The Scottish Bride (Sherbrooke Brides 6)

“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 much 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. Wha

t 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?

Mary Rose wanted to puke, a word she’d never really even thought before, but it fit this particular circumstance. She would end up on her knees over the chamber pot if she had to stay in here. It was perfectly dreadful, not that it was ugly or anything like that, it was the feel of it, the way the air smelled, the way it was creeping in on her, closing her in. She was an idiot. This was ridiculous. It was just, simply, that the room wasn’t hers.

She was standing in the center of the room, not moving, wondering what to do when the door opened and Tysen came in. He didn’t even ask her what the matter was, just said without hesitation, “I don’t wish you to be in here. I have never cared for this room. My bedchamber is quite large enough for both of us. Why don’t we have this room redone into a sitting room? If that doesn’t work, we can lock the boys in here for punishment?”

She ran to him and threw her arms around his back. Mrs. Priddie harrumphed behind Tysen. She said quite clearly, “You dealt with Mrs. Flavobonne very quickly, Reverend Sherbrooke, perhaps too quickly. This is the home of a man of God. It is a vicarage. If you were yourself, Reverend Sherbrooke, there would be no matters of the flesh. You would be above that. This isn’t what I’m used to, sir.”

“But I’m no longer just myself, Mrs. Priddie. I’m now married.” And, he thought, a smile blazing, he wasn’t above much of anything, particularly when it came to Mary Rose and where he touched her. Tysen very slowly dropped his arms. He turned to Mrs. Priddie. “Let’s show Mary Rose her new bedchamber.”

Mrs. Priddie harrumphed again. Both cats—Ellis, so long and skinny that he seemed to be wrapped around fat Monroe, with his yellow eyes and fur blacker than a sinner’s dreams—were on top of Tysen’s bed. Ellis cracked an eye open, saw Tysen, and yowled once, then twice, unwound himself from Monroe and leapt. Tysen, used to this, caught the cat in mid-flight and simply brought him to his shoulder. “Have you been a saintly cat, Ellis?”

The cat was purring so loudly that Mary Rose, who had never before heard the like, just stood there staring at him.

“He stole a pork chop right off the kitchen table, Reverend Sherbrooke.”

“Well yes, Mrs. Priddie, he is fast, isn’t he?” He rubbed the cat’s stomach, hugged him, then finally set him back down beside Monroe, who was just looking at everyone, not even twitching a whisker.

“Monroe doesn’t do much,” Tysen said, and petted the cat in long strokes down its back. The cat stretched out, and Tysen continued to pat him until Ellis, jealous, swatted at Tysen’s hand.

“Just wait until we’re in bed with them,” he said to Mary Rose, and Mrs. Priddie harrumphed yet again.

“I can’t wait,” Mary Rose said, and Ellis looked at her, then stretched his neck toward her. She gave him a light pat. Ellis jumped back onto Tysen’s shoulder.