of the drawing room, the sound of his boots striking the tile in the front entrance hall sharp in his ears. Those boots of his might be a bit dirty, but they made loud, sharp sounds as they hit the tiles. And yet, deep inside himself, he heard nothing. He felt waves of guilt and shame, but now, thank the good Lord, they were receding in the face of his resolve to make things right. He heard Mrs. Griffin's voice calling after him, but he didn't understand her words. Indeed, they weren't even words to his mind.

When he opened the door to his bedchamber, he saw Colin still seated in the big wing chair, still comfortably reading a newspaper, obviously still at his ease. Colin, excellent man that he was, had learned years ago that it was best just to give Sinjun her head.

Sinjun was now seated on the bed, close to Mary Rose, speaking to her, and his dearest Meggie was on her knees next to Mary Rose, holding her hand, nodding at whatever Sinjun was saying. Then Mary Rose looked up and saw him.

“Hello, Tysen,” she said, and he would have had to be a blind man not to see the leap of pleasure in her eyes at
the sight of him, the smile that hadn't been there but a moment before, there now, sweet and honest, and it was for him, and he thought, She should not so openly give me her joy. Is there no hope for it?

 
 
 
 

T
HEN ALL HER
joy died on the spot and she said, looking down, “I am going to Vere Castle with Sinjun. I plan to be a nanny to Fletcher and Jocelyn. She doesn't want me to be, but I have to do something to earn my keep, don't I?”

She was leaving?

“I'm not ignorant. I speak Latin. I can instruct Phillip, perhaps I can also teach Dahling to play the bagpipes. I don't play them well, but I do know several tunes. I do know how to do things. I won't be useless.”

“You speak Latin?”

He was gaping at her, distracted for the moment.

“Yes, and also a bit of French, although my accent is not terribly pleasant. Since there are no longer Latin speakers about, why, then, no one can criticize my accent.”

She spoke Latin? How ever had that come about? He got himself back on track, just shaking his head at her. “You're not leaving Kildrummy Castle,” he said, and he even managed to smile at her. Sinjun opened her mouth, but then he saw that she was staring at him as if she'd never seen him before. Slowly, very slowly, Sinjun got
off the bed and stood beside it for a long moment. Then she held out her hand to her niece. “Come along, Meggie. You, Uncle Colin, and I are going to explore the castle. Will you give us a tour?”

Meggie had no idea what was happening here, but she knew it was something very important, something between her papa and Mary Rose. Mary Rose knew Latin? Goodness, what would Max have to say to that? She nearly leapt off the bed and took her aunt's hand.

Colin calmly folded his paper and rose. He gave Tysen one long last look, then lightly touched his hand to his wife's shoulder. Tysen heard Sinjun say, “We don't have to see that dreadful woman, do we?”

“No, we won't go near the drawing room,” Meggie said. “I want to show you the hidden garden behind Papa's library. I believe Mr. MacNeily is working in there. He's Papa's estate manager, you know. He is very nice. I wish he would stay, but he is leaving Kildrummy soon now. Oliver is coming to take his place, at least Papa hopes he will.”

Colin said, “That will make Douglas gnash his teeth.”

He heard Sinjun laugh. “Oliver would do marvelously well here at Kildrummy.”

Tysen closed the bedchamber door, locked it. He said as he walked back to the bed, “Just forget this nanny business, Mary Rose. Forget teaching Latin to Phillip and bagpipes to Dahling. You aren't going anywhere.”

Mary Rose had scooted up, feeling more strong and fit than she had even five minutes before. She hadn't taken her eyes off him. As he spoke, she noticed, for the first time, that stubborn jaw of his. “I must,” she said, and it hurt to say it, but there was no choice. “Surely you see that.”

“No, I don't see anything of the kind. Listen to me. We all do what we must. The must to be done in this situation
is this: you must marry me. You will be the mistress of Kildrummy Castle in Scotland and you will be a vicar's wife in my home in England. I live in a village called Glenclose-on-Rowan. My house is officially called the Old Parsonage, but it's been known for years and years as Eden Hill House.”

“That is a very romantic name for a parsonage.”

“I suppose so.”

He thought inconsequentially that even with that awful pallor, she looked quite lovely sitting there in his nightshirt, her red hair in soft curls around her head and over her shoulders. Her mouth opened again, but nothing came out. He waited. He was good at waiting. Many times it took a parishioner a goodly number of minutes to screw up his courage to confess a sin.

“I cannot. Surely you know that, Tysen.”

“You cannot what? Marry me? I don't see that there is anything else for you to do.”

“I will not do that to you,” she said, and her voice had firmed up now, and color was coming into her cheeks. “I came here because I wasn't thinking straight, because I was afraid to go into Vallance Manor with Erickson's horse wandering around outside the house, just like he was used to being there, as if he belonged there.

“But no matter. I was wrong, very wrong, to come here and involve you and Meggie.” She drew a very deep breath. “I will not allow you to sacrifice yourself because I was a fool.”

He smiled, a calm, clean smile that showed his lovely white teeth and lit up his blue eyes even more. “Forget this sacrifice business. It is nonsense. I should have told you this sooner. I have three children. Max, my scholar and wit, is nine; Leo, who sings like an angel, gets into more mischief than a devil's spawn, and stands on his head, is seven. You already know my precocious Meggie.
They are all good children, but perhaps you wouldn't wish to be saddled with three stepchildren.”

“Meggie has told me all about Max and Leo.” Then she seemed to fold down. She just sat there, shaking her head back and forth. “No, you are purposely misunderstanding me. Please, Tysen, you know I would love your children dearly. I had accustomed myself to not having children. No, I won't speak of that. You are being stubborn.”

“I would be interested in knowing if you spoke Latin better than Max.”

“Yes, I probably do. I probably read Latin better also.”

“Who instructed you? I cannot see Donnatella enjoying Latin lessons.”

“The very old Presbyterian minister who died some three years ago. He was pensioned off when I was very young. He was lonely.” She shrugged. “He taught me many things. He, like everyone else, deplored my antecedents, but he taught me nonetheless. He also preached to me, but I think it was more to keep in practice than to save my soul.” Then she actually smiled at the memories.

“We have to get back on track here, Mary Rose. Do you find me that distasteful? You believe me no better than Erickson MacPhail?”

Mary Rose threw back the covers and swung her legs over the side of the bed. His nightshirt had come up to her knees, and now he looked at those knees he'd thought were the prettiest knees he'd ever imagined when he was wiping her down with the wet, cold cloth. She was standing now, his nightshirt dragging on the floor, the sleeves a good six inches beyond the ends of her fingers. She walked right up to him and stood there, not a foot from him, and poked her finger in his chest. “I have to face you. I cannot remain lying there, a pathetic victim with a black eye, a woman you must see as nauseatingly pitiable. You will not tell me what to do. You feel guilty and
responsible. That is nonsense. I will not marry you. I will not serve you such a turn, Tysen. I will go to Vere Castle with Sinjun. I will learn. I will become a proper nanny. I will speak Latin to everyone.”

“No,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. He looked thoughtful for a moment. She decided he was finally coming to his senses. She'd been noble. She would deal later with the vast wasteland deep inside her.

He said, “We will have to post bans. I suppose things are the same here as they are in England?”

The wasteland disappeared, but she knew it made no difference. She grabbed his arms and tried to shake him, but she couldn't even begin to budge him. “You will make yourself sick again,” he said, not allowing himself to touch her. That wouldn't do at all. He held firm. “Get back into bed, Mary Rose.”

Then she smiled, a sudden, quite lovely smile. “Tysen, you are a very good man. You have the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen. And your mouth—no, I shouldn't have said that. Listen, I have no intention of making you regret your inheritance. I will not drag you down and bring you disgrace. I am a bastard. There is nothing to be done about it. When will you accept that as an unchangeable fact?”

“Yes, I know that you are a bastard.” He shrugged. “Who cares?”

“Everyone I have ever known cares a great deal,” she said honestly. “When I was a little girl, Donnatella would call me a bastard and laugh and laugh. I didn't think it could be all that bad because Donnatella was, after all, much younger than I. But I finally asked my uncle Lyon. He told me that I didn't have a father. From that day onward, everything changed. I knew then that I didn't belong, I realized then that everyone—the servants, my aunt, my uncle—treated me differently. I realized I was
at Vallance Manor only because my mother was the sister of the mistress of the house.”

“That could not have been pleasant, but it is past now, Mary Rose. I am sorry that it happened, but it is over and done with. I will say it again. Who cares?”

“Don't you understand? You belong to a noble English family. I could never belong.”

“Are you quite through yet?”

“You are sounding like a long-suffering man faced with a hysterical female.”

“You, hysterical? You assured Erickson that you weren't. But it doesn't matter, as it happens. As a vicar, I deal quite well with hysterical females. In truth, however I do not wish to be married to one. My first wife perhaps tended toward hysteria—no, forget that. You have struck me as very commonsensical, Mary Rose. Also you have a beautiful name. I think your eyes are far more beautiful than mine, although the Sherbrooke blue eyes are touted throughout southern England.” He laughed, just shaking his head. “I don't care that you never had a father. It's simply not important. If it truly bothers you, then we won't tell anyone in England. It matters not, either way. Marry me.”

“You don't know me.”

He was smiling now, those white teeth of his just lovely, and his hands came up to close around her shoulders. “We will learn all about each other over the next forty years. I do not believe I snore. If I did, Meggie would surely tell me, since she and her brothers sometimes curl up around me in the wintertime when it is very cold. There are also two cats, Ellis and Monroe. They aren't racing cats, but—”

She was instantly diverted, as he'd hoped she would be. “Racing cats? I have never heard of such a thing. What
are racing cats? I can't imagine getting a cat to race. Cats always do whatever pleases them. Come, you're teasing me.”

“Oh, no. Cat racing is quite the sport in southern England. The season is from April to October, and the races are held on Saturdays, at the McCaulty Race Track near Eastbourne. If you like, I could try to get you a racing kitten to train. I once met the Harker brothers, the premier trainers in all the sport. They are at Mountvale Hall, the home of Rohan Carrington.”

Her eyes were shining as she said, quite without thinking, “Oh, goodness, to teach a kitten to race. What fun that would be, what—” She drew up short. “No,” she said. “I must not think about things like that. I cannot. It simply isn't right. I will not change my mind, Tysen, I cannot.”

“It might prove difficult. The Harker brothers are very particular about whom they trust to properly train racing kittens.”

“You really must stop this. I will not think about racing kittens, I won't.”

Without conscious thought, at the end of his tether, Tysen tightened his hold on her shoulders and pulled her slowly against him. He leaned his head down and kissed her, his mouth against hers, both closed. It didn't matter. It was a revelation. It was as if his body had suddenly come alive, sending every last bit of him reeling, exploding in awareness and bone-deep pleasure, more pleasure than he could even begin to imagine. “Open your mouth,” he said, appalled that he'd said such a thing to her, and praying with every fiber in his body that she would. Where had that come from? To his utter surprise she did, immediately, all soft and warm, and his tongue gently touched her lower lip before entering her mouth. Oh, God, he knew he was going to die then, die from this immense,
overwhelming joy. He would shudder himself to death if nothing else.

He pulled back, his heart pounding hard, heaving, unable to get hold of himself, feeling so urgent, so very good, he didn't quite understand what was happening to him. Whatever it was, he didn't want it to stop. He wouldn't mind if he exploded with these feelings.

“I didn't know,” he said slowly, looking down at her, absolutely amazed at what he had felt, his entire body aching now because he wasn't touching her, didn't have his tongue in her mouth. He shook his head at himself, utterly dismayed. He dropped his hands to his sides and took two quick steps away from her. His body ached, simply ached. “I just didn't know,” he said again, and it was true. He didn't understand what had happened. But he knew it was wonderful, and he was still trembling from the onslaught.