Catherine Coulter the Sherbrooke Series Novels 6-10 (9781101562123)

by Coulter, Catherine

  “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 n
ow. “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.”

  Mary Rose very nearly burst into laughter, but held herself together in time. What had she expected? Little boys who would take one look at her and vow to love her to distraction?

  She blinked at her husband, a child on either side of him now, facing her, and she was standing there, alone, beside the vicarage that was now where she would live forever.

  “Papa’s different,” Leo said slowly, eyeing him again. “He’s funny and he hasn’t stopped smiling. He didn’t even say anything when I talked about the three shilling wager with Max.”

  “Papa’s just the same,” Meggie said. “Just shut up, Leo.” She frowned at her brother until she was sure he would remain quiet. Then she did a little skip over to Mary Rose, hugged her, and said, “What do you think of your new home? Isn’t it lovely? All this peach brick and the ivy, so much ivy. Papa’s said he fears the ivy will creep into his bed and wrap him up and then Monroe and Ellis won’t be able to knead him. But it’s pretty inside, and large enough for all of us, you’ll see, Mary Rose. Well, to be honest, the drawing room is very dark, but I expect that you can order all the draperies burned.”

  “There is a lot of ivy,” Mary Rose said. “It is lovely. Should I really burn the draperies?”

  “Actually, yes,” Tysen said. “I’ve just never thought to do it.”

  “That’s because you’re a gentleman, Papa, and gentlemen aren’t capable of seeing things in their homes that need to be done.”

  Tysen grinned down at his daughter. “I swear to you, Meggie, I will look at things differently now that Mary Rose is here. Let’s go inside,” he added to Mary Rose, taking her hand. “You need to meet Mrs. Priddie, she’s our cook and housekeeper. We have two maids who come in daily, Belinda and Tootsie, and Marigold, the tweeny. There is Malcolm who sees to the stables, you already met him.” He paused a moment, then said on a smile, “I trust you will find Mrs. Priddie more acceptable than Mrs. MacFardle.”

  “Oh, there’s also Monroe and Ellis,” Meggie said. “They love Papa. And since you sleep with Papa so you can talk all night, Monroe and Ellis will probably be right there too, climbing all over you and purring.”

  “Ellis just spit up a big fur ball,” Leo said. “Mrs. Priddie yelled at him and tried to whack him with the broom, but he was too fast for her.”

  “Ellis,” Tysen said, and he smiled at her, thinking that smiling was something very natural now, “undoubtedly has racing blood. He’s long and lean and so fast he’s sometimes a blur.”

  “But he’s lazy most of the time,” Leo said. “I try to get him to play with a ball and he puts up his tail and walks away. Papa, you’re still smiling.”

  “Leave Papa alone, Leo,” Meggie said. “Now, the reason Ellis leaves is because you’re boring. Accustom yourself to it.”

  “Well, at least I wasn’t walking around with my drawers showing and—”

  “Do you want me to kill you again, you little crab-head?”

  “You’ll never catch me!”

  And they were off, Meggie chasing Leo, out of sight into the vicarage garden. Tysen just shook his head. “She won’t hurt him badly,” he said, and realized he was still grinning widely. It felt very good.

  After meeting Tootsie, Belinda, and Marigold who giggled and gaped at her, and Mrs. Priddie, who was full of stiff civility, Mary Rose briefly toured all the downstairs vicarage rooms. Thirty minutes later, Tysen was trapped by a Mrs. Flavobonne, who insisted only the vicar would do, and Mary Rose went upstairs with Mrs. Priddie. When Mary Rose was finally standing in the middle of her new bedchamber with its adjoining door to Tysen’s room, she heard Meggie outside her window, in the vicarage gardens below. Mrs. Priddie excused herself, said she had to rescue Reverend Sherbrooke from that oily Mrs. Flavobonne, and left her alone. Mary Rose walked closer to the window and looked down.

  “You just batten down your hatch, Leo,” Meggie said, and then she poked her finger against his chest, hard, and pushed him back into a mess of the infamous ivy.

  “But he just found her in Scotland, Meggie. We don’t need another mother. Everything is just fine the way it is. I don’t want her here. She doesn’t belong here. She’s a foreigner and a girl. Why do you?”

  “I’m a girl, goat face, and I belong here. Half the people around are girls. Get used to it.” Meggie poked him hard again, and he landed on his bottom in a rosebush. He hol-lered and jumped up. “A thorn got me in my left cheek. Just because I don’t like her, you don’t have to kill me, Meggie. You just got home. You should be happy to see me.”

  “Not if you’re still a moron,” Meggie said, then frowned. “You’ve grown. It’s been only a month and you’ve gotten bigger than I’ve gotten. But I can still break your legs, so don’t you forget it.”

  Leo said, “I’m going to be as big as Papa. Maybe by next month. By Christmas, for sure. You won’t be able to beat me up for muc
h longer.”

  “I will always be able to beat you up,” Meggie said, hands on her hips, “because I’m going to be bigger than even Papa. Now, don’t you dare say anything bad about Mary Rose to Max when he gets back from Mr. Pritchert’s house, do you hear me?”

  “Mary Rose—that’s a silly name. It sounds all spongy and soft, like she doesn’t have a backbone. Why did Papa marry her? He didn’t do it to get us a mother, because we don’t need or want one. It’s not like we’ve asked him to get us one. Why?”

  “Papa married Mary Rose because there was this awful man who tried to steal her away to make her marry him, and she didn’t want to.”

  “Oh,” Leo said, rubbing his bottom where the thorn had stuck into him. “Well, all right then, I can understand that. He married her because he’s so bloody honorable and he felt sorry for her. It’s a good thing a man can only have one wife, otherwise Papa would have married a good dozen ladies by now, all because he felt sorry for them and rescued them from something or other. But you know, Meggie, he’s laughing. He’s saying funny things. It sounds very strange. What happened?”

  “He’s happy. Perhaps he has changed a bit. Hmmm. Well, he does laugh a lot now. I like it.”

  “Yes, I suppose I do too,” Leo said.

  “Oh, dear.” Mary Rose backed away from the window. “Oh, dear,” she said again to the empty bedchamber that was horrible. Well, she’d eavesdropped. What did Leo mean that Tysen had changed? Of course he laughed and grinned and said funny things. It was the way he was.

  She walked to the middle of the room and just stood there for a moment. She’d deserved what she’d heard. Leo was a little boy. It would take a while for him to get used to her. She looked around her then. She didn’t want to spend another minute in this dismal place. It had been Melinda Beatrice’s bedchamber Mrs. Priddie had told her. It hadn’t been touched since the mistress had passed on some six years before. Didn’t Mrs. Sherbrooke think it simply lovely?