Tysen realized that his brothers and their wives were in the bedchamber. At least they’d kept the children outside. But he knew that they had heard her screaming, that they knew what had happened.
Tysen gathered Mary Rose against him and held her while Dr. Clowder plied his instruments. He felt her shock, her pain, her
deadening sorrow. He felt it all deep inside himself.
He just held her, his bloody hands pressed against her, his face pressed against her tangled hair. She was still wearing her riding hat. He gently pulled it off and flung it to the floor. He saw Alex slowly pick it up and lay it on a table. Anything, he thought, anything anyone could do to keep all this pain at bay.
“I didn’t know,” she said, her voice hoarse from her yelling. “I didn’t even know I was pregnant.”
“I didn’t either,” he said. “It’s all right, Mary Rose. Please, my love, it will be all right.”
She stilled, utterly. And he realized then what he had said, and it filled him with quiet joy. At that exact moment, he knew that if he didn’t have her, he wouldn’t have anything at all. In those minutes, feeling her blood dry on his hands, feeling her tears wet his linen shirt, prickle against his neck, he knew to his very soul that without this woman, his life was meaningless.
No, not that, never that, but that his life would have no more importance to him. And if he was of no importance to himself, then how could he possibly serve God?
In that instant, holding this precious human being against him, realizing that he could so easily have lost her, still could lose her, he finally understood. Everything fell into place. All the confusion, all the chaos and uncertainty, it was gone as if it had never existed in the first place. He felt peace flow through him, fill him, and he knew it was all right now, all of it.
He smiled as he kissed her forehead, her nose, and finally her mouth. “We are together,” he said against her dry lips. “I love you, Mary Rose. I love you with all my heart, I will love you all my life and beyond, and together we will bring joy to this damned town and to ourselves and to our children. Please tell me that I haven’t lost you. If I lost you, it would be all over for me. And for my children, too, I suspect.”
Mary Rose looked at his dearly loved face through the tears that blurred her sight. “Tysen,” she said, “I’m so glad you came back to me. I love you so very much. I don’t want to ever leave you.”
Then she simply closed her eyes. She was unconscious, that or asleep. He touched his forehead to hers, not moving.
“The bleeding has nearly stopped, Reverend Sherbrooke. Your wife will be all right. You did well.”
Tysen realized he was praying again, and it was a prayer filled with hope and endless gratitude, a prayer of promise and soul-deep joy.
Tysen stepped to his pulpit. Brilliant sunlight poured through the stained-glass windows. He felt the warmth of it on his face. He paused a moment, looking out over the many faces he’d known for eight years, all of them focused now on him, wondering at his silence, starting to get nervous because they didn’t understand.
Tysen looked at his brothers and their families, then at his own family—his boys, Meggie, and Mary Rose, who was still too pale, too thin, but she’d insisted she was well enough to come. And she was smiling at him, the most beautiful smile he’d ever seen in his life.
He felt a smile tugging at his own mouth. He wondered if he would ever stop smiling. He leaned forward, clasped his hands atop the pulpit, and said, “I have been here for eight years. I was a very young man when I came to Glenclose-on-Rowan, given this living by my brother, the earl of Northcliffe. You have, all of you, seen me grow to my full manhood amongst you. You have held me and my children close to you. I know each of you and I cherish what you are, what you doubtless will come to be.
“As you all know, I am now Lord Barthwick of Kildrummy Castle in Scotland. I went there solely out of duty, but God must have been directing my steps, for what I found was a very special woman who has shown me the absolute wonder of life, the glory of being a man who is beloved not only by God, but by a woman that He fashioned just for me.
“Through her, my dearest wife, Mary Rose Sherbrooke, I finally realized how very lucky I am. I finally saw what was right in front of me. I finally saw my children as the precious beings they are. I found that life could be filled with joy—endless joy. All I had to do was embrace it. I did.
“Now, however, I see that many of you wish that I would return to being that very devout and sober man you were used to, that very serious young man you had nurtured and watched grow in his faith and his self-belief. Since you had never seen him as a man filled with contentment and laughter and so much love he threatened to burst with it, you did not know that person, and thus he made you uncomfortable, and thus you did not want him.
“He was a stranger to you. He made you uncertain because where he once was stern in his admonishments to you as God’s creatures, once told you in no uncertain terms that a sin would blight your soul, he now wanted you to see the simple pleasure of just being alive, to feel the sun on your face and to smile under its warmth, to hear the sound of your children’s voices, knowing that they are yours and you will love them into eternity. This man now wants you to believe with all your hearts that God loves you, wishes you to be devout and loyal and honest, to worship Him with all the joy in your hearts, to be grateful to Him and to each other for the happiness we find here, on His magnificent earth.
“Our Lord created us, all the men and women who are sitting here today. And what he gave us, what he placed deep within each of us, is the capacity to love and honor and know in our hearts that there is meaning in our lives, meaning that allows for us to come together and give each other boundless happiness.
“I stand before you this morning a man who has been given one of our dear God’s greatest gifts. God has blessed me, opened my heart to know more pleasure than a simple man deserves.
“All of you know that I returned from Scotland with a wife. Her name, as you well know now, is Mary Rose Sherbrooke. She and I and our three children are a family, and we will remain a family who loves God and each other, a family that rejoices that we are together, that we care endlessly for each other.
“This will be my last service as your vicar. Mr. Samuel Pritchert, a man you all admire and respect, will be here to advise you and assist you in any spiritual matters. I do not know who will come to Glenclose-on-Rowan as your vicar, but I know that the earl of Northcliffe will give it serious and careful thought.
“I thank you again for my eight years as your vicar. I will think well of all of you for the rest of my days.”
And he smiled again, at everyone, and stepped back from the pulpit.
The silence was deafening.
Meggie said, her voice delighted and spontaneous, reaching to every pew in the church, “Oh, my, Mary Rose, just imagine. We’re all together. You can have babies and I can teach them what’s what, just as I have Max and Leo.”
“I will teach them how to tell ghost stories,” Grayson Sherbrooke said.