“You did well. Now, I want you to go back to your bedchamber.”
“Papa, please let me help you. Mary Rose is—”
“Mary Rose is what?”
Meggie frowned toward the young woman lying in the middle of her father’s bed. She struggled to find the words. “It’s just that she’s very alone, even though she lives in a houseful of people. I don’t think there’s anyone for her. Not even her mother. She needs me.”
Just as I need you, Tysen thought, and smiled down at his precious daughter. He cradled her cheek in his hand. “I promise I’ll take good care of her. No one is to know yet that she’s here. If anyone asks about me, just tell them that I am not feeling well and am here in my bedchamber. Now, I don’t want you to stay, sweetheart. Go now.”
“You will call me if she worsens?”
“I most certainly will. I promise.” Tysen waited until Meggie had slipped out of his bedchamber.
He locked the door, then walked back to the bed. Tysen hadn’t ever taken intimate care of another person, except his children, of course, after their mother had died. He’d rocked them endlessly when monsters had invaded their dreams, wiped their foreheads when they’d been downed by fevers, held them when they vomited, rubbed their stomachs when they had belly cramps. But Mary Rose wasn’t a child. She was a grown woman, and she wasn’t his wife.
There was no choice. It was either that or ask Mrs. MacFardle to see to her, and that he couldn’t, wouldn’t, do. He remembered how she had purposely hurt Mary Rose’s ankle just because she hadn’t believed she belonged here at Kildrummy Castle, in the drawing room, in the same company with her betters.
“All right, Mary Rose,” he said, staring down at her. “I’m all you’ve got.”
He stripped her down, examined every inch of her, bathed her, rubbed the ointment that smelled like pine and lavender mixed together into every scratch, abrasion, and cut on her white body. No, he wouldn’t think of her as having a white body, as having soft white flesh. He realized that she was shivering and quickly put her into his nightshirt again. He took his well-worn dark-green brocade dressing gown and wrapped that around her as well. He pulled the covers to her chin and smoothed her hair, only a bit damp now, from around her face. Her face was as badly bruised as her body. He lightly pressed his palms to her forehead, her cheeks. She was now cool to the touch.
He prayed she would stay that way.
He built up the fire, then pulled a very large leather wing chair at least two centuries old up beside the bed. He lit another branch of candles, picked up the book he’d been reading, and settled himself in to wait.
“I don’t understand why you want to do this. You wanted Donnatella. Why me? Why now?”
He nearly dropped his book, Shakespeare’s King Henry IV, Part I, one of his favorite plays.
“Mary Rose? Are you back with me?”
She wasn’t. She twisted a bit, but the covers were heavy and she couldn’t throw them off. “I don’t want to wed, don’t you understand? I would never marry you, you were fondling my own mother. How could you do that? She is my mother!”
“I know,” he said, smoothing her hair, touching her face, to calm her. “Erickson MacPhail won’t ever again be close enough to frighten you, Mary Rose. You must trust me on that.”
“She’s my mother!”
“Yes, she is. It’s all right, I’m here now.”
She started crying, deep, gulping sobs that seemed to be torn out of her chest, and tears, streaming down her face. He couldn’t bear it. He sat beside her and pulled her up against his chest. He rocked her, speaking nonsense to her, holding her, stroking her back, his breath warm on her flesh, so that perhaps on some level, she would know she was safe. He remembered how he’d just stared at her when she’d told him about Erickson and her mother, crying quietly as she’d told him how even now she still wasn’t entirely certain that her mother hadn’t encouraged, hadn’t, in fact, been his lover. Her mother had never said anything to her about it—understandable, Tysen supposed. He’d wanted to hold her then, comfort her, but he hadn’t.
Nor had he been shocked. As a vicar, he believed that he had witnessed just about everything perverse, vicious, and brutal that anyone could possibly do. But he’d hated the fact that Mary Rose had seen the two of them, and had been so terribly hurt. Then, of course, she’d been embarrassed that she’d told him.
He leaned over and kissed her temple. He then nearly leapt off the bed at what he’d done, at what he’d felt at the touch of his mouth against her skin. He didn’t let her go, he couldn’t. He’d kissed her, a woman who wasn’t his wife, a young woman who was defenseless, without protection. He closed his eyes. He’d had to take care of her, but that kiss, that wasn’t well done of him. He touched his mouth to her cheek, tasted the salty tears, but this time he didn’t kiss her, just held her close and closer still, and tasted her tears.
She calmed, her face against his shoulder, her breathing evening out. If she was still awake, he prayed that she wasn’t still locked inside herself. “Mary Rose?” His voice was just a whisper against her cheek.
She was asleep. He gently eased her onto her back, pulled the covers up. He rose slowly, looking down at her. He hadn’t even known she existed until—was it even a week ago? Less? He couldn’t seem to remember a day when she hadn’t been there. No, that was ridiculous. He hadn’t been interested in another female, not in this way, since three months after he and Melinda Beatrice had wed. He had to stop it, he was being disloyal, disremembering. Only he knew he wasn’t, and he didn’t like himself very much for admitting it. But it was true. There’d simply been no one else after Melinda Beatrice had died. He had long ago disciplined himself to master his own body and its demands upon him. And that control had been inviolable, until Mary Rose, a Scotswoman who was also a bastard.
Tysen wasn’t a man given to curses, and so he didn’t curse. Instead, he walked quietly to the large, blackened fireplace and stood there, deep in thought, staring down into the flames, not ferociously high now but sinking slowly and inexorably into the wood until all that remained was embers that glowed a soft, bright orange.
Mary Rose. He loved the sound of her name, the feel of it, both in his mind and on his tongue. Dear Lord, what was he going to do?
She awoke in the dark of the night. She was cold, so very cold that she knew if she breathed too deeply, she would shatter, just as the beautiful vase that had fallen off the mantel in her bedchamber had shattered and was no more. She, too, would be no more. She held herself stiff, but not for long. She began to shiver, her teeth chattered, and she simply couldn’t stop it. The worse it became, the more fiercely the pain rippled through her. It dug deep, and she moaned with it.
“It’s all right, Mary Rose, I’m here.”
“Tysen,” she whispered. “Is it really you? Oh, my, I’m so glad it’s you. I don’t feel very well. I’m sorry.”