Author: Catherine Coulter
Category: Suspense
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“Hello, Mother. Forgive me for coming to you like this, but I’m still not feeling quite the thing again.”
“You look just fine, Mary Rose. There is color in your cheeks, you are the very bloom of health. Even your toes look healthy. You needn’t worry about clothes. We will go directly back to Vallance Manor and you can stay in your bed there. Vicar, please put my daughter in the carriage.”
“I don’t think so, ma’am,” Tysen said. “Mary Rose doesn’t feel safe at Vallance Manor.”
“That is absurd. It is also unimportant. I am her mother and she will obey me. There is no chaperone here. Come along, Mary Rose.”
“Hello, ma’am. I am Lady Ashburnham. I am his lordship’s sister and he invited me here to chaperone Mary Rose.”
Excellent, Gweneth Fordyce thought, smiling at the lovely young woman striding toward her, long-legged, full of energy, looking quite a bit like the vicar. Yes, she had the same dazzling blue eyes as her brother.
What an absolute relief. She’d kept her promise to her sister and to Lyon. She’d argued and ordered, and now this. It was hard not to laugh her pleasure aloud. Now she didn’t have to say anything more. She’d been trumped by the appearance of Lady Ashburnham, and even Lyon at his most critical would have to agree that she’d done all she could.
“A pleasure, my lady,” she said to the young woman, who also had a sparkling smile. A handsome pair they were. The vicar was very smart indeed. “Now I must go. Mary Rose, attend me. You will endeavor not to be a burden to his lordship.”
“No, Mama, I’ll try not to be. Won’t you stay for a cup of tea?”
“Oh, no,” Gweneth said and nodded to the coachman, who quickly assisted her back into the carriage. She straightened her shawl, smoothed the ribbons on her bonnet. She looked toward the people standing not six feet away from the carriage. The last sight she had of Mary Rose was her smiling shyly up into the vicar’s face.
Be happy, my darling, she thought, and waved to her daughter.
The carriage rolled out of the inner courtyard.
“That is your mother, Mary Rose?” Sinjun asked.
“Yes,” Mary Rose said, and she was frowning at the carriage dust billowing into the clear air. Her mother had said all the right things at first, all with the objective of getting her to go back to Vallance Manor. But the fact was, her mother hadn’t wanted her to return to Vallance Manor with her, not at all. But why?
Tysen said thoughtfully, “At the beginning, I didn’t care much for your mother, but this time, after she spouted the nonsense, she was genuinely pleased with things just as they are. Yes, I like your mother, Mary Rose. She isn’t like all that many mothers I’ve met to date, but she loves you. I wonder what she would have done if Sinjun hadn’t chosen to show herself?”
“Meggie came into the drawing room and grabbed me. She told me I had to be a chaperone, quickly, because she was just a trifle too young to have anyone take her seriously, and so she pushed me out the front door.” Sinjun looked thoughtfully after the coach that had disappeared through the front gates. “She didn’t want you to go with her, Mary Rose, despite everything else she said. Now, isn’t that strange?”
“No,” Tysen said. “She knows that Erickson MacPhail would probably be invited into Vallance Manor and allowed to carry Mary Rose out over his shoulder. She’s protecting her. It was well done.”
Meggie wandered out now, but she wasn’t looking at them, she was looking at the gaggle of geese that were now honking loudly at the sight of her. They’d been hovering close by her for the past three days. Just yesterday, they’d come right up to her, honking just as loudly, and she had given them all the bread she could steal from Mrs. MacFardle’s kitchen. Now she knew them. In minutes, they would be surrounding her, their chicks hovering close. “Oh, dear,” Meggie said, picking up her skirts and running back into the castle. She called over her shoulder, “I’ll be right back with some bread for them!”
Tysen laughed. “Maybe they can nibble on that crooked toe of yours, Mary Rose.”
“What crooked toe?” Sinjun asked and picked up Mary Rose’s foot.
“Oh, my, don’t, please, Sinjun. Tysen has already seen my toes.”
“He has, has he? Now isn’t that interesting?”
“Be quiet, Sinjun. Oh, here is Donnatella. I’m glad she came down. I believe you have enjoyed quite enough of her delightful company?” He cocked a brow at her.
“Yes. She wanted me to come back with her to Vallance Manor. It seems that everyone wants me back there. How is your back?”
“I believe I will put you down in the drawing room and pour tea down your gullet. I am too blown to make it back up those stairs carrying you.”
Sinjun could but stare after her brother as he walked back up the steps into the castle. He wasn’t acting the way he usually did. He wasn’t being depressingly serious with nary a smile anywhere near his mouth. He was actually smiling, a beautiful smile, and it seemed to suit him very well.
Now he was amusing, he seemed to understand wit very well. But the most remarkable thing—he seemed happy. He was overflowing with it. So many years since she’d seen him like this, nearly more years than she could remember. She’d been so very young when he’d decided he wanted to be a man of God and had become as serious as an abbot and so pious she’d wanted to shoot him. Sinjun decided on the spot that she would kill for Mary Rose if ever the need arose.
When they walked into the drawing room, there was Colin standing next to Donnatella, who was leaning toward him, her hand on his sleeve.
Sinjun recognized the signs immediately. Donnatella was extraordinarily lovely, however, and it appeared to Sinjun that Colin wasn’t looking at all hunted, like he usually did when the ladies tracked him down and cornered him.
Sinjun said, “Would you mind if I stuck my fist in your cousin’s face, Mary Rose?”
“Perhaps you’d better not. You know, Sinjun, his lordship is very handsome,” Mary Rose said. “Donnatella very much likes handsome gentlemen.”
“Not this handsome gentleman,” Sinjun said and marched right up to her husband and the little hussy who was clutching at his sleeve, laughing overly much at something Colin had said, something that probably wasn’t all that amusing at all. Still, he was looking down at her like he indeed was the most charming, the wittiest male in the known world.
She said sweetly, “Colin, my dearest love, the love of my life, the man who praises my beauty endlessly. Do you remember how you promised me that we would visit that cave Meggie told us about? The one that is quite hidden, ever so private? The one where we can—well, never mind that. I do not wish to be indelicate. I am quite ready to please you now.” She moved closer until she actually pushed Donnatella away from him. She stood on her tiptoes and whispered in his mouth, “I have plans for you that will curl your toes.”
“You are transparent, Sinjun,” Colin said, caressing her cheek. “The truth is that you are jealous. No matter the amusement I am currently enjoying, your jealousy still pleases me. A cave, you say? You will curl my toes?”
“Harrumph,” Sinjun said, grabbed his hand and turned to face Donnatella, a sunny smile on her mouth that would, hopefully, offset the murder in her eyes. “Do forgive us, but we are still newlyweds and must hie ourselves off to dark, cozy places. My husband is a demanding gentleman. Good day to you, Miss Vallance.”
“I thought they had several children,” Donnatella said, staring at the now empty doorway. “I shouldn’t mind making love with him. He is a beautiful man. Ah, well. Mary Rose, you are looking ever so well again. Are you ready to come back with me to Vallance Manor?”
“Miss Vallance,” Tysen said easily as he lowered Mary Rose onto a dark-blue brocade settee, “not just yet. You will have to amuse yourself without your cousin’s company.”
“For how much longer, sir?”
“I haven’t yet decided,” Tysen said. “We will see. I will send a message when Mary Rose is ready to return home. You may return home
now.”
Donnatella looked undecided, an expression that Mary Rose had hardly ever seen before on her cousin’s face. Donnatella always knew what she was doing—but not now. She merely nodded to Mary Rose and walked out of the drawing room.
Nothing much was said until Pouder, leaving his post by the front door, walked sedately into the drawing room and cleared his throat. “My lord, Mrs. MacFardle is in a snit. I don’t know what to say to her. Your lordship is required to deal with the situation.”
“Thank you, Pouder, I shall.” Without thinking, Tysen took the old man’s arm and gently steered him back to his chair. It was well padded, a good thing, since Pouder looked to be all bones.
Tysen called out over his shoulder, “Mary Rose, you converse with my daughter when she returns from feeding the geese.”
“I will speak with her as well,” Miles MacNeily said, walking toward them. He gave Tysen a small salute and smiled at the sight of Pouder, whose head had already fallen forward to his chest.
Tysen tracked down Mrs. MacFardle in the vast Kildrummy kitchen. With no preamble, he said in a calm, very cool voice, “Mary Rose is lying on a settee in the drawing room. She is doubtless hungry. If you are not carrying a silver tray loaded with delicious cakes and nicely hot tea to her in the next ten minutes, you will leave Kildrummy Castle. If you are not smiling and respectful to Mary Rose when you deliver that tray to the drawing room, you will also leave in the next ten minutes. Do you quite understand me, Mrs. MacFardle?”
“But she is a bastard, my lord! She doesn’t belong here. She doesn’t belong anywhere where there are respectable people. Folk hereabout will believe you too democratic, too lax in your morals—er, no, that isn’t quite right, is it? Perhaps, because you are a vicar, you have to continually watch yourself not to care too deeply about people who don’t deserve it. Yes, it is a matter of having too much kindness, my lord. It isn’t what Lord Barthwick should do. Mary Rose mustn’t sleep in your bed. If she is still too ill to return home, then she may sleep in the servants’ quarters, up just one short flight of stairs to the third floor. There is this quite charming room that—”
Tysen felt waves of anger washing through him, and it appalled him, this emotional reaction that came from deep within him, destroying his control. “You have said quite enough, Mrs. MacFardle. Mary Rose Fordyce has agreed to marry me.”
Her mouth gaped open. She looked utterly horrified.
“Either you will accept her as your mistress, as Lady Barthwick of Kildrummy Castle, and treat her with respect, or you will leave, in the next minute, actually. The decision is yours. Now, we await tea in the drawing room. Ten minutes, Mrs. MacFardle, no longer.” He said not another word, not even when he heard her suck in her breath behind him.
He turned at the doorway and said over his shoulder, “You are the first person to hear our news. It might be a very polite thing if you were to congratulate me on my good fortune.”
“Oh, dear,” said Mrs. MacFardle. “Change of this nature is unwelcome. I knew that an Englishman would bring disaster. However, congratulations, my lord.”
He had forgotten about Mrs. Griffin. When he walked into the drawing room, she was sitting in a deep, faded chair that she’d had Mr. Griffin pull over to within a foot from where Mary Rose sat on the settee. She was tapping her foot, lightly tapping her cane on the carpet at her feet as she said in a loud voice, “I have had quite enough of this, Mary Rose. I have decided that I will take you to Edinburgh with Mr. Griffin and me.”
“Mary Rose has agreed to marry me, Mrs. Griffin.”
Meggie jumped to her feet. “Papa, really? Oh, this is wonderful! Mary Rose, you will really marry Papa? You will live with us?” She dashed across the drawing room, rubbing the bread crumbs on her skirts, and dropped to the floor at Mary Rose’s feet and hugged her knees. “I hadn’t really expected this to happen, but it is ever so nice. We will all have such fun, you will see. Oh, I am so very happy.”
“Child, you will hold your tongue now. You should be in the nursery or sitting quietly reading sermons, or whatever it is that children—”
Tysen was grinning from ear to ear, he just couldn’t help it. “Mrs. Griffin, my daughter needs to get acquainted with her future mother. Now, tea is to arrive shortly. Pouder, what is it?”
The ancient old man was leaning against the doorframe, grinning widely, showing each of his remaining teeth. He was nearly wheezing as he said, “Congratulations, my lord. Oh, this is a miraculous thing! I am needed now more than ever. I am learning to be a varlet. Perhaps Mary Rose will also teach me to be her maid.”
Mrs. Griffin continued, as if she hadn’t been interrupted, “Mary Rose, we will leave in thirty minutes, right after we have had some of Mrs. MacFardle’s tea. It is a great imposition, but I suppose that it must be done. You may be my companion, my maid, perhaps you can even set the fires in the mornings. I will contrive to pay you a bit, just enough for the occasional gewgaw. Now, get up, Mary Rose, and put on your clothes. This is—”
Tysen said then, “Meggie, I wish you to go outside and see that your geese have eaten enough. No, don’t argue with me, just go.” No one said another word until Meggie, her step slow, finally was gone from the drawing room. As for Miles MacNeily, he had left to help Pouder back to his chair. Only the three of them were left. He wished that Mary Rose was safely hidden away, but she wasn’t.
It had to be dealt with, now.
“That will be quite enough, Mrs. Griffin,” Tysen said. Then he looked over at Mary Rose as he spoke and nearly lost what little control that remained. She was crying, tears streaking down her pale cheeks, not making a sound, just tears and more tears. The cruelty, so much cruelty she’d endured, mean words that cut deep, and they’d finally cut so deep she couldn’t hide her pain. He’d thought that the careless cruelty simply didn’t touch her, but it did. He wanted to kill Mrs. Griffin, and after her, Mrs. MacFardle.
Rage made him feel hot, strong, and vicious. He was ready to go into battle. He was ready to kill. He strode to stand right in front of Mrs. Griffin. “I want you gone from Kildrummy Castle in five minutes. No longer. You are a malicious, nasty old woman. You and that nonentity of a husband of yours are despicable. I wish never to see either of you again. You are no longer welcome at Kildrummy. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”
Mrs. Griffin, her face scarlet with fury, leapt to her feet, but Tysen very calmly continued, “Get out of my house, both of you. Now. This time, if you dare to return, I will have you thrown out. No—I will do it myself.”
He heard Mrs. MacFardle give a shriek. She was late with the tea tray, he realized, at least five minutes late. A clean sweep, then. He turned to see her trying to hold the tray and commiserate at the same time with Mrs. Griffin. He said, “Mrs. MacFardle, you will leave Kildrummy Castle. Perhaps Mrs. Griffin would like you to accompany her back to Edinburgh. I believe she needs a companion, a scullion, a maid, and a valet. You could, I doubt not, fill each and every one of those roles for her. Perhaps she will even pay you a pittance to buy some gewgaws.”
He heard a sound from Pouder, but when he looked over at the old man, his chin was still on his chest.
Once the drawing room was empty of Mrs. Griffin and Mrs. MacFardle, he closed and locked the door. He went to Mary Rose, who was looking up at him, sniffing, rubbing her hands over her eyes. He was still shuddering from the ferocious rage that had come from the deepest part of him. “I’m so very sorry, Mary Rose. I should never have allowed that miserable old witch to continue her vicious tirade for as long as I did. I should never have allowed her to remain when she dared to come back here again.
“Oh, my dear, please forgive me. I was blind, quite blind. But it won’t happen again. Also, Mrs. MacFardle will be leaving. She and Mrs. Griffin belong together.”
He sat down beside her, simply because he couldn’t stand that awful pain he saw in her eyes. “Mary Rose,” he said, and pulled her onto his lap. He rocked her, then just held her, his cheek against
the top of her head. “It will be all right now. I’ll take care of you. There will be no more cruelty, no more spite. Trust me, all right?”
She said nothing, just lay limply against him. They sat quietly for a very long time. Tysen didn’t know how long they’d remained together until he heard Meggie’s voice and her light knock on the drawing room door.
He leaned back, looking down into Mary Rose’s face. She looked beaten down, defeated, and he hated it. But no more pity. He’d never found that to be good for anyone. He kissed the tip of her nose. “Do you know where we can find someone to cook dinner for us?”
18
Id imperfectum manet dum confectum erit.
It ain’t over ’til it’s over.
MARY ROSE HEARD the whisper of sound so very close, nearly in her ear. It was a man’s voice, soft and low, telling her something, but what? Then she jerked awake, realized it wasn’t a dream, and opened her mouth to yell. A fist slammed into her jaw, and she fell back against the pillow.
Erickson smoothed the hair off her face and just looked down at her for a moment in the dim light of the one candle. He had to do this, there was simply no choice. He cursed under his breath as he pulled the covers off her. She was wearing that damned vicar’s nightshirt. It didn’t take him even a moment to realize that she would also shortly be wearing the damned vicar’s dressing gown as well.
Once he’d wrapped her in the dressing gown he hauled her over his shoulder, then walked quickly to the bedchamber door, cracked it open, and looked out. Nothing. No one. It wasn’t all that dark, since several of the bedchamber doors were open and bright moonlight poured through the windows and out through the open doors. He didn’t need a candle.