The Scottish Bride (Sherbrooke Brides 6)

“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.