The Scottish Bride - Catherine Coulter [107]
She ran to him and threw her arms around his back. Mrs. Priddie harrumphed behind Tysen. She said quite clearly, “You dealt with Mrs. Flavobonne very quickly, Reverend Sherbrooke, perhaps too quickly. This is the home of a man of God. It is a vicarage. If you were yourself, Reverend Sherbrooke, there would be no matters of the flesh. You would be above that. This isn’t what I’m used to, sir.”
“But I’m no longer just myself, Mrs. Priddie. I’m now married.” And, he thought, a smile blazing, he wasn’t above much of anything, particularly when it came to Mary Rose and where he touched her. Tysen very slowly dropped his arms. He turned to Mrs. Priddie. “Let’s show Mary Rose her new bedchamber.”
Mrs. Priddie harrumphed again. Both cats—Ellis, so long and skinny that he seemed to be wrapped around fat Monroe, with his yellow eyes and fur blacker than a sinner’s dreams—were on top of Tysen’s bed. Ellis cracked an eye open, saw Tysen, and yowled once, then twice, unwound himself from Monroe and leapt. Tysen, used to this, caught the cat in mid-flight and simply brought him to his shoulder. “Have you been a saintly cat, Ellis?”
The cat was purring so loudly that Mary Rose, who had never before heard the like, just stood there staring at him.
“He stole a pork chop right off the kitchen table, Reverend Sherbrooke.”
“Well yes, Mrs. Priddie, he is fast, isn’t he?” He rubbed the cat’s stomach, hugged him, then finally set him back down beside Monroe, who was just looking at everyone, not even twitching a whisker.
“Monroe doesn’t do much,” Tysen said, and petted the cat in long strokes down its back. The cat stretched out, and Tysen continued to pat him until Ellis, jealous, swatted at Tysen’s hand.
“Just wait until we’re in bed with them,” he said to Mary Rose, and Mrs. Priddie harrumphed yet again.
“I can’t wait,” Mary Rose said, and Ellis looked at her, then stretched his neck toward her. She gave him a light pat. Ellis jumped back onto Tysen’s shoulder.
23
Antiquis temporibus, nati tibi similes in rupibus ventosissimis exponebantur ad necem.
In the good old days, children like you were left to perish on windswept crags.
MAX SHERBROOKE, STANDING straight and tall, his shoulders back, said firmly, “Girls do not speak Latin.”
“This girl does,” Mary Rose said easily.
“Even if a girl were able to repeat the words, she would have no comprehension of what she was saying.”
Mary Rose raised an eyebrow at that pompous pronouncement from a boy who had blue eyes—Sherbrooke blue eyes—just like his father’s and Sinjun’s and Leo’s and Meggie’s, and a very stubborn chin. The boy would break hearts when he grew into manhood. She stroked her fingers over her chin. “Hmmm. Do I perhaps hear the antiquated Mr. Harbottle speaking?”
“Certainly not,” Max said, frowning just a bit, “ although he does not hesitate, even on good days, to point out the weakness of the female sex.”
“Why do you have such a low opinion of the female brain, Max?”
“Yes,” Tysen said pleasantly, coming into the very dark drawing room with its soon-to-be burned draperies, “tell us where you got this asinine notion.”
“You said—” Max, pinned by his father’s stare, managed to squirm just a bit. “Well, perhaps it isn’t precisely what you said, sir, but I’ve never believed that you thought any girl, with the exception of Meggie, of course—”
“Of course.”
“Well, that any girl could do much of anything except have babies and—”
“Yes, you’re quite right, Max. I’ve never said anything so absurd, or believed such a thing either. Now, you’d best just stop right where you are. If you were to continue, I fear that your new mother would shoot you.