Author: Catherine Coulter
Category: Suspense
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He saw the bright sunlight pouring through the series of eight narrow windows that gave onto the sea. The water was blue and calm. He heard seagulls shrieking as they dove for their breakfast. After the violent storm of the night before, even the air in his huge bedchamber seemed fresher, brighter, drawing in the sunlight. The beauty of it touched him. It was God’s gift after the violence of the night.
He gently moved himself away from Meggie, saw her curl up into a little ball, her sleep unbroken. He eased her under the covers and lightly kissed her forehead. The storm must have frightened her, and the strangeness. The lightning tearing into that turret room must have been a sight. He lightly touched his fingertips to her cheek. So soft she was, and she was his. Even when she disobeyed him he loved her, loved her and her brothers so much that it humbled him, the completeness of it, the infinite richness of it.
He straightened. Kildrummy Castle. It was now his. He was now the laird. He said the words aloud, feeling them roll on his tongue, sing their magic into his mind. “ Kildrummy Castle.” It was his responsibility, no one else’s. It hadn’t really sunk in until this very moment, as he stood there looking out over the North Sea. This would be his home until he died, and then it would pass to Max. He wondered if the harsh beauty of the place would move Max to his soul, or if his scholarly son would just return to Euripides without a second thought and perhaps quote some offhand Latin.
Tysen bathed and dressed behind a screen in case Meggie woke up, then took himself downstairs. The wide front doors were flung open to the enclosed inner courtyard. The morning sun burst through into the castle, filling the vast entryway. Tysen could see dancing motes of dust in that brilliant sunlight.
Pouder, so very ancient that he seemed propped up, was seated in the old high-backed chair right by the large front doors. The old man blinked, scratched his hand, and Tysen wondered if he ever left that chair, even to sleep. He bade him good morning. Pouder gave him a nearly toothless smile that was singularly sweet and said, “Och, my lord, it’s good to have ye here. No valet, I see. I always wanted to be a gentleman’s valet, but Lord Barthwick said I was too old to learn.”
Tysen, who wasn’t stupid, and thought the old man was grand, said quickly, “If you would like to see to the placement of my clothes in the laird’s bedchamber, I would be very appreciative.”
“May I even fold yer cravats, my lord?”
“My cravats need to be arranged as well, Pouder. I thank you.”
“Ah, at last I will be a valet-in-training,” Pouder said, sighed softly, and let his head fall forward to his chest. His white hair settled gently onto his shoulders. He was asleep.
“Aye, a valet-in-training,” Tysen said quietly, savoring the taste and feel of that strange term on his tongue. He went quietly out the front doors, careful not to disturb Kildrummy’s butler.
He stepped outside to see MacNee, a handsome young man who looked after the stables. Rufus was with him, ready, Tysen thought, for his breakfast. But MacNee wanted to chat a bit. “Big Fellow is happy,” MacNee said. “All settled in, ate his oats, drank all his water. Aye, ye slept well in the laird’s bed, my lord?”
“Aye,” Tysen said. He was a “my lord” now. It felt very odd.
“Aye, that bed draws a body down and soothes his brow. Och, me brain’s not pulling its weight, my lord. Mrs. MacFardle has asked me to take all the eggs she collected to Barthwick Village, just down a ways from here, and sell them to the local folks. Too many eggs we have now, ye see, since the chickens squawk and twitter during storms and jest lay and lay. Ye need to go back inside, my lord, and have yer breakfast.”
Tysen was smiling as he went once again into the grand entrance hall, dominated by Pouder, sleeping quietly in his chair. MacNee and Rufus went to the kitchen and Tysen went into the small breakfast room with its impossibly old dark paneling and ancient portraits of dead animals strung up on lines in sixteenth-century kitchens. He would remove all the painted gore from the walls and make them white. The dark old carpet would come up and he’d have the lovely wood floor polished until it sparkled. He blinked at himself. It was the first time he had ever thought like this. He’d always, he supposed, simply accepted his surroundings as they were. Besides, Melinda Beatrice had seen to the vicarage. He didn’t recall if he’d even been asked if he liked this carpet or that piece of furniture. But now, here at Kildrummy Castle—it was all his. Yes, those floors would be polished until he could see his reflection in the wide, thick boards. He also wanted to meet everyone, hire every worker available to clean his house. He wanted to tour his lands, count the sheep, learn what kind of fish the men caught. He rubbed his hands together. England was a long way from Kildrummy Castle. He felt light and happy.
He felt infinitely blessed.
He ate porridge that Mrs. MacFardle begrudgingly served him, found it excellent, and decided his first visit would be to Barthwick Village.
[You are] the veriest varlet that ever chewed with a tooth.
—Shakespeare, King Henry IV
Mary Rose stood in the shadow of the thick pine trees and watched the new Baron Barthwick stride out through the gate of Kildrummy Castle, wearing buff riding britches and a dark brown jacket. He looked very fine, very much an English gentleman, not that she was all that certain, for she’d only seen a few in her twenty-four years. He was young, but that wasn’t a surprise. She’d overheard Uncle Lyon telling about the Fall of Barthwick, now in the hands of a demned Englishman, one too young to know what he was about. Then he cursed Tyronne Barthwick for not ensuring an heir—half a dozen boys weren’t enough and then the old coot had the gall to die when he’d only reached his eighty-seventh year. And then her cousin, Donnatella, had laughed at her father and told him not to worry, she would see to things. Mary Rose knew what that meant: if the English baron was at all to her liking, Donnatella would marry him. At least that was possible. The Edinburgh solicitor Donald MacCray had told them that the new baron was a widower. How sad, she thought, that such a young man had already lost his wife.
The baron appeared tall and lean from Mary Rose’s vantage point, and he had light, thick hair that a slight morning breeze was ruffling on his brow. He was leading a big bay gelding. She watched him swing ever so gracefully onto his horse’s back, straighten in the saddle, and look around him. Then he threw back his head and breathed in very deeply. She heard him say something to his horse, like “Big Fellow,” which was surely an odd name.
She wished she could see him up close, but of course she couldn’t. Nor would he wish to see her anywhere near him, since she was the Local Embarrassment. She watched him ride toward Barthwick Village, just to the south, watched him until he rounded Bleaker’s Bluff, which rose up a good fifty feet, and was lost to her sight.
She turned and began her trek through the pine forest back toward Vallance Manor. She had just cleared the trees when she heard horse’s hooves coming toward her. She ducked behind a particularly fat pine tree.
But she wasn’t fast enough. The horse stopped close by. She heard it blowing, heard a man say, “Easy now, Barker.” There was no help for it. She wasn’t a coward. She wasn’t about to race back into the forest and hide among the trees.
Mary Rose straightened her skirts and came out from behind the pine tree. The sun was bright overhead, everything shone, the greens were utterly green, the wild grass lush, thick, vivid. The storm from the previous night had washed everything to a high shine.
“Ah,” he said, striding toward her, “I thought I saw you come this way, Mary Rose. You always liked watching from the forest, hiding away so you could see but not be seen.”
“Hello, Erickson,” she said, fear and dislike blending to make her voice very cold. “I just saw the new Baron Barthwick ride from the manor.”
“Of course he didn’t see you, did he?”
“I can’t imagine that he would be interested in seeing me,” she said, and took a step sideways.
He frowned down at her, tapping his riding crop ag
ainst his boot, and patted Barker’s neck when he shied a bit. “No, don’t try to run away from me, Mary Rose. Don’t be afraid. I just want to talk to you.”
“How is your mother?” Mary Rose asked.
He frowned, hit his riding crop again against his boot. “She is as she always is. I don’t want to talk about my mother, Mary Rose.”
“Do you think the new baron will have a party?”
“I don’t care about the bloody new baron. I want to talk to you.” But he only looked at her, didn’t say a thing. Before she could draw another breath, he’d grabbed her, pulled her tightly against him, and kissed her—her ear, her cheek, then grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled her head back so he could have her mouth. She struggled, but it didn’t matter. Erickson was much larger than she, and he was holding her much too tightly. She finally managed to stomp hard on his right foot. She felt his jerk of pain, but then his mouth was on hers again, and he was trying to thrust his tongue between her lips. “No,” she said, and then his tongue was inside. She bit him hard.
His head jerked up and he cursed, then shook her. “Why did you do that? Damn you, why?”
His hold loosened, and she managed to jerk free of him. She didn’t pause an instant, just raised her skirts above her knees and ran as fast as she could. She heard him mount his horse, knew he could ride her down in just seconds. No choice. She ran back into the forest, deeper and deeper, zigzagging left to right, then into the heaviest undergrowth to where his horse would have to pick his way very slowly. She heard Erickson cursing, felt his anger thicken the very air around her. She paused, breathing hard, a stitch in her side. She was safe. At least until the next time.
She lowered her head in her hands. She didn’t cry, there was no purpose to it. Tears did nothing except make her eyes itch and her nose red. She waited, then waited some more. She finally walked due east, knowing that if Erickson MacPhail wanted to wait for her, he would be there, between the forest and Kildrummy Castle. There was a stretch of two hundred yards, ancient barren land cluttered with boulders and strewn with sharp-edged rocks, and farther on, the land had been gouged out by some clawing primeval fingers, leaving gashing crevices in the earth, some of them quite deep. On horseback, he would have to take care. He wouldn’t be able to catch her easily.
She drew in her breath when she reached the end of the trees, looked toward Kildrummy Castle. She didn’t see Erickson MacPhail. She drew a deep breath, picked up her skirts again, and ran as fast as she could.
When she heard hoofbeats just off to her right, she turned quickly to see how close he was. She tripped over a clump of black rocks and went flying into one of the narrow crevices that scored the earth.
5
TYSEN JUMPED OFF Big Fellow’s back and ran to the girl who was lying half in and half out of a narrow, jagged cut in the hard earth. He saw that she wasn’t unconscious from her wild fall, as he’d feared. She was lying on her stomach, breathing hard, not moving. Finally she pressed herself up on her hands and looked at him.
“You’re the new baron,” she said, her voice filled with relief. She took a deep, shuddering breath, then said more calmly, “I watched you ride away. Why did you come back? Not that it matters, but I am very grateful that you did, sir.”
Tysen cocked his head to one side as he came down on his haunches beside her. “I came back because I realized that I wanted my daughter with me. I left her because I wished her to understand that I am still distressed with her, but I am her father and I love her dearly and can no longer hold out. I wanted her to see the village with me, meet the villagers who bought our extra eggs, smell the fish, meet the fishermen.” He appeared surprised that he’d spoken at such length, but then he just shook his head and smiled. “Let me help you. Do you think you are hurt?”
“I don’t know yet. Let me just lie here a few more minutes. What did she do to distress you?”
“She dressed as a boy and rode behind my carriage as my tiger all the way from southern England to Edinburgh.”
“Oh, my, what a grand adventure! I would never have had enough courage to do that. How old is she?”
“Only ten.”
“She’s a very brave girl.”
“What she is, is too young and foolish, and ignorant as a clod of dirt,” Tysen said. It occurred to him that he was speaking about family matters to an unknown female lying half in a ditch. It both surprised him and appalled him. At the very least, it was very unlike him to spill his innards to a stranger. And here he was, chatting with her, smiling even. It wasn’t like him at all. He said, “I believe I should get you out of that hole in the ground now. Do you know now if you’re hurt anywhere?”
“Maybe, I still don’t know for sure.”
“I will go as easily as I can.” Tysen reached out to clasp her under her arms. To his astonishment, she tried to scoot away from him. She moaned and grabbed her left ankle.
Tysen found himself again surprised. He cocked his head at her, making absolutely no move to touch her. “Are you trying to hurt yourself more? What is wrong with you? I don’t believe this—you’re afraid of me, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know,” Mary Rose said slowly, looking up at him.
“You don’t know what? If you’re afraid of me?”
“Yes, that’s it. I don’t know you. I think you are probably too handsome for your own good. It must be difficult to be a good person looking the way you do. You’re a baron now, too. Perhaps that gives you all the permission you need to be wicked.”
Tysen said, all stiff and formal, “My brother is an earl. He isn’t wicked. Well, he is, but not in the way you mean.”
“You mean to say that your brother would rescue a lass in distress and would not attempt to take advantage of her?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean,” Tysen said. “His name is Douglas and he is a fine man.”
“One never knows about Englishmen,” Mary Rose said, sounding all sorts of doubtful. “You brag about your brother, but what about you, my lord?”
She began rubbing her ankle now. “Oh, dear, I believe my ankle is swelling. This isn’t good at all.”
“I am not too handsome for my own good,” Tysen said, and he began gently massaging her ankle for her. “I am just myself. It is my brothers who are handsome.” Where had that errant nonsense come from?
“If your brothers are more handsome than you, then I fear for the sanity of ladies everywhere.”
He blew out his breath, then stopped cold. He looked at his hand, now lightly curved around her ankle. He jerked it away as if she’d burned him. “I’m sorry. That was badly done of me. No wonder you would question my character.”
“No,” she said, “not at all.”
“Whatever that means,” he said.
“Perhaps you made my ankle feel a bit better.”
He said nothing, just frowned at his hand that had been not only touching her ankle but massaging it. He had to get himself together. He was a man of God, and he must consider her as one of his flock and help her, not think of her in the way a man would perhaps think of a woman. Yes, he would help her. “Now, if you will contrive to trust me, I will get you out of that ditch.”
“It’s not a ditch, it’s a crevice. There are a good dozen in this stretch. All the crofters call them sheep killers. Sheep are stupid, you see, and they just wander right up to them and step in and die.”
“Just like you were so smart that you fell in.”
She actually smiled up at him. “You do have a point there.”
He blinked at her, then eased his hands beneath her arms and gently pulled her out. He leaned her against a rock and looked down at her. Her face was very white. She was obviously in pain. “If you will continue to trust me, I’ll try to get that boot off your foot before your ankle is so swelled I’ll have to cut it off.”
He helped her sit atop a boulder, then stooped in front of her. It was difficult, but he finally managed to work the boot off her foot. He held that thick old boot
, looking up at her to see if she was all right. She was crying, but she wasn’t making a sound. The tears just gathered and ran down her cheeks. She scrubbed her fisted hand over her cheeks and gulped.
He said, “I’m sorry, but now it’s off.” He lightly touched his fingers to her ankle. It was appropriate that he do so. He said, more concerned now, “It feels hot and swollen. I fear you won’t be doing much walking for a while.”
He rose and reached into his pocket for a handkerchief. He didn’t hand it to her, but rather dabbed it against her cheeks. Then he drew back, frowning. “It is odd of me,” he said, “and I did realize that quite clearly even as I patted your face. I suppose you could say that I am a private man, in the usual course of things, not given to talking so much with people I don’t know or people I do know, for that matter, or patting the tears from a girl’s face, or assuring a stranger that neither I nor my brother is profligate. Does your ankle hurt still?”
She only nodded, then looked around. “I don’t know what to do. I walked from Vallance Manor. It’s nearly two miles from Kildrummy Castle, up the coast.”