Catherine Coulter the Sherbrooke Series Novels 6-10 (9781101562123)

by Coulter, Catherine

  “As I told you, she escaped me last week. She actually managed to run away from me. And she escaped me again yesterday. She moved very fast. I was reaching for her, and then she was in the water, being swept downstream. She’s a strong girl. She pulled herself out, since there was no one else about to do it.”

  Sir Lyon wasn’t much impressed. “She’s a female. Find a way to get her. Hold her down so she can’t run away.”

  Erickson looked toward the fireplace, its grate empty now, and the painting of Sir Lyon’s great-grandfather, William Thatcher Vallance, hanging above it. He’d been a terrifying old man who had left more bastards in the area than anyone before or since. He said, “When Ian and I were boys, we were always searching every nook and cranny of Kildrummy, trying to find secret passages. We didn’t find any, didn’t see a single ghost. We just got tangled up in a lot of spiderwebs and our boots run over by a battalion of rats. But we did find a very private way into the castle, through a very narrow ivy-covered door that gives onto a private garden just outside the library. The Kildrummy steward, Miles MacNeily, spends a good of time in there, but he is soon to leave, I hear.”

  “Yes, he came into an inheritance,” Sir Lyon said. “A good-sized one, I hear. Miles wouldn’t care what you did with Mary Rose, in any case.”

  “The odd thing is that I believe he would. I remember he was always asking about her, always seemed to enjoy seeing her. I also remember that he was always very nice to her when she was younger, gave her treats, that sort of thing.” Erickson rose and began pacing back and forth in front of Sir Lyon. He looks heroic, Sir Lyon thought, a very fine-looking young man with clear eyes and a noble brow, possibly even more handsome than poor Ian, who shouldn’t have died stumbling drunk over a cliff. He still didn’t understand how it could have happened. But Ian was long gone now, and how it had happened simply didn’t matter anymore.

  What mattered was right here, staring him in the face. Erickson MacPhail, the man who was willing to buy his niece and overlook her unfortunate parentage. And his dearest Donnatella would benefit once she got over her snit. He would take her to Edinburgh, introduce her to every suitable gentleman between the ages of twenty and eighty. She would be fawned over, poetry written to her lovely eyebrows; she would be feted, spoiled rotten. That would make her happy, perhaps even content, once away from her cousin, who had somehow managed to steal Ian away from her. No one could credit it, but it had happened. Sir Lyon had marveled at it. He doubted now that anyone remembered Ian had wanted Mary Rose. No, most folk would think of Mary Rose, see her next to her cousin, and it would be Donnatella who’d lost her betrothed in that dreadful accident. And Donnatella, bless her lovely self, never corrected anyone who showered condolences upon her beautiful head for her Ian’s death. And Donnatella, who surely couldn’t have been involved in Ian’s death.

  Sir Lyon said now, “Whatever, Miles MacNeily isn’t important. I suppose you could try your plan. As you know, however, the Griffins have returned and also Lord and Lady Ashburnham, Lord Barthwick’s sister and brother-in-law, have come to visit. What with the servants also hanging about, there are a lot of folk for you to avoid. Do you know how you’re going to get her out of there?”

  “Not as yet, but I shall think of something. Time grows short.”

  “Aye, it does,” said Sir Lyon. “However, I myself have a few other strategies to try before you attempt it.”

  He didn’t see Donnatella standing quietly behind the drawing room door.

  Kildrummy Castle

  Mary Rose’s voice was as thin as the stem of the yellow rose that sat in a vase atop the mantel when she said, “Do you really think I am kind?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Kind, did you say?”

  “Yes, you are the one who said I am kind. I want to know if you really believe it.”

  A touch of acrimony, just excellent, and yes, he’d also heard just a tiny thread of hope there as well.

  He laughed, he couldn’t help himself. He grabbed her and hugged her tightly. Then he closed his hands around her waist and lifted her above his head. Her hair swirled about her head, falling in a rich red curtain of curls about his face. He breathed in the sweet scent of her, a woman’s unique scent. It had been so very long. He hadn’t forgotten, but since he couldn’t act on such thoughts, he’d shoved them way back to the recesses of his brain and avoided ever going there in his thinking.

  Tysen looked up at her, this girl with her wonderful scent, hair so rich and deeply red he wanted to bury his face in it, but now he wasn’t smiling. He looked more serious than a vicar—namely, a man like himself—in a roomful of pickpockets. “Enough is enough, Mary Rose. I will hold you off the ground until you say yes to me.”

  Her hands were on his shoulders, her fingers kneading him. “You will truly ask the Harker brothers to give me a racing kitten?”

  “I promise. However, they must deem you worthy and responsible. A racing cat requires great commitment, I’ve heard Rohan Carrington say. That means that you must begin to have a better opinion of yourself. If you do not believe yourself worthy, then why should they? Now, why would you ever doubt that you are kind?”

  “You are the first person in my life who has ever said that. Why should I attribute something to myself when no one else has?”

  “Because I’m telling you to, and since I will be your husband, since I haven’t told an outright lie since I turned eighteen years old, you must trust what I say.”

  “What do you mean, you’ve told no outright lie?”

  “One must shade the truth a bit on occasion, to avoid wounded feelings. I learned to do that very quickly. That, or one simply keeps quiet. Now, to prove my worthiness to you, if the Harker brothers decide you would make a good mistress, I swear that if the racing kitten upsets Ellis and Monroe, I will not complain. I will not force it to live in the stables.”

  He would swear that at that precise moment, he saw a gleam of wickedness in her eyes, a wickedness to match Sinjun in her finest moments. She said, all demure as a nun, “If I say yes, Tysen, will you kiss me again?”

  Dear Lord, he thought, and found that all he could do was nod, mute as the village idiot.

  “Wait. What if after we are married you discover that you do not like me overmuch?”

  “I even like your toes, and that includes the crooked one you must have broken when you were younger.”

  Any wickedness was long gone. She looked utterly appalled. Her fingernails dug into his shirt. “You looked at my toes? I mean, why would you look at my toes? No one I know looks at toes. Oh, my goodness, when?”

  He kept his voice very matter-of-fact. “I had to wipe you down when you had the fever. No, don’t start twitching. No maidenly yells. There was no one else to do it, Mary Rose. You have not even heard me complain about that, have you? I have not upbraided you for keeping me awake nearly all that night. So you see, I am a good-natured fellow.”

  “You saw my broken toe,” she said again, and he would swear that in that instant he’d never seen a more mortified face in his life. “You saw even more than my broken toe.”

  “Well, yes.”

  “It’s very embarrassing, Tysen. Only I have ever seen myself without my clothes on. Oh, goodness, you’re a man.”

  “Well, yes, I am. Mary Rose, if you do not tell me yes very soon now, I just might drop you. Though you are not large, you are beginning to push my limits here.”

  Still, her face was full of questions. To his utter relief, she slowly nodded, to herself more than to him. “Very well, then, Tysen. Because I do not want you to be bent over like an old man, moaning and clutching your back, I will say yes.”

  “Say it.”

  “Yes. I am hopeful. I am also still so embarrassed I want to swallow my tongue. All right, then, I will say all of it. I will marry you, sir, and I pray to God that you will not regret your gallantry.”

  He lowered her very slowly, his muscles nearly locking tight at the feel of her against him. To prove to her th
at he was a man of his word, he kissed her, just as he’d promised.

  It was a lovely afternoon, sunlight flowing in through the westerly windows. As soon as Meggie and the countess of Ashburnham had left the room, Donnatella looked down at her cousin and said, “You look perfectly dreadful, Mary Rose. Would you like me to brush your hair?”

  Mary Rose only smiled. Not too long ago, had Donnatella said something like that to her, she would have felt like a prune pit ground underfoot. But now she didn’t think anything Donnatella said would faze her. She didn’t doubt at all that her hair had more rats in it than the Kildrummy stables, but it didn’t matter, hadn’t mattered to Tysen. She was so very happy, all she could do was smile stupidly up at her cousin. “That would be very nice, Donnatella. You look very beautiful with the sunlight shining in your hair.”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  “How is my mother?”

  “Mad, as usual,” Donnatella said as she walked over to Lord Barthwick’s dresser and picked up his brush. She said over her shoulder, “She hasn’t said much, really. Mother simply told her that you were visiting the daughter of the house here at Kildrummy. Nothing else was necessary. She left the room humming.” Donnatella saw light hairs in the brush. Tysen Sherbrooke was a lovely man, she thought, and obviously in need of a wife. Given he was a vicar, likely without much spine at all, all his thoughts spiritual and not at all to the point, he would be easily managed. It was something to think about, just in case.

  She pulled a dark blond hair from the brush, a small smile on her lips as she walked back to the bed. “Mrs. MacFardle tells me that you must leave the vicar’s bed. Indeed, she’s yelping that you should have never been in this bed in the first place, that soon everyone will be talking about it, and poor Lord Barthwick will be quite ruined.”

  “Yes, I can well imagine her saying that. I am feeling much better. Perhaps this evening I will move back into Meggie’s bedchamber. Her bed, just like this one, would hold six people without touching.”

  Donnatella sat down beside her and lifted a handful of hair. Such a common color, she thought, as she smoothed out the tangles. “Meggie is the vicar’s daughter?”

  “Yes, she is precious. And very smart. She loves her father very much.”

  Donnatella hit a snag. Mary Rose flinched. Donnatella worked on the knot until it was free. “I saw Erickson just a while ago at Vallance Manor. He is very upset, Mary Rose.”

  Donnatella felt the sudden bolt of fear in her cousin, making her all stiff, and she studied more tangles in Mary Rose’s hair. She said, “Really, Mary Rose, being afraid of a man is quite ridiculous. He would never hurt you. I do believe he loves you. Now, what is the matter with you? Marry him, for God’s sake, and then you will control him well enough.”

  “I don’t think so,” Mary Rose said slowly, staring straight ahead. “I know you could manage a husband quite well, but I? I’m not sure about that. I have never thought that Erickson loved me. You are wrong about that.”

  “Then why does he want to marry you so badly?”

  “I don’t know. Even if I did marry him, I cannot imagine controlling him. You could. You are very strong, Donnatella.”

  “A woman has to be strong or she will become nothing more than a rug to be trod upon.” She hit another snag, and this time Mary Rose jerked.

  “Ah, nearly done. Hold still.”

  “When I was your age, I wasn’t so firm about things. I have always admired that in you.” Mary Rose thought about Tysen treading on her, and knew, all the way to the soles of her feet, that he wouldn’t. “I cannot marry Erickson,” she said, lightly closing her fingers about her cousin’s wrist. Her scalp was burning, surely it was enough. Donnatella lowered the hairbrush and said, “Now your hair is mixed with his.”

  Mary Rose just shook her head. “I don’t love Erickson, I never have. You’re quite wrong about his feelings for me, else why would he try to rape me?”

  “Rape?” Donnatella actually laughed—such a sweet sound, Mary Rose thought. How jarring it was with that awful word that had come trippingly off her tongue.

  “Yes, rape. He has tried twice. Thank heaven I managed to get away from him both times.”

  “I’ve heard,” Donnatella said, lowering her voice to a near whisper, pulling close to Mary Rose’s ear, “that he is a splendid lover. He has bedded several women in the village, and believe me, they smile like loons when he leaves them.” She gave a delicate shiver. “Perhaps you should simply trust him, Mary Rose. Let him have you. Enjoy him, use him. Men are ever so easy when it comes to that. I will teach you how to do it.”

  “I have never felt the slightest desire to let him make love to me. Really, Donnatella, I cannot imagine such a thing.” She frowned, looking toward the now lowering sun through the windows. “I don’t understand why he wants to marry me. It makes no sense. I am a bastard. He truly did try to rape me. He isn’t a good man to so easily want to do that.”

  “A man in love may be excused many things,” Donnatella said. “A man in love, I have always believed, is singularly stupid. Perhaps I should offer him my assistance in bringing you around. It would be far more efficient.”

  “I would that you not, Donnatella.”

  Donnatella laughed. “Yes, men in love—or in lust—it is one and the same to all of them. I have seen it several times now. It is really quite amusing to watch. However, Erickson spoke to you earlier. He saw you looking like this, and he still wants to marry you. Doesn’t that convince you that he is blinded by his feelings for you?”

  “No.”

  Donnatella walked to the long row of windows. She flung one of them open and leaned out. “I have always loved Kildrummy Castle. I knew when I was a little girl that I belonged here, that it had to be mine someday. Isn’t it strange how everything worked out? I thought to marry Ian and be mistress here, but then Ian died. So senseless the way he died. Now there is another master here, and he isn’t married. It’s as if he came here, knowing I was close, knowing this was always what I wanted. I thank God that the vicar is so very handsome. Have you noticed his eyes? They are an incredible blue. He also appears not to have a patch of fat on him, and that is a wonderful thing.” Donnatella turned to look at Mary Rose, who was sitting on the bed, her arms clasped around her knees.

  Donnatella went on, “I will think about all this. I will spend time with Lord Barthwick. I will watch him become stupid because he lusts after me. Isn’t that a thought? A vicar, lusting after a woman. Is that even possible? However, I cannot imagine being the mother of a little girl who is only half my age.”

  “He also has two little boys, Max and Leo. They are nine and seven.”

  Donnatella arched a perfect brow. “Three children? I had no idea that a vicar indulged himself so generously in the marriage bed. I wonder what his wife was like. Has he said anything about her?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, well, she’s dead, no longer important at all. I think you should come home with me right now, Mary Rose. If you are afraid that Erickson is lurking about Vallance Manor, ready to grab you and haul you away, why, then, I will protect you. You can even sleep in my bed. I won’t let him come near you. Does that make you feel safe?”

  Mary Rose felt her heart begin to pound, fast, hard strokes. Donnatella wanted her back at Vallance Manor? Why, for heaven’s sake? Slowly, she just shook her head. “I cannot.”

  “So you will remain and ruin the poor vicar’s reputation?”

  There was a knock on the door. Mary Rose wanted to run to the door and let whoever it was in, quickly, so she would not have to answer that sticky question, but she just wasn’t up to it, and that had been why Tysen had finally left her. He’d wanted her to sleep, and she had, until Meggie and Sinjun had brought Donnatella to see her.

  She didn’t expect it to be Erickson, but nevertheless, she was as rigid as the post at the foot of the huge bed, waiting, waiting. It was Tysen, and he wasn’t smiling.

  He nodded to Donnatella. “Mary Rose,
I am sorry to disturb your visit with your cousin, but it appears that your mother is in a carriage outside in the courtyard. She wishes to see you. She also refuses to come inside. What do you wish to do?”

  “Mother is here, truly? I must see her, Tysen.”

  He smiled then. “It is no problem. My back has sufficiently recovered.” He fetched his dressing gown, quite aware that Donnatella was watching his every move, and brought it to Mary Rose. “Can you stand up? Good, I’ll put it on you.”

  Donnatella said, laughter lurking, “It is pleasant to see a man occasionally play servant to a lady, sir, but do allow me. I will bring Mary Rose downstairs.”

  “That isn’t necessary,” Tysen said, not even turning to look at her. “Keep upright, Mary Rose, don’t collapse on me now. Yes, just hold on to me.” He wrapped her in his dressing gown and tied the belt around her waist. “Your feet are bare, but it is very warm, so it will be all right. Are you ready?”

  She nodded.

  Tysen picked her up in his arms and simply walked out of the bedchamber, leaving Donnatella to stand by the window watching him and frowning slightly, wondering what was going on here.

  Tysen said as he walked down the long corridor with her, “I don’t mind at all being your servant. Do you know something? You aren’t quite as heavy when I’m walking.”

  She laughed. For just a brief moment, she rested her head against his shoulder, her warm breath against his neck. Mary Rose wished at that moment that she could stay in Tysen’s arms for as long as his back held up. She breathed in the scent of him, dark and rich, with a touch of wildness, like the barest hint of white heather in the air.

  “Your mother looks quite beautiful,” he said as he carefully walked with her down the main staircase. The front door was open, spilling in bright afternoon sunlight.

  “She usually does,” Mary Rose said. “When we wed, what will we do about her?”

  “I will give that some thought. Don’t worry, Mary Rose. Everything will work out all right.” But how could it? Her mother was a very odd woman. At worst, she was indeed mad. More than likely, she used madness to gain her what she wanted. Her mother never left Vallance Manor. Her mother also knew who her father was and refused to tell anyone. And now her mother was here, in a carriage. It was hard to believe. What had happened?