Colin frowned. “You are lying. I want to know why you must have Mary Rose as your wife.”
Erickson shut his mouth so fast he bit his tongue.
Colin said very quietly, “Mary Rose, bring the candle over here so I can see this idiot very clearly. Yes, that’s good. His nose is bloody. It adds interest, don’t you think?”
“No,” Mary Rose said.
Colin stood right over him. “She’s right. Now, we will have all the truth out of you, or I will hold you down while Tysen finishes stomping you into the floor. Do you understand me, you treacherous sod?”
Erickson sighed very deeply, he looked defeated and desperate. Then shook his head. “No, I won’t say any more. There is nothing more to say. I am innocent of anything except my passion for Mary Rose.”
Colin came down on his haunches, grabbed Erickson’s shirt collar, lifted him up a bit, then, with no warning, no hesitation, he pounded his head against the floor. Erickson moaned.
“There is not a dollop of love in you for Mary Rose, probably not a bit for any woman. The truth, all of it. Now, or I will kick your brains into the wainscotting.”
Tysen was leaning against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest, saying absolutely nothing.
Erickson yelled at him, “You’re a bloody vicar! How can you allow this man to smash my head? I’m already half-dead since the lot of you attacked me. Stop him, for God’s sake.”
“Not unless you tell us the truth,” Tysen said, examining his sore knuckles.
“There is no bloody truth to tell you, damn it.”
“Would you like me to take over, Colin?” Tysen said, taking one step toward them.
Both Mary Rose and Sinjun crowded in, keeping Tysen back, both of them staring down at Erickson as if he were a slug that was peering up at them from under a rock.
Colin leaned forward again, grabbed his collar.
Erickson groaned. “No, not again. Damn, I can feel one of my teeth loose in my mouth. I have nothing to say. If you kill me, then you will hang for it.”
“Tysen, where are you going?”
“It’s all right, Sinjun. I’m going to get my gun. I can’t take the chance that he will try tomorrow or the next day to rape Mary Rose and force her into marriage. I have to kill him. He won’t tell us why with all this dramatic charade we’re playing. There’s just nothing else to do.”
“We’ll draw straws,” Colin said.
“I want to draw a straw as well,” Mary Rose said. “I don’t want to be afraid of him anymore. They can’t hang all of us, can they?”
“No, they cannot,” Sinjun said. “Get the gun, Tysen.”
Erickson looked from one grim face to the next. He believed them. He felt defeat fill his craw. There was no way out of this. He drew a deep breath, swallowing his pain, and said, “All right, damn all of you to bloody hell. I must marry Mary Rose because she isn’t poor. She’s rich, very rich. She’s got a trust from her father—no, I don’t know who he is, only her mother knows, since she would surely remember pulling up her skirts for a man. There is evidently a lot of money in the Bank of England in a sort of trust for her. Mary Rose receives it when she is either married or turns twenty-five. Damn you all, I must have that money!”
Erickson looked up at Mary Rose, whose face was in the shadows since she was holding the candle. “You will be twenty-five next month, Mary Rose. You must marry me before your birthday so I may have the money. I need it. Donnatella only has five thousand pounds—it simply isn’t enough.”
“How much money?” Sinjun asked.
“I don’t know. Sir Lyon said it was thousands upon thousands. He said this old man who is the trustee wouldn’t tell him the amount, just that it was more than even a greedy man could imagine.”
Tysen was sucking in air hard again because he nearly couldn’t breathe. He shoved Sinjun and Mary Rose out of his way, leaned down, jerked MacPhail up and began hitting him as hard as he could, which was very hard indeed since this new wave of rage had turned his vision red, made his heart pound so hard it should burst through his chest
. It was Colin who grabbed Tysen and pulled him off. Tysen turned to hit him, but Sinjun yelled, “Stop it, Tysen! Calm down, it’s all over. At least now we know the truth. Stop it! The little worm has lost, well and truly lost.”
Mary Rose walked slowly between the two men. She pressed herself against Tysen and locked her arms around his back. He felt her mouth against his bare chest, her warm breath. Slowly, so very slowly, he lowered his arms, and squeezed her to him. He rested his face on the top of her head. He breathed in her scent, tasted her hair, curls bouncing into his mouth.
“Did you have some sort of agreement with Mary Rose’s uncle?” Colin said now, standing over Erickson, his hands fisted, but he knew the man wasn’t going to try to get away. He knew Tysen might just snap again and this time he might just kill him. He knew deep in his soul that he couldn’t allow that to happen. Such an act, he knew, would destroy Tysen, crush his soul, damn him forever.
“Yes,” Erickson said finally, knowing he’d failed, knowing it was no use. “I was to give him ten thousand pounds when I wedded Mary Rose and he would see that she was available to me at Vallance Manor so I could properly woo her there, if she didn’t accept me elsewhere.”