Author: Catherine Coulter
Category: Suspense
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“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.
Her mouth was shiny from his kissing her. He watched her touch her fingertips to her mouth, as if she couldn’t quite comprehend what had happened, either. Then she blinked and stared up at him, at his mouth, and that ache was taking him over, making him shake and want to cry with the urgent wanting he felt. She said, with great inadequacy, “That was quite nice, Tysen.”
Nice? She thought it only nice? He was quaking like a tree read
y to be toppled over. That cataclysm that had nearly sent him to his knees was only nice? As in a summer day was nice? He simply couldn’t help himself. He was pulling her against him again, hard against him, and his arms were around her this time and he was kissing her wildly, his fingers kneading and caressing her back. He at least had the sense not to let his hands go below her waist. She wasn’t yet his wife. But he couldn’t stop kissing her, that wonderful mouth of hers, her jaw, the tip of her nose, her eyelids. There was so much, so very much to see, to feel, to taste.
“Marry me,” he said into her mouth. “I cannot bear this, Mary Rose. You must give me my way in this. Everything will be all right. You will speak Latin better than Max, and he will glow with pride. Ellis and Monroe will curl around your ankles and sleep against the backs of your knees. We will all deal well together. Marry me.”
Actually, he was beginning to believe that he would simply fall down and die if she didn’t marry him, if she didn’t allow herself to become his wife and belong to him. He couldn’t stop. He kept kissing her until she made a small noise into his mouth. That nearly whispered little sound shot mindless lust throughout his body. He realized in one last flicker of reason that it was simply all over for him.
He nearly leapt away from her, breathing so hard, so fast, that for a moment he couldn’t get hold of his body. When he did, he smiled at her shocked white face. Dear God, he had frightened her. He heard himself say with absolute honesty, “I want to do that to you until we are both very old and doddering.”
“I—” She gulped. “Yes,” she said then. “I would like that very much. I have never done that before. I am twenty-four years old, on the shelf, everyone says. I have never done that, Tysen, never known that one person could make another feel all these strange things. They’re frantic sorts of things. I want them desperately. I don’t want them to stop. I don’t understand.”
“Feel what things exactly?” He couldn’t believe he’d asked her that, but he didn’t take it back. He wanted to know.
He watched her hand fall to her belly and lightly press inward. He watched her fingers press downward a bit more. She didn’t realize what she was doing, but he did, and he nearly collapsed on the spot. It was all he could do to prevent himself from leaping on her again and throwing her on her back on that soft, giving bed.
“It is like I am somehow hungry, my stomach is hot, and I feel like I want to touch you everywhere.”
He nearly swallowed his tongue. Control, he thought. It had been so many years since he’d felt these ungovernable, roiling feelings that made him want to fly and howl and shout for joy. Go slowly, he thought, go gently. “Mary Rose, if you were my wife, then you could touch me everywhere, just as I could you. There is incredible pleasure when a husband and wife come together, so I have heard. I believe you and I would know that pleasure.”
“I was afraid when Erickson tried to hold me like you did. No, I was beyond afraid, I was terrified. Isn’t it peculiar that it is so very different with you? That it is all I can think about? Er, Tysen, could you please kiss me again? Perhaps let me press myself against you, all of you? You are very different from me.”
As God is my witness, I will not go beyond the point where I cannot stop myself. “I will kiss you and hold you if you promise to be my wife, Mary Rose. I am a vicar. I am not allowed to enjoy myself in such a way without God blessing our union. Surely you understand how I am constrained. I have done things in my life that now, knowing how life is, I would do differently, but despoiling you, giving in to a man’s lust—that I will not do.”
“Yes,” she said, so disappointed she wanted to cry, and yet at the same time she admired him tremendously, “I understand. I’m not at all good, Tysen. For many years I was jealous of Donnatella. I am impatient with my mother. I would have shot Erickson if I’d had a gun and knew how to load it and fire it.”
“Are you making some sort of point here?”
“I don’t know if I would make a very good vicar’s wife.”
“Nonsense. You are human, Mary Rose, delightfully so. Jealousy, anger, frustration—those are not bad things, they’re just things that all of us feel because they’re there to be felt. They cannot be ignored, at least not all of the time.
“You wish to know what I see when I look at you? I see a beautiful young woman. I am not blind. Looking at you delights me—your hair, your mysterious eyes, that wicked little smile of yours, and your nose, Mary Rose. It’s straight and narrow and really quite a nice nose.”
She was trying very hard not to laugh, not to fall to his knees, and weep her eyes out. “Tysen, stop it, just stop it.”
“Oh, no. I also see great kindness in you, Mary Rose. I see no petty meanness in you, just caring. You have been alone too much. You have not been cherished. I also think that you feel things very deeply. Perhaps, someday, you will feel deeply about me.” Oddly enough, at that very moment, he knew it was right to make this girl, a girl he hadn’t even known existed a simple week ago, his wife. It was the thing to do. It was what he wanted to do. Then he nearly laughed at himself, at all his mental machinations, all his man’s justifications. He also wanted to make love to her until both of them collapsed. He remembered vaguely the awesome desire he had felt for Melinda Beatrice when he’d been all of twenty years old and she was his goddess. He’d prayed for valiant deeds to perform to prove his devotion to her, but there hadn’t been any.
The fact of the matter was, however, that his union with Melinda Beatrice was a very long time ago and they had both been so very young. He was a man now. He had tried his best then, but he’d been so ill-prepared. There’d simply been so much he had never experienced, had not known how to deal with—from his wife to all the people in his congregation. And then he’d been a father and Melinda Beatrice had died.
But things were different now. He was different in many very important ways. His children had changed him, made his life richer, given him more compassion, more patience. The many men and women in his congregation had changed him as well. He had tried to be a good man, a man to minister to them as he should.
But never before in his life had he comprehended the simple joy another human being could bring him, the endless warmth, the caring, the immense joy of the world. And the excitement of just looking at her, a smile on his mouth without his even realizing it. Now she had come into his life—so completely unexpected. She fascinated him even as she brought out every protective instinct he had buried deep inside. This quite pretty girl, who wasn’t a girl anymore but a woman of twenty-four years, was now standing in his nightshirt not two feet away from him, and this was the only woman he wished to have by his side. Forever.
Dear Lord, give me the words to convince her that this is a very good idea.
16
Vallance Manor
“SHE WON’T MARRY me.”
Sir Lyon was disgusted with the young man who was sitting in front of him, his hands clasped between his knees, looking bewildered and defeated. He’d had such faith in him, not only in his good looks but in his ruthlessness. He’d believed him utterly dedicated to this task, but he’d failed.
Sir Lyon said, “Stand up and pull your shoulders back, damn you. You have hardly tried. Good God, man, get her away from that cursed vicar, and it will be done.”
Erickson raised his head. “He won’t even allow me to be alone with her. Neither will his daughter. She was practically crouched over Mary Rose to protect her from me. What am I supposed to do? Pound a man of God into the bloody ground? Lock the little girl into a closet?”
“No, of course not. If you did that, you’d be hung up by your heels.” Sir Lyon drank down a snifter of his fine French brandy. He rubbed his chin. He felt a clump of hair that his valet, Mortimer, blast the fellow, had missed when shaving him that morning. Sir Lyon said slowly, rubbing his palms over the brandy snifter, “There has to be a way to get to her, to spirit her away from Kildrummy Castle. Then the vicar would be out of it. What could he do? Nothing at all. Da
mnation, boy, I can’t believe she actually jumped into the stream. I always believed Mary Rose an obedient, diffident little thing.”
“She’s changed, sir,” Erickson said, and for a moment, he was puzzled by it. But it was true. Rather than freezing like a doe in a hunter’s sights, just days before, she’d run away from him into the pine forest near Kildrummy. He said slowly, “I can remember her as a little girl. She was quiet, obedient, just as you said. I remember that she was always standing on the outside of things, watching, listening. Maybe she’s changed slowly, small things that I just haven’t noticed. But she’s managed to keep herself away from me for a very long time now. I have tried every tactic, but nothing has worked.
“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.”