The Scottish Bride (Sherbrooke Brides 6)

Samuel said at Tysen’s nod, “I will be blunt, sir. Our people do not want a foreigner here. They want you, but they want you the way you were before you went to Scotland and brought her back.”

“Go away now, Samuel.”

“There is just a bit more, sir.”

“Very well.”

“It seems it is your laughter, sir.”

“My what?”

“Your laughter, sir, your unconcealed lightness of spirit, your unexpected flow of charm, your wit. It makes them uncomfortable, it makes them feel as if their spiritual leader has become a stranger. It is your lack of seriousness, sir, that alarms them, your lack of proper gravity and conduct, of proper perspective on what is important in life. You have changed into a different man. All have remarked upon it. You are no longer their spiritual leader. You have diminished in their eyes. Their faith suffers because of it. There, I have said it. I hope you will forgive my bluntness.”

“I thank you for your bluntness, Samuel. Go away now.”

Tysen didn’t move until Samuel was out of his study. He turned to stretch his hands to the fire. He rubbed his neck, feeling knots he knew hadn’t been there ten minutes before. Then he realized that it was only eleven o’clock in the morning and he was again hard with lust for Mary Rose. He’d made love to her three-and-a-half hours before, and now he wanted her again. She filled his mind, she filled his heart—perhaps even his very soul, which, until she’d popped into his life, had been filled only with God and with God’s mission for him on this earth.

No, she didn’t own his soul. No, that wasn’t possible. He hadn’t sunk that low yet. But she’d changed him by giving him her body, by giving him her trust, by giving him all the love that filled her, and it was abundant.

He knew she loved him, although she hadn’t yet said the words. She was open, guileless, her love for him shone in her eyes. And what did he feel for her, his wife? The woman who had changed him utterly?

He didn’t want to think about it, he simply couldn’t. He’d become single-minded, a man lost in his own appetites, in the gratification of his own selfish needs.

It repelled him even as he accepted that it was true.

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Even at twenty years old and newly wedded to Melinda Beatrice, he’d never felt this overwhelming intensity of need for another person, this frantic desire. Yes, call it by what it is—lust. But it was more than that. Melinda Beatrice had tried to yield to him because she’d loved him, had told him she loved him countless times, and she’d wanted to be his wife and his clerical helpmeet, but it hadn’t lasted. Very quickly he’d visited her bed only when he realized he had to so that children could be conceived. And life had become, he’d supposed, what it had needed to become, what it was meant to become, and he had gained what he’d sought.

He was surely respected, surely admired, surely needed, since he’d tried with all his being to fill his role as the spiritual adviser to nearly an entire town of people.

Ah, but now here was Mary Rose. She was his. Just to be near her, to touch her, to feel her pleasure when he touched her with his fingers, with his mouth, was something he’d never even considered before, but with her it had seemed so very natural, so important somehow to share her own pleasure with her, to know that he was giving her pleasure. And when he came into her, when he heard her crying out his name over and over when she reached her climax, he’d felt blessed. He’d felt beyond himself. He’d felt more than he was.

She made him feel like a man who was cherished, and surely that was something blessed.

Not only was she loving and giving to him, she was dealing well with his stubborn boys, even telling Max the previous evening at the dinner table to eat his broccoli—in Latin. Max laughed so hard he had to hold his stomach. In fact, Tysen had heard Max mumbling several times at the breakfast table just this morning so he wouldn’t forget: “Aut id devorabis amabisque, aut cras prandebis.” Mary Rose, when asked by Meggie what that meant, gave them all a sunny smile and said, “It means ‘You’ll eat it and like it, or you’ll have it for breakfast tomorrow.’”

Yes, he’d laughed so hard he’d nearly fallen out of his chair, just like his son. So he wasn’t sufficiently serious anymore, was he? He laughed too often? He was too light-hearted? And this diminished him?

Dear God, what was he to do? He knew Samuel was right. He knew his flock was right. Everyone had seen the incredible changes—everyone except him.

But now he did.

He had changed.

It wasn’t a respectful, devout change.

He had become a man seduced by all that was unimportant to the salvation of his soul.

It was a licentious change.

He moved to his desk, read the pages he’d written for his sermon. He felt a shaft of pain as he read, and surprise at what he’d written so naturally, so easily—so joyfully. He closed his eyes for a moment. Then he tore the pages in half.

Tysen didn’t remain at the vicarage for lunch. He went to the Dead Spaniard Inn to have Mr. Gaither’s barmaid, Petunia, serve him a cup of spiced tea and a cold plate of chicken and warm bread. He felt the damp from the thickening rain and cold to his bones.

He ate and waited for Mr. Gaither to show himself, which he did after Tysen had taken only two absent-minded bites of the chicken and wondered yet again what had become of his life.

“Ah, Reverend Sherbrooke, it’s delighted I am to see you home again. You were away far too long, sir. Many good people lapsed a bit, didn’t attend Mr. Pritchert’s sermons. A good fellow, but long-winded he is, poor man. But Samuel Pritchert is always there, always ready to shoulder another man’s burdens, to counsel him, to help him wipe clean his plate when it’s dirty. But tomorrow you’re finally back in the pulpit. Everyone will be in church.”