The Scottish Bride (19 page)

Colin said, “Now, like my brother-in-law, I want to know why you want Mary Rose so desperately. A man who truly loves a woman doesn't try to coerce her, doesn't try to rape her, certainly doesn't steal her away in the middle of the night. Why do you want to wed her? Come, tell us the truth and perhaps we will let you live.”

Erickson, his nose bleeding, his lip split and oozing blood, his belly caved in, his neck and jaw so sore he could barely talk, said, “You're wrong about all of it. I have no base motive. I love her. I must have her for my wife. I am not lying, there is no other reason, just my sincerest affection for her.” Then he looked over at Mary Rose, standing there, pale, the vicar's nightshirt nearly covering her toes and her fingers. “You must marry me,
Mary Rose, you must. My life cannot continue if you do not.”

Colin frowned. “You are lying. I want to know why you must have Mary Rose as your wife.”

Erickson shut his mouth so fast he bit his tongue.

Colin said very quietly, “Mary Rose, bring the candle over here so I can see this idiot very clearly. Yes, that's good. His nose is bloody. It adds interest, don't you think?”

“No,” Mary Rose said.

Colin stood right over him. “She's right. Now, we will have all the truth out of you, or I will hold you down while Tysen finishes stomping you into the floor. Do you understand me, you treacherous sod?”

Erickson sighed very deeply, he looked defeated and desperate. Then shook his head. “No, I won't say any more. There is nothing more to say. I am innocent of anything except my passion for Mary Rose.”

Colin came down on his haunches, grabbed Erickson's shirt collar, lifted him up a bit, then, with no warning, no hesitation, he pounded his head against the floor. Erickson moaned.

“There is not a dollop of love in you for Mary Rose, probably not a bit for any woman. The truth, all of it. Now, or I will kick your brains into the wainscotting.”

Tysen was leaning against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest, saying absolutely nothing.

Erickson yelled at him, “You're a bloody vicar! How can you allow this man to smash my head? I'm already half-dead since the lot of you attacked me. Stop him, for God's sake.”

“Not unless you tell us the truth,” Tysen said, examining his sore knuckles.

“There is no bloody truth to tell you, damn it.”

“Would you like me to take over, Colin?” Tysen said, taking one step toward them.

Both Mary Rose and Sinjun crowded in, keeping Tysen back, both of them staring down at Erickson as if he were a slug that was peering up at them from under a rock.

Colin leaned forward again, grabbed his collar.

Erickson groaned. “No, not again. Damn, I can feel one of my teeth loose in my mouth. I have nothing to say. If you kill me, then you will hang for it.”

“Tysen, where are you going?”

“It's all right, Sinjun. I'm going to get my gun. I can't take the chance that he will try tomorrow or the next day to rape Mary Rose and force her into marriage. I have to kill him. He won't tell us why with all this dramatic charade we're playing. There's just nothing else to do.”

“We'll draw straws,” Colin said.

“I want to draw a straw as well,” Mary Rose said. “I don't want to be afraid of him anymore. They can't hang all of us, can they?”

“No, they cannot,” Sinjun said. “Get the gun, Tysen.”

Erickson looked from one grim face to the next. He believed them. He felt defeat fill his craw. There was no way out of this. He drew a deep breath, swallowing his pain, and said, “All right, damn all of you to bloody hell. I must marry Mary Rose because she isn't poor. She's rich, very rich. She's got a trust from her father—no, I don't know who he is, only her mother knows, since she would surely remember pulling up her skirts for a man. There is evidently a lot of money in the Bank of England in a sort of trust for her. Mary Rose receives it when she is either married or turns twenty-five. Damn you all, I must have that money!”

Erickson looked up at Mary Rose, whose face was in the shadows since she was holding the candle. “You will be twenty-five next month, Mary Rose. You must marry
me before your birthday so I may have the money. I need it. Donnatella only has five thousand pounds—it simply isn't enough.”

“How much money?” Sinjun asked.

“I don't know. Sir Lyon said it was thousands upon thousands. He said this old man who is the trustee wouldn't tell him the amount, just that it was more than even a greedy man could imagine.”

Tysen was sucking in air hard again because he nearly couldn't breathe. He shoved Sinjun and Mary Rose out of his way, leaned down, jerked MacPhail up and began hitting him as hard as he could, which was very hard indeed since this new wave of rage had turned his vision red, made his heart pound so hard it should burst through his chest. It was Colin who grabbed Tysen and pulled him off. Tysen turned to hit him, but Sinjun yelled, “Stop it, Tysen! Calm down, it's all over. At least now we know the truth. Stop it! The little worm has lost, well and truly lost.”

Mary Rose walked slowly between the two men. She pressed herself against Tysen and locked her arms around his back. He felt her mouth against his bare chest, her warm breath. Slowly, so very slowly, he lowered his arms, and squeezed her to him. He rested his face on the top of her head. He breathed in her scent, tasted her hair, curls bouncing into his mouth.

“Did you have some sort of agreement with Mary Rose's uncle?” Colin said now, standing over Erickson, his hands fisted, but he knew the man wasn't going to try to get away. He knew Tysen might just snap again and this time he might just kill him. He knew deep in his soul that he couldn't allow that to happen. Such an act, he knew, would destroy Tysen, crush his soul, damn him forever.

“Yes,” Erickson said finally, knowing he'd failed,
knowing it was no use. “I was to give him ten thousand pounds when I wedded Mary Rose and he would see that she was available to me at Vallance Manor so I could properly woo her there, if she didn't accept me elsewhere.”

Mary Rose turned slowly, not releasing Tysen, holding him, perhaps, even more tightly. “What about Donnatella? She's the one you have always wanted, isn't she?”

Erickson rubbed his aching jaw, felt blood from his nose and split lip, as he said, his voice filled with dislike now, “Yes, you're nothing compared to Donnatella. You're not stupid, Mary Rose, you have eyes. Since you live at Vallance Manor, you see every day how beautiful she is.”

Mary Rose didn't pull away from Tysen at all, just continued to look at Erickson. “If you married me then you couldn't have Donnatella. She would never be your mistress. You know that, Erickson. None of this makes any sense. You would have my money, but surely you would be miserable married to me and not her.”

Erickson said, “My mother is very strong-willed, you know that. She said that all would be well, in the not-too-distant future. She said she would have the money and I would have all that I wanted. That would have to be Donnatella, wouldn't it?”

“You mean your mother planned to kill Mary Rose?” Sinjun was staring down at the man, revolted, but yet not wanting to believe such evil existed.

Erickson only shrugged, which was a difficult movement since every bit of him hurt, even his knee he'd hit when he went to the floor with the damned vicar. He said, furious, “That is bloody lunacy. My mother wouldn't kill anyone. I don't know what she planned to do, but she wouldn't kill anyone.”

Sinjun lifted her nightgown, baring her leg to the knee, and sent her foot into Erickson's ribs. He moaned, clutching himself. “You're lying, you paltry—I can't think of anything strong enough to call you that would fit. Believe me, in the stables at Vere Castle I have heard many singularly wonderful terms for paltry men. It's obvious that your mother would kill Mary Rose, or you would, and after Mary Rose was dead, then you would have her money
and
Donnatella. Bloody hell, you are an evil man. As for your mother, she should be taken out and shot. Immediately.”

Mary Rose said against Tysen's chest, “I can't believe it. I'm rich then? Why didn't my mother ever tell me? Why did she make me believe that we were the poor relations, completely dependent upon her sister and Uncle Lyon?”

“Perhaps your mother didn't think you would believe her,” Tysen said. “Would you have?”

“No, probably not. But she should have tried.” Mary Rose felt pain flow through her. She simply didn't understand her mother, never had. She said, “But how does Uncle Lyon even know about the money?”

Erickson said, holding his head, not looking at any of them, knowing the rest of it didn't matter, so why not tell them, “Your uncle told me that he threatened to have both you and your mother kicked out of Vallance Manor. I think he wanted to bed your mother and she refused him. I don't blame her for refusing him. He's an old man and his breath is nasty. I guess your mother had to tell him about the money. She assured him there were buckets of it because your father was very rich. She promised she would give him some if he didn't kick you out and if he left her alone. He came up with this plan after, of course, he went to Edinburgh to make sure she was telling him the truth.” Erickson turned over on his side and very
slowly began to pull himself upright, using the wall for support.

“Wait,” Mary Rose said. “If all this talk about an inheritance comes from my mother, then perhaps it doesn't really exist. My mother has been mad, on and off, for a very long time. Maybe she asked this man in Edinburgh to lie for her.”

Erickson shook his head. “No, she didn't. Your uncle found and confronted the man who holds the trust for you. He wouldn't tell your uncle who your father is, but he confirmed that there is a trust in your name, confirmed that it was a lot of money.”

Mary Rose just stared at him, still trying to take it in. She was no longer a poor relation. She had worth.

Colin said, “But you had to marry her before she turned twenty-five or you wouldn't get a dime?”

Erickson nodded, on his hands and knees now, breathing hard, trying to get hold of himself.

“That's right,” Sinjun said slowly. “If Mary Rose were twenty-five, then she would get her dowry and she and her mother could go anywhere they pleased, do anything they wished to do.”

“It's still so hard to believe,” Mary Rose said. “I never knew, never guessed. Perhaps my father loved me, since he left me so much money. I never considered that even possible.”

Tysen wanted to tell her not to consider it now, but he didn't. He raised his head and looked at Erickson's neck, his fingers clenching at the remembered feel of choking him. No, he shouldn't remember that with fondness. He was shaking his head at himself when he looked Erickson right in the eye. “I'm going to wed with Mary Rose, didn't you hear? She will be my wife. You have lost. It is all over.”

Erickson nodded. “Yes, Mrs. MacFardle has told
everyone that you're marrying the Bastard, and she doesn't understand it except that she's saying that Mary Rose planned it all. She wet herself down in the stream, rolled about in some briars, and came here with the purpose of gaining your pity and then seducing you. And because you're a bloody vicar—you have all this honor and nobility—you'd feel yourself forced to marry her.”

To his own surprise, Tysen threw back his head and laughed. He hugged Mary Rose very close and laughed harder. He said finally to Erickson, “Can you even begin to imagine Mary Rose seducing anyone?”

Erickson was forced to shake his head. His belly was starting to roil and ache. His ribs pulled and poked against the inside of his skin. He held himself perfectly silent. He wasn't going to bear the humiliation of vomiting on the corridor floor of Kildrummy Castle. He moaned and rolled back, hitting the wall, his eyes tightly shut. “That's why I had to act quickly. If Mary Rose were to marry you very soon, then all would be lost.”

“I see,” Tysen said. “Or you could have tried to kill me too.”

“No, I'm not a murderer.”

“I'm rich,” Mary Rose said, wonder in her voice. “Now,” she said, not loosening her hold around Tysen's back, perhaps squeezing him even more tightly, “now you don't have to marry me.” Slowly, she leaned back against his arms and looked up at him. “I release you, sir. You are free of me now.”

“Actually,” Tysen said, “no, I'm not.”

Erickson was holding his belly, lying on his side. He felt a small surge of hope. “That's right, Mary Rose, you don't have to marry him now. Now you can think more clearly about this. You've only known the vicar for a week. You've known me all your life. I've always been kind to you, never baited you about being a bastard. You
swam with the porpoises, and I taught you, remember? Listen to me—a vicar doesn't need money. A vicar needs only to have a roomful of captive people for him to exhort about their endless string of sins. That's why there are churches. Once they file in, they close those huge doors. No one can get out. Then the vicar yells at them, makes them feel guiltier than dirt. Once they fill the collection plate, he pats them on the head and they feel all right again, and he feels superior.”