The Scottish Bride (23 page)

That very afternoon, Oliver arrived, all his luggage with him, a big smile on his face, and an enthusiastic yell at the sight of Kildrummy Castle.

“Oh, Reverend Tysen,” Oliver said, pumping his hand up and down. “It is more than I deserve. Oh, my, now you're Lord Barthwick. You're my lord now. And you are Mr. MacNeily, sir? You will assist me, sir? You will not leave until I know enough not to bankrupt this beautiful place?”

“I will not leave,” Miles MacNeily said, laughing as he looked closely at this very young man, “until I am convinced that you will raise Kildrummy Castle and its lands and tenants to new heights.”

When Oliver met Mary Rose, Reverend Sherbrooke's bride, he simply stopped cold and stared at her.

“Oliver,” Tysen asked, “are you all right?”

“It's that you're married, sir—my lord—and I simply hadn't ever thought of you with a woman, that is, she is your wife and—”

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Oliver,” Mary Rose said, and shook the young man's hand.

 

“It is time,” Tysen said to Mary Rose. She knew it was, and yet she was afraid, afraid of what she would learn.

Mr. MacCray had left earlier, Colin and Sinjun were riding, Meggie was helping Pouder arrange Tysen's cravats in his bedchamber, Mrs. Golden was preparing their dinner, the new maid was washing their clothes, and Oliver and Miles MacNeily were ensconced in the library, surrounded with ledgers.

“I asked your mother to meet with us,” he said. He paused, then added, squeezing her hand, “She knows it is time that you're told, Mary Rose.”

To their surprise, Miles MacNeily was not with Oliver in the library. He was with Gweneth Fordyce in the drawing room. He rose slowly when Tysen and Mary Rose came into the room.

Tysen didn't say a word, just stood quietly, waiting.

Mary Rose looked from her mother to Miles MacNeily and said, “Sir, are you my father?”

He smiled at her and said, “I wish that I were, my dear, but I didn't come to Kildrummy Castle until you were nearly ten years old. For the rest of it, however, your dear mother has agreed to marry me.”

Mary Rose weaved a bit where she stood. She felt Tysen cup her elbow, holding her steady. “I don't understand. You have always been very kind to me, sir. Is this why? You have always loved my mother?”

“Yes, I have loved your mother for a very long time. However, I could not afford to make her my wife until recently, when I inherited property and money from my mother. You see, if she had married me, we would have been forced to live here at Kildrummy since there were no cottages available.” He paused a moment and smiled
down at Mary Rose's mother. He said now, “As for you, Mary Rose, I saw you, your beautiful red hair flying around your little face, all skinny, your slipper hanging off your left foot, and you gave me this big smile, and I fell in love. You also had the most beautiful teeth. No, my dear, I love you for yourself. Do you mind? Can I now be your stepfather?”

Mary Rose turned to her mother, who'd said nothing, just sat on the settee, gowned in lovely light-blue muslin, looking both pale and worried and quite happy. “Mama?”

“Yes, my darling, I would very much like to marry Miles.” She drew a deep breath, rose slowly. “You see, he could love me because he was the only one to whom I was never a madwoman. It has been a long time, for both of us. But now you are settled and it is time.”

Tysen said, “I congratulate both of you. Mary Rose, what do you think about this?”

“I just don't know. So many things have happened. I thought Mama would come with us back to England, that I wouldn't be alone in a foreign country, that—”

“Oh, dearest,” Gweneth said, her hands outstretched, walking quickly to her daughter. “We can wait if you wish. I will accompany you and your husband back to England.”

Mary Rose was shaking her head. “No, Mama, that was very selfish of me. I am so very happy being married to Tysen that I cannot imagine you not having that happiness as well.” But as she said those words, Mary Rose thought of her mother and Miles MacNeily in bed together, their clothes on the floor, pressed together like she and Tysen had been last night, Tysen's mouth all over her, and she simply couldn't imagine such a thing. She stared at the toes of her slippers. “Oh, goodness,” she whispered.

Tysen said, “Excellent. We have need of some champagne.” He paused then and said, “May we end it here,
ma'am? It really is time, you know. Time for Mary Rose to learn about her father, to learn about the trust he left for her.”

“Yes,” Gweneth said, “it is past time. It's just that there is tragedy as well, Mary Rose, and it will hurt you to know.”

“How can learning who my father was be a tragedy?”

“Because your father was Ian's grandfather.”

Tysen could only stare at Gweneth Fordyce. “You're saying that Old Tyronne was Mary Rose's father? That he left her money?”

“Yes,” Gweneth said. “He was past sixty when I met him. His wife had died, and he was desperate to have more heirs waiting in the wings. It had become an obsession with him.

“I had come to visit my sister and her new husband. I met Tyronne. I was fascinated by him.” Her hands fluttered a bit, and she turned away from all of them to walk to the large row of windows. “I'll never forget that he told me he wanted sons, he had to have more sons, that life was too uncertain, too fragile, even with the male heirs he had at that time. Five males, I believe.”

She turned then, splaying her fingers, as if beseeching her daughter to understand. “I was intimate with him, Mary Rose, and you were the result. He refused to marry me until he knew if you would be a boy. You weren't, and so he said that he had to find another woman to birth him another boy child.

“He told me about the trust he would set up for you in Edinburgh. The only requirement was that his identity as your father had to remain a secret. I hated him. I wanted to kill him. But I kept silent because he'd promised to provide very well for you. He said that I could never tell you that he was your father or he wouldn't keep the
money there for you. I suppose he didn't want you hanging about all his heirs.

“I had nothing at all. I moved in with my sister and Sir Lyon and very shortly thereafter began my madness. It was Sir Lyon, you see. He wanted me. It was the only way I could discover to keep him at bay.”

“Mama,” Mary Rose said, barely above a whisper, “I am so very sorry.”

“No, wait, that isn't all of it, dearest. There is Ian, Tyronne's last heir. As you know, Tyronne never married again. There were so many boys—sons, grandsons, nephews, cousins—but slowly, each of them died. Until there was only Ian, and he wanted to marry you, Mary Rose. But, naturally, he couldn't. You were his grandfather's daughter.”

“Ian died,” Mary Rose said. “He got drunk and fell over that cliff.”

“Perhaps,” Gweneth said. “But I know that Tyronne told him that very same day who you were, that he was your father. And then Ian was dead. It was all over.”

Mary Rose couldn't, wouldn't, believe it. “No, I will never believe that Ian killed himself.”

“I don't know. I pray that he didn't.”

Without another word, Mary Rose turned and walked to her husband. Tysen opened his arms and drew her close. He said nothing, merely held her, resting his cheek against her hair. Finally he said, “Is that all of it, ma'am?”

“Yes. I do not know the amount Tyronne left in trust for her. It is probably a vast amount. He more than hinted that it was. I do have the name of the old gentleman, the only person in the whole world, who knew what had happened. I will give it to you now. It is your right.”

 
 
 
 

September 15, 1815

 

T
YSEN AND
M
ARY
Rose left the bedside of Mr. Mortimer Palmer, solicitor, a very old man who was propped up in bed, all wrapped up in woolen scarves. He'd given Mary Rose a thick envelope, then blessed her in the manner of a Catholic cardinal and proceeded to cough until Tysen feared he would fall out of his bed with the effort. He was frankly relieved that Mr. Palmer had survived their visit. He wondered what would have happened to Mary Rose's envelope if Mr. Palmer had died before she'd come.

They were walking back to Abbotsford Crescent to Sinjun and Colin's town house, enjoying the warm, sunny weather, breathing in the smells of Edinburgh. Tysen was listening to all the lilting English that he scarcely understood, looking over his shoulder every once in a while at
the castle, high and stark on the hill in the middle of Edinburgh. Mary Rose was walking beside him, her brow furrowed, silent and thoughtful, clutching that envelope to her bosom.

“You may as well open it now, Mary Rose,” he said after a while, smiling down at her. “Don't worry so. It will be all right.” He led her into a small park and motioned her to a small bench.

“I'm afraid,” she said, looking at him, then at that fat envelope clutched in her hand as if it were a snake poised to bite her. Finally, after more hesitation, she thrust it into his hands. “Please, Tysen,” she said, “you read it.”

Tysen opened it. There was a single sheet of paper wrapped around another smaller, very thick envelope. He opened the single sheet of foolscap first and read aloud:

My dear daughter:

 

I am dead and you are either twenty-five or married, and thus are reading this, my letter to you. Your mother was a beautiful woman and I was hopeful she would breed me a son and another heir, but she did not. She birthed you, a female. I prayed and prayed for a son, but God didn't heed me. No, you are not a son and that is a pity. This is why I couldn't marry her. She hadn't proved true. But you are here now and what am I to do? Because I am an honorable man, I am providing you with a dowry.

 

Your father,

Tyronne, Lord Barthwick

Tysen wadded the single sheet of foolscap in his fist and shook it northward, toward Kildrummy Castle. Then
he got hold of himself. He read the letter again, to himself this time, and he laughed, an honest laugh. He said, “What a pathetic old curmudgeon. He believed it was a pity that you weren't a son? Thank God you're weren't, else we wouldn't be here together, you still looking all battered down. Listen to me. Old Tyronne had a full measure of cruelty, not to mention he was more obsessed with begetting heirs than the devil is with stealing souls. The old buzzard also enjoyed a full measure of arrogance. Actually, he was a dreadful man, Mary Rose.” He waved the envelope again. “You will not let this hurt you. The old man's mind was long gone when he wrote this drivel.”

She cocked her head at him in a way that he found very appealing. She laid her hand lightly on his forearm. “It's all right, Tysen, truly. I remember him when I was growing up, and he was always strange. Because I was a girl, I suppose, he didn't pay me any attention. At that time I just accepted it, didn't really think anything about it. I remember clearly Ian telling me that every evening at dinner, whatever male children were present, he questioned each one of them to determine his state of health. Ian was always laughing about it, said he and his cousins would make up strange symptoms just to watch Old Tyronne turn pale and wring his hands and talk about the dread diseases that the symptoms could be.” She stopped talking then and grew very still. “He was rather pathetic, wasn't he?”

“Yes, he was. I'm glad he was never in your life, at least as a parent. He wouldn't have given you much of anything, Mary Rose.”

“I know. It was better just seeing him from a distance, hearing the bizarre stories about him. At least he was interesting—as an eccentric.”

Tysen handed her the smaller sealed envelope. It was thick, very thick indeed. Slowly, Mary Rose opened it. It
was so old, it shredded in her hands and out spilled pound notes, scattering like snowflakes. They gathered up the notes and counted them.

Then they both burst into laughter.

Tyronne, Lord Barthwick, had left exactly one hundred pounds for his daughter's dowry, all in one-pound notes.

“It was amazing,” Mary Rose said later to Sinjun, Colin, and Meggie, who was standing beside her father. “Once we stopped laughing, we realized what a very fine jest it was. What if I had married Erickson MacPhail? He believed I was rich, and here he went to all that trouble to try to snare me, and as it turns out, Old Tyronne left me only one hundred pounds.”

“Will you tell your mother about this?” Colin asked.

“No,” Tysen said. “Mary Rose doesn't want anyone to know what the old curmudgeon did.” He gave her a big grin. “She decided to let Erickson always wonder how wealthy he would have been had he coerced her into marrying him. Now he will marry Donnatella and be miserable with her five thousand pounds. I wonder what his dear mother will have to say about it?”

“I doubt she will say very much,” Mary Rose said. “Donnatella is a force to be reckoned with. Erickson's mother wouldn't have a chance against Donnatella. As for Uncle Lyon, I suppose he will simply have to economize. None of them will like that very much.”

“Sir Lyon will probably immediately marry Donnatella off to Erickson,” Tysen said. “Ah, Mary Rose, you have made your mark,” he continued to his bride. “You leave a mother who is quite content now with Miles MacNeily, a good man who will take good care of her, and a suitor who is gnawing on his knuckles and will always think of you as the pigeon who escaped him.” He touched his palm to her cheek. “And now it's time for you to make your mark in that foreign land where you will come to live.”

Mary Rose sighed and lightly rubbed her cheek against his palm. “Meggie told me that a wife must cleave to her husband, that she must follow her husband, even into a snake pit.”

Meggie said, “I assured her, Papa, that there were only a few snakes near where we live.”

 

Eden Hill House

Glenclose-on-Rowan

Southern England

 

“Who are you?”

Mary Rose had just wandered around the side of the vicarage. She looked about and saw a lanky young boy standing on his head just behind a hedge close to the front door of the vicarage.

“Isn't that awfully hard to do?” she asked, coming down to her knees beside him. This, she realized, must be Leo, the athletic boy who loved horses, couldn't spit out a single word of Latin, had the sunny disposition of his uncle Ryder, and drove his sister quite mad with his pranks. Tysen and Meggie had told her that both boys were staying with their aunt and uncle at Northcliffe Hall.

“No,” he said, “it simply requires a very sturdy head. Papa says I have a head made for being stood upon.”

“I'm Mary Rose.”

“I'm Leo. Are you here to see Papa? He's the vicar, you know. He's in Scotland being a new lord, and I don't know when he will return.”

“Well, to be perfectly blunt about this—”

“Leo, come up to your feet, if you please.”

“Papa!” Leo gracefully flipped over frontward, ended up on his feet, whipped about, and flung himself into his father's arms. “We didn't know—Max tried to wager that
you would be here by next Sunday, but I only have three shillings left and I can't afford to lose them too. I know he cheats, Papa, I just can't prove it.”

“I'm home, and I'm glad you didn't lose your three shillings,” Tysen said, and Mary Rose saw him hug the boy tightly to him, briefly closing his eyes as he held him. He held him at arm's length then, studying his face, and said slowly, turning a bit toward her, “It's very good to see you, Leo. What are you doing here? You're tanned and look repellently healthy. Ah, I see you have met Mary Rose?”

Leo turned to look at her. “She told me her name, but that's all. I hope she isn't a governess, Papa. Max would make her want to clout him, since he brags he already knows everything. But she doesn't sound all proper and educated like a governess should. She talks funny. Perhaps she is a new maid? Oh, yes, Uncle Douglas lets us visit home while Max is having his lessons with Mr. Harbottle.”

Tysen said mildly, still holding his boy, loath to let him go, “I'll write immediately to your uncle and tell him I'm home and have decided to let you stay here with me. Now, Mary Rose knows more Latin than Max does. What do you think of that?”

Leo really looked at her now, up and down, several times. She was wearing one of her old gowns, a pale gray muslin with no particular style, and now she wished she'd worn one of her two new gowns that Sinjun had had made for her in Edinburgh. “I didn't know that girls could speak anything but English. Mr. Harbottle says that's why he doesn't tutor girls, they just can't learn. Max told him about Meggie, how she can out-argue even him, but Mr. Harbottle wouldn't believe him.” He frowned at her now. “You really do talk funny.”

Mary Rose said, thickening her accent a bit for his
benefit, “It's Scottish, and Mr. Harbottle sounds quite antiquated.”

“Meggie says he's an old dimwit and doesn't know a bean from a strawberry. You're really from Scotland? Papa brought you back from Kildrummy Castle?”

“Yes.”

“Leo,” Tysen said, squeezing the boy's arms, “Mary Rose is my wife and your new mother.”

Leo became very still. Slowly, he turned and stared at her with new eyes, eyes that didn't appreciate what they were seeing. A mother? He scratched his head. “Papa, I haven't had a mother for years. I don't think we really have use for one. No, Papa, I don't need a mother. None of us does. Besides, how can she be my mother when I don't even know her?”

“Shut your trap, Leo!” It was Meggie, and she was scurrying around the side of the vicarage. She came to a stop not six inches from her brother's nose. “I didn't know you were here or I never would have let Mary Rose leave me and wander about by herself. Listen to me, codbrain, I know her, and I will tell you right now that she is exactly what we want.” She added, her voice quite vicious, “Don't even think about torturing her, Leo, or I will hurt you very badly.”

“Well, that's a good start,” Mary Rose said, laughing. She sounded more dazed than amused, and Tysen couldn't blame her. He said to Leo, “I'll hurt you too, Leo. Just get to know her. I think you'll find she's very nice. Now, is Max back yet from his lessons with Mr. Harbottle?”

Leo, sticking very close to his father, looked up at him, frowning, and said slowly, “That was funny, Papa. Are you all right?”

“Why, yes, of course.”

“Well, Max is with Mr. Pritchart. I believe they are arguing a theological point, in Latin, naturally.” Leo said
to Mary Rose, “Mr. Pritchart is Papa's curate. He's the one who takes us back to Northcliffe Hall after Max's lessons. Mr. Pritchart is even older than Papa but he doesn't yet have a wife. Maybe you could marry him instead of Papa.”

“Once married,” Tysen said, “it's forever. Mr. Pritchart will have to find his own wife.”

“Can you argue in Latin?” Leo said to Mary Rose. He was now plastered against Tysen's side.

“I don't believe I have ever enjoyed an occasion where this was possible,” Mary Rose said. “Perhaps Max will show me how it's done.”

“Your hair's red,” Leo said.

“Leo,” Meggie said, her eyes narrowed, “you will carefully guard what comes out of your mouth. It's a pity you didn't receive my letter telling you all about Mary Rose. You could have practiced holding your tongue.”

“I didn't say anything vicious,” Leo said.

“Yes,” Mary Rose said, “very red. Do you like red hair, Leo?”

“My aunt Alex has red hair. Yours is even redder. Your hair is all thick and curly just like hers. My uncle Douglas—he's Papa's brother and the earl—evidently he really likes red hair. He's always playing with Aunt Alex's hair. I saw him rub her hair against his face once and then he licked it. I thought that was revolting.”