Author: Catherine Coulter
Category: Suspense
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He laid his finger on her lips. He didn’t see wickedness? His thoughts were too elevated? Too refined? Was that truly what she believed? He supposed that when he’d asked her why he needed her he’d expected her to fold her tent somewhat, at least retreat to embrace another argument. He shook his head at her, bemused. He didn’t recognize wickedness? He was too nice? Blessed heaven, he was easy prey to females who would try to trap him into marriage? He said, with just a touch of irony in his voice, “I appreciate your belief in me, Meggie, although I do not know what I have done to make you believe me such a weakling. As for the ladies, I promise you that I am always on my guard.”
“But Miss Strapthorpe nearly nabbed you, I heard her talking of it to one of her friends. She said she was this close to having you. Just one kiss, she said, and you would feel bound to marry her. Then there was that time she trapped you in the vestry.”
“But I didn’t kiss Miss Strapthorpe, and I managed to escape the vestry with my clerical collar still around my neck.”
“Papa, was that a jest?”
“Certainly not, Meggie.”
“I didn’t think it could be, since you don’t waste your time in anything frivolous. Now, Papa, I know you didn’t kiss Miss Strapthorpe—if you had, she would be my stepmother now, and let me tell you, Papa, that would have made even Max turn green around his collar. As for Leo, I’ll wager he would have run away from home.”
“Enough about Miss Strapthorpe. I am a grown man, Meggie. I can see to myself. I promise not to bring back a stepmama to you and the boys.”
“But—”
He touched his finger to her mouth again. “Now, sweetheart, for the last time, you will not accompany me. You will remain here. I swear to you that I will be on the alert for wicked men and for females out to nab me. No, don’t say anything more. You will not strain my patience. It is not appropriate for a man of God to yell at his child. It would cause consternation if it got out.”
Meggie grabbed his hand. “Papa, take me with you, please. Wicked people do abound. One man alone cannot see all of them or hear them creeping up on him. And ladies in particular know how to creep, I—”
He marveled at her determination, her seemingly endless string of arguments.
Her small hand was now on his sleeve, tugging. A beautiful hand, he thought inconsequentially, long fingers, graceful. Sinjun’s hands, not her mother’s. “I haven’t seen Aunt Sinjun and Uncle Colin for three years, not since they came to London and we traveled there to visit them. I want to see Phillip and Dahling. I don’t really care about Jocelyn and Fletcher. They’re still just babies.”
Tysen just shook his head again, seamed his mouth tight so he wouldn’t say something that could hurt her feelings, and made for the door. He said over his shoulder, “Mrs. Priddie will help you and your brothers pack. You will leave in two days. I am leaving tomorrow morning, very early. Obey me, Meggie.”
He heard some grumbling as he closed the door behind him, but he couldn’t make out the words. Meggie was ten years old, perhaps on the verge of turning thirty. No, older than that. He was thirty-one, and surely she had passed that ripe age. He realized now that his brother Douglas was right. Meggie was just like Sinjun had been at her age—intense and carefree by turns, always smiling, always giving orders to her brothers, wanting to take care of everyone. And stubborn—so stubborn that she made up her mind and simply plowed ahead. And she could be demanding and unreasonable, and if she continued with this, then he would perhaps have to discipline her, but he didn’t want to.
He’d spanked her just once, last year, something he doubted he would ever forget, but Mrs. Priddie had told him that what Meggie had done deserved for her to be locked in her room on bread and water for a year. He’d been afraid to ask her, but Mrs. Priddie rolled it right out of her mouth without hesitation. “She tied the sexton’s bell rope to Molly the goat, Reverend Sherbrooke. Then she carefully placed half a dozen old boots all around that dratted goat—who wanted all of them, naturally, since she had also poured some porridge in each boot. The bell rang and rang because Molly had to have all that porridge. Oddly enough, it nearly made a melody. Sexton Peters nearly croaked of apoplexy on the spot.” Then Mrs. Priddie had lowered her voice. “I heard him, Reverend Sherbrooke. I heard him, and he cursed a blue streak. You must speak to him. It was not at all what a sexton should be saying.”
But Tysen imagined that his sexton’s ire had reached such heights that the bad words had erupted out of his mouth without his consent. Tysen had spanked his daughter, and she hadn’t cried, not a single tear. However, his guilt, when she had just looked up at him, her blue eyes shining with tears that wouldn’t ever overflow, had made him want to beg her forgiveness. He’d managed to get out of the room before he committed that act of folly, but it had been very close.
He walked now to his bedchamber and began to methodically pack his clothes in a valise. His valet, Throck-morton, had died the previous winter of just plain old age, a smile on his toothless mouth because the very young and pretty tweeny Marigold was stroking his gnarled old hand. Tysen hadn’t seen fit as yet to hire another man. He was a clergyman. It seemed rather ridiculous for a clergyman to have a valet. Mrs. Priddie did quite well with his clothes.
He was also a rich clergyman, but he usually didn’t pay much attention to that. Douglas dealt with most of the details, knowing Tysen had no interest in it. Now Tysen was a Scottish baron in addition to being a rich clergyman. He was now Baron Barthwick. It was enough to make him briefly question God’s mysterious ways.
He ate dinner alone in the small breakfast parlor that evening, spoke to his sexton who had cursed a blue streak, Mr. Peters, spent more hours than he cared to with Mr. Samuel Pritchert, his curate, a man with a long, thin nose and a dour disposition who could have a recluse talking to him within three minutes. It was amazing how people would almost instantly spill their innards to Samuel. He was competent, his sermons of the basic sin-and-punishment variety, and he would keep Tysen’s flock intact in his absence.
Then he went to his sons’ bedchamber. There was a light coming from beneath the door. He knocked lightly, then entered.
Max, nearly nine years old now, was reading—no surprise there—his long legs stretched out in front of him, his arms cradling a huge book, a candle burning right over his left shoulder. He was, Tysen thought, looking with pride at his elder son, more of a scholar than he himself had ever been. Max spoke Latin, read Latin, even cursed in Latin when his younger brother annoyed him, which was fairly often, when he didn’t think his papa was listening. Tysen didn’t understand a great deal of what he said, which was probably for the best.
Leo, named for Leopold Foxworth Sherbrooke, the third earl of Northcliffe and a gentleman who’d held honor above all else, even when it meant having his head severed from his body, was standing on his head, his stockinged feet against the wall. He looked like he was sleeping, his eyes closed, perfectly at his ease. He was probably thinking about his uncle Douglas’s horses, which he was allowed to ride at Northcliffe Hall. Tysen shook his head and cleared his throat. “Boys, I came to say good-bye to you. I am leaving very early in the morning.”
Max immediately lifted the great tome from his lap and laid it reverently on the carpet. Tysen saw that it was in Latin. As for Leo, he simply dropped his legs over his head and came up in a single graceful roll, grinning. “I want to ride Garth, Papa. He’s a mean brute.”
Tysen knew that Douglas would never allow Leo even to sit on that vicious stallion’s back, thank the good Lord.
“We know that we’re to go to Uncle Douglas,” Max said. “I have been wondering, Papa, if Leo and I will have a title now that you do. You know, James is Lord Hammersmith and Jason is an honorable. Perhaps as the elder son, I will now be Sir Something?”
“I’m sorry, Max, but you and Leo are still just the same. I suppose you will be able to say that you are Lord Barthwick’s very honorable sons, though.”
“We are already hono
rable, Papa,” Max said. “Uncle Ryder is always saying that honor is what men must embrace,” he paused, then added, “if you’re not embracing a woman that is. Er, that’s what Uncle Ryder says, Papa.”
“Yes,” Tysen said. “I am not surprised.”
“Besides,” Max said, shrugging, “who wants to be a Hammersmith? Silly name, doesn’t mean anything. James likes it, though.”
“Speak for yourself,” said Leo, who was straightening his trousers and pulling his socks in order. “I’m not even eight years old and I’m already a rat-faced little idiot.”
“Blessed Lord above,” Tysen said, startled. “Where did you ever hear such a thing, Leo? Rat-faced? That’s quite offensive; contrive to forget it immediately. The little idiot part as well.”
“That’s difficult to do, Papa, since Meggie called him that when she was angry with him. It was just yesterday that—”
Tysen closed his eyes. “Your sister called you a rat-faced little idiot?”
“Yes,” Leo said, then dropped his chin to his chest. “Perhaps I deserved it, Papa. Meggie’s face was very red, and for the longest time she couldn’t think of anything to say to me, and then that just popped out of her mouth. Then she shook her fist at me. But at least she didn’t smack me in the head or throw me in the bushes like she usually does. She just walked away and slammed a door.”
“May I inquire what you said to your sister to deserve such an epithet?”
Max said, “Leo cut a wide strip out of the back of her skirt and her petticoat. When she walked, you could see her drawers. Marigold finally realized what everyone was staring at and ran screaming after her before she could get too far outside the vicarage gate.”
Tysen thought, You are indeed a rat-faced little idiot, Leo, but naturally he didn’t say that. He said very quietly, “I am vastly disappointed in you, Leo. The good Lord can only imagine what your mother would have said.”
Max said matter-of-factly, “Mother would have shrieked, pounded the wall with her fists, and had hysterics for at least two hours. Leo prefers Meggie’s punishments. Why, just two days ago, she took Leo’s neck between her hands and nearly squeezed the life out of him.” Max was silent for a moment, then said, “About Mother and hysterics, that’s what Mrs. Priddie said Mother would do whenever one of us didn’t mind. I don’t remember, myself.”
Tysen didn’t remember the pounding fists, but he did remember the hysterics. He said, “I will not be here to enforce your punishment, Leo, but here it is. You will not stand on your head for six days. You will not do any flips down the corridors of Northcliffe Hall. You will not cut anything at all with your scissors. You will treat your sister like a royal princess. Do you understand me?”
Leo bowed his head. “Yes, Papa. I understand.”
Max looked perplexed for a moment, but the look was gone so quickly that Tysen wasn’t at all sure he’d even seen it. “You boys will obey your aunt and uncle. You will enjoy yourselves when it is allowed. You will not accept any gifts from young ladies who come to Northcliffe Hall to bestow them on your cousins or your aunt and uncle.” Then he hugged both of them and even patted Leo’s head.
He heard Leo say to Max as he closed the bedchamber door, “Papa didn’t say anything about me not standing on my head at night—he just said six days.”
“Leo,” Max said, “you will surely go to hell.”
“No, Papa wouldn’t allow that,” Leo said. “Why couldn’t Papa at least inherit a title that would make us lords? Surely there must be a dukedom lying about not being used. We’ll be just the same. Maybe Uncle Douglas has an extra title or two hidden away in some old book that he doesn’t need.”
“Uncle Douglas,” Max said in his lecturer’s voice that drove both Leo and Meggie right over the brink, “has only one extra title, and James has it. You know that. He’s a viscount—Lord Hammersmith—because Uncle Douglas is an earl and he doesn’t need it anymore. Well, no, actually, he’s also a baron of some sort. I don’t remember the name.”
Leo said, “Poor Jason. He’s nothing at all. He’s as bad off as we are.”
Tysen was smiling, he couldn’t help it, even though he knew he should give a token frown. He didn’t sleep well that night. He’d looked briefly into Meggie’s bedchamber, but all the lights were off and she was obviously asleep. He hated to disappoint her, but there wasn’t a place for a little girl on this trip. The good Lord only knew what awaited him in Scotland. He looked forward to seeing Sinjun and Colin and their children.
He left the following morning at dawn, his driver Rufus and a stable lad tiger as his to ride behind the carriage and pay all the tolls, both provided by his brother and both sharp at their positions. His own gelding, Big Blue, was tied to the back of the carriage under the watchful eye of the tiger, whose unlikely name, Rufus had told him, was Pride.
He didn’t realize that his tiger wasn’t really one of Douglas’s stable lads until they were in Edinburgh five and a half days later.
3
Taurum per cornua prehende.
Take the bull by the horns.
August 22, 1815
IT HAD BEEN a long journey. Tysen was riding Big Blue when at last they entered Edinburgh. He had written nine sermons in his head during those five and a half days, and he had to admit, in his more objective moments, that none of them was presentable enough for God’s hearing. They were, he thought, looking at the mighty castle soaring upward from its craggy ridge in the center of the city, rather—no, he didn’t want to say it. Oh, very well. Truth be told, they were boring. They nearly made him nod off to sleep. Talk of hell’s fires kept the congregation alert, but it never made him feel exalted when he was done, and thus he rarely threatened his flock with brimstone. But these nine sermons, they’d been bland, touching on this or that without much rhyme or reason to any of them. One of them did dwell perhaps overly much on the necessity for a woman’s obedience. He thought of Meggie and shook his head at that. Then he thought of Melinda Beatrice and felt guilty.
They had both been so very young, so very much in love with each other, and they saw only a life that was narrow, yet filled with hope and goodness and an endless desire to be of service to God. At least that was what he had wanted. He sighed.
Tysen heard a boy whistle and waved to him. He remembered Edinburgh, but now he saw it through a man’s eyes, not a child’s. The Castle, he thought, oh, how Meggie would have enjoyed the Castle. No, what he’d done was correct. For heaven’s sake, it had rained a full four days on the journey up here. Today, at least, it had ceased raining early in the morning. The sun now glistened overhead, and it was so clear he knew he would be able to see the smudged mountains on the horizon beyond the Lothian plain and the Firth of Forth if he were standing on the Castle ramparts. He clicked Big Blue around a crowd of people who looked to be surly for some reason, and waved his carriage behind him toward the road to New Town, north of the castle. Literally dredged from a malodorous swamp, New Town was a masterpiece, with all the magnificent gardens and squares surrounded by splendid Georgian buildings. He had no idea if Sinjun would be at their residence here in the city. Regardless, he knew Old Angus would let him spend the night. At the west end of George Street, they finally reached Charlotte Square. Another left turn, and they were in Abbotsford Crescent. Kinross House was located directly in the middle, opposite a small, very green park. It was a tall, skinny house, older than its neighbors, but it looked immaculate, flowers planted everywhere, the paint fresh, the shutters hanging straight and proud. There was a new slate roof, if he wasn’t mistaken. The rectangular lawn was freshly scythed, the walkway swept clean. Tysen was tired, but the sight of his sister’s lovely house made him smile.
Tysen remembered Meggie saying that her aunt Sinjun would have had roads built if needed. Well, she’d certainly made the Kinross town house a work of art. Its newer neighbors were lovely as well, but Kinross House had style—old style—and it was better. It was unique.
He hoped Old Angus was still in fu
ll possession of his wits and thus would recognize him and not shoot him with his blunderbuss—a very valuable weapon, Sinjun had said to him once, and laughed. To his utter surprise, he looked up at a shout from an upper window. Then Sinjun was sticking her head out and yelling down at him. “Tysen! Is it really you? Bloody hell, we just arrived yesterday. Dahling wanted to stroll down the Royal Mile and, well, I wanted to as well. Colin is up at the Castle, speaking to Lord Stallings. Dahling and Phillip are with him, doubtless roaming through all those drafty hallways, asking endless questions of all the poor soldiers. Oh, it is so wonderful to see you. Come in, oh, yes, do come in!”
Old Angus came out of the house, looking older than the Castle, his homespuns bagging at his knees, his white hair blown all over his head, and a big smile on his seamed face. “Och, ye be Master Tysen, her ladyship’s brother, nae doubt.”
“Aye,” Tysen said, savoring that lilting word on his tongue, and dismounted from Big Blue’s back.
“Well, now, ye hae yer man just come wi’ me and we’ll see to them nice horses ye got. Aye, who’s the little pullet riding up behind?”
“My tiger. His name is Pride.”
“Aye?”
Then Sinjun was there, throwing her arms around him, hugging him until he was kissing her hair and hugging her back, and then holding her loosely in his arms, he said, “You are looking quite fit, Sinjun. And it isn’t raining, thank the good Lord.”
“And you, Tysen, are as handsome as ever. Oh, goodness, I had no idea you were coming. And just look—why ever would you do this? It is surely the most unexpected thing you’ve ever done. But why is she riding on the back of your carriage? She looks fit to drop. What have you done? Oh, I see, she demanded to do it, and you allowed it. You spoil her, Tysen.”