The Scottish Bride (Sherbrooke Brides 6)

“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.”

“Don’t worry about anything. I’m going to take you back to the castle. Mrs. MacFardle surely has some ancient recipe to make you instantly better. Why were you running? Did something frighten you in the forest?”

“Just a man,” she said. “Just a man who is profligate.”

“You heard Big Fellow coming and you thought it was this man chasing you down?”

She nodded. Her ankle pulsed and throbbed, and she wanted to cry with the pain of it. But she’d already wet his handkerchief and knotted it, and what did tears matter anyway?

“Come along,” Tysen said. He didn’t think about it, he simply picked her up in his arms and carried her to Big Fellow, who was trying to worry a strange-looking plant from between two small rocks.

“No, boy,” Mary Rose said, waving her hand at his horse. “Don’t eat that. It’ll make your belly swell up just like my ankle.”

“What is it?”

“Damslip weed. It’s not terribly common around here, but still you must be vigilant. One of the goats died just last year from eating damslip weed.”

Tysen shoved Big Fellow back from the scraggy brown plant and said to him, “Now, you will be a gentleman. You will hold still, Big Fellow.” And the horse stood there, polite as could be, blowing quietly as Tysen swung his leg over the saddle. He’d never before carried a female, not even Melinda Beatrice, had never before imagined climbing aboard his horse with a female in his arms, one with a painful ankle who was making a valiant effort not to cry again. “We made it,” he said, settling her across his legs. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” Mary Rose said.

“Hold on to me.”

She wrapped her arms around his back and buried her cheek against his shoulder.