The Scottish Bride - Catherine Coulter [1]
Tysen didn’t laugh, but perhaps he did smile, just a bit. He hadn’t laughed much since he’d decided to become a man of God when he was seventeen. Douglas remembered their brother Ryder telling Tysen that of all the men placed on this benighted earth, it was a vicar who should have the greatest sense of humor, since God obviously did. Just look at all the absurdities that surrounded us. Hadn’t Tysen ever observed the mating ritual of peacocks, for example? And just look at their buffoon of a prince regent, who was so fat he had to be hoisted in and out of his bathtub? Ah, but Tysen was serious, his sermons high-minded, stark in their message that God was a stern taskmaster and not apt to easily overlook a man’s lapses. Tysen was now thirty-one years old. He certainly had the look of the Sherbrookes—tall, well built, brown hair streaked with blond, and Sherbrooke eyes the color of a summer sky. Douglas was the changeling, with his jet-black hair and dark eyes.
But Tysen didn’t have his siblings’ love of life, their seemingly inborn boundless joy, their belief that the world was a very fine place indeed.
“Sitting above the salt—I haven’t heard that phrase in a very long time,” Tysen said. “I suppose I must travel to Scotland and see what’s what.” He sighed. “There is always so much that demands my time here, but Great Uncle Tyronne deserves an heir who will at least see that the estate is run properly—not that I have much experience in that area.”
“You know I will assist you, Tysen. You need but ask. Would you like me to accompany you to Barthwick?”
Tysen shook his head. “No, Douglas, but I thank you. It is something that is my responsibility. I have an efficient curate who can assume my duties for a while. You remember Samuel Pritchert, don’t you?”
Oh, yes, no way to forget that dour prig. Douglas merely nodded.
“No, I will go by myself. All the heirs dead. Douglas, I remember all the cousins. So many boys. All of them are really dead?”
“Yes, a great shame. Disease, accidents, duels, a case of too much revelry. As I said, the last heir, Ian Barthwick, evidently fell off a cliff into the North Sea. The solicitor wasn’t specific about exactly how it happened.”
“There must have been six boys to inherit, all of them before me. And that’s why, as I remember, Great Uncle Tyronne set me up as an heir. It amused him to see it done legally—to place an English boy in line for an ancient Scottish barony. Naturally he never expected that it would come about.”
“And now it’s yours, Tysen. His jest came back to hit him in the face. The castle, the rich grazing lands, more sheep than you can count even when you’re trying to fall asleep—all of it belongs to an Englishman. And many of the crofters and tenants are fishermen, so that means that even during bad times, no one starves. It isn’t a wealthy holding, but it is substantial. I understand that Great Uncle Tyronne didn’t believe in clearances. None of that has ever been done on Barthwick land.”
“Good for him,” Tysen said. “It’s a pernicious practice, Douglas, dragging people off land that they’ve farmed or raised sheep on for hundreds of years.” He paused a moment, then said, “I suppose that my son Max is now the heir to the Barony of Barthwick. I do wonder what he will have to say to that.”
He would probably quote some Latin, Douglas thought. His brother’s elder boy was very intelligent, quiet, a scholar, perhaps even more serious than his father had been at his age. He had been named after their grandfather, the only scholar in the entire line of Sherbrookes, so far as Douglas knew.
“When you leave, Tysen, bring the children here, and Alex and I will look after them. Your Meggie can whip not only her brothers into shape but her cousins as well. Heathens, the both of them.”
Tysen did smile then, a slow, calm smile. “She is amazing, isn’t she, Douglas?”
“Just like Sinjun