The Scottish Bride (Sherbrooke Brides 6)

She sighed. “I shouldn’t have listened, I know, but I just couldn’t help myself. And no, I hadn’t thought either that I sounded soft and spongy.”

“I know this is only your first day here,” he said, coming to catch her hands up in his, “actually, only your fourth hour here, but it appears that everyone in Glenclose-on-Rowan knows that the vicar has taken a new wife. Mrs. Flavobonne probably told Mrs. Padworthy, and even though she’s probably older than those stones on the Salisbury Plain, she can get around. The good Lord knows what else is being said. Mrs. Priddie just informed me that many of the ladies are on their way here, bringing cakes and biscuits and scones, since you’re Scottish. I can’t imagine that their husbands are pleased with their sudden defection at what is almost dinnertime.”

“Oh, dear,” Mary Rose said. “How much time do I have?”

“About five minutes.”

The vicar met the dozen ladies who streamed through the vicarage front door and congregated in the entrance hall, clutching their plates and dishes to their respective bosoms.

When they were all assembled, finally, in the drawing room, and Mrs. Priddie had relieved them of their offerings, Tysen said, “Ladies, please let me present to y

ou my wife, Mary Rose Sherbrooke.”

Mary Rose stepped into the drawing room. Meggie slithered in behind her, staying behind the ladies’ backs. She sent Mary Rose a little wave, then leaned against the window.

“I am delighted to meet you,” Mary Rose said, and gave what she hoped was an enthusiastic smile. “It is so kind of you to come so quickly to welcome me. All the food you have brought smells delightful. Please sit down. I should like to meet each of you.”

Tysen left some ten minutes later, having downed a bite of scone that left the taste of flour heavy in his mouth, and certain that everything would be all right. Some of the ladies he didn’t trust an inch, but they seemed to be behaving themselves. It was Miss Glenda Strapthorpe, though, who worried him. Perhaps he should have mentioned her to Mary Rose. He was aware that the ladies were eyeing him a bit strangely by the time he quit the drawing room. Well, he supposed he had laughed, perhaps even grinned a bit. Several of the ladies had looked at him as if he’d grown another ear. He hadn’t changed that much, had he?

He hadn’t allowed himself to worry about how Mary Rose would deal with the members of the town and his congregation. Actually, truth be told, he hadn’t thought about much of anything since he’d made love to his bride on their wedding night. That was about all he could think of. His own pleasure at seeing that wonderful look of astonishment in her beautiful eyes when she yelled that first time, still had him feeling like the most accomplished lover in all of England, perhaps even as excellent as his brothers. He hadn’t been able to have her since they’d left Sinjun and Colin’s house in Edinburgh, for Meggie had slept in their bedchamber every night on the way back home. It had been difficult, lying there, Mary Rose not three inches from him, and not being able to do a thing because Meggie was on a cot two feet away from their bed. He’d wanted to weep by the third night. He had the feeling that his new wife wanted to weep too. That was a wonderful thing.

Now they were home, and he could have her this very night. Maybe he could have her twice this very night. Surely God wouldn’t think that too self-indulgent. He looked around his study, stuffed to the ceiling with more books than he could read in two lifetimes, most of them so hideously boring that it would be better to have a dead brain in order to get through them. But this was his home, this was where he wrote the words he spoke to his congregation each Sunday, words of God’s expectations of his noble creation, God’s punishments meted out fairly but harshly, and God’s continual demands of His disciples.

He sat at his desk. There was not a speck of dust. It was as if he’d never been gone. Except for the large pile of correspondence, neatly stacked. He began reading.

Thirty minutes later, Meggie, panting, her face pale, stuck her head into Tysen’s study. “Papa, it’s Mrs. Bittley. She’s being so mushy nice, you know how she can be. I’m afraid she’s just preparing herself to take Mary Rose apart.”

Tysen was at the drawing room door in under thirty seconds. He paused a moment next to the partially open door, listening.

Mrs. Bittley, Squire Bittley’s shrew of a wife who’d been a fixture for as many years as Tysen had been on this earth, was standing in the middle of the drawing room, her bosom overpowering in deep purple, a purple feather sticking out of the sausage curls behind her ears, and she was facing Mary Rose, a muffin in one hand. “How delightful for you, a foreigner just to our north, to be married to our own dear vicar, an Englishman to his bones.”

“Yes, very delightful for me, Mrs. Bittley. Thank you for remarking on it. Mrs. Markham, would you like another cup of tea?”

“No, Mrs. Sherbrooke—how difficult it is to say that name when you—a perfect stranger—and not even a perfect English stranger—are very suddenly and so very unexpectedly wearing it.”

Mary Rose just smiled at the very thin woman who was so fair her hair looked nearly white in the dim afternoon light. Tomorrow, she thought. Tomorrow there would be light in this room. She would have it painted a pale yellow, perhaps. She stopped herself. She had to remember that this was just barely her home. She turned her attention to Mrs. Markham and said easily, “I suspect you were a bit surprised for a while to hear yourself called Mrs. Markham when you first married your husband, were you not?”

“That is neither here nor there,” said Mrs. Bittley. “You have admitted that you are Scottish, have admitted that you are a foreigner.”

“It is not something one can readily hide, don’t you think?”

Mrs. Padworthy, an ancient old woman, tiny and stooped, waved a veined hand. “Now, Mrs. Bittley, haven’t I told you that I have always liked the Scottish people? They bring such exotic music to the world with that wheezing bagpipe, a strange-looking thing that sounds like a gutted cow, don’t you think? And all those quaint combinations of colors in their endlessly clever plaids, so popular amongst them—at least they did until they went against God’s rightful king and we had to plant our boots on their necks. Wasn’t the last time in 1745?”

“Ah, ladies, I trust you are enjoying your visit with my wife. Mrs. Bittley, won’t you be seated? Mrs. Padworthy, how is your dear husband? Well, I trust?”

The thin mouth thinned even more. “He is nearly dead, Vicar. I expect him to be breathing his last by the time I arrive home. You did not ask about him before.”

“We will pray that he lasts a while longer,” Tysen said. “Ah, yes, Mrs. Bittley, I see a chair just over there. Meggie was just telling me that I should disclose to you, since you are all my very good friends and have only my best interests at heart, exactly how I went to Scotland and came home with a bride.”

“You went to Scotland, Vicar,” said Mrs. Padworthy, “because you inherited a Scottish title and a castle that likely is so old it is in ruins and smells of damp. You are now Lord Barthwick. That is why you went. You didn’t go there for any other reason at all.”

He smiled at all of them, each one in turn. “True. However, I found, quite simply, that when I met Mary Rose I knew—yes, ladies, I knew all the way to my very soul—that she was special. It took me a very long time to convince her to marry me and live here with me in England. Her arguments were sound: she didn’t know anything about the English, for to her, you see, we are all foreigners, with different beliefs and manners, perhaps we even commit different sins, although she and I did not discuss any specifics.

“I assured her that everyone here would be delighted to meet her, to welcome her, to befriend her, for the English were a sunny-tempered race, very important since it rains here so very much, a gracious people, a kindly people. Ah, here I am going on and on and it isn’t Sunday, and thus this is not a sermon, just a devout plea from my heart for your understanding. Forgive me for disturbing you, ladies. I will remove myself and let you continue getting to know each other.”

He gave each of them an austere smile, the sort of Sunday smile, Mary Rose thought, that was aimed at people who were seriously considering committing major sins.

“This is very unlike you, Vicar,” Mrs. Padworthy said. “I shall tell my husband about your very lax conduct if he is still breathing when I return home. We will see what he has to say about all this.”