The Scottish Bride - Catherine Coulter [120]
Douglas Sherbrooke just shook his head, amazed, heart-ened, and very, very pleased.
The Sherbrookes then traveled to the Cotswolds and spent three weeks there. They took both James and Jason with them, who had pleaded on their knees to their earl father and their countess mother to let them see Uncle Ryder and all his children. All in all, it was an excellent performance, and it gained them what they wanted.
All the children stayed in Brandon House, not for the purpose of giving Tysen and Mary Rose privacy but because a house filled with nearly twenty children was bedlam, with an endless parade of fights, laughter, mischief, jests, some tears, and abundant amounts of food.
It was November now, and it should have been cold and dank and dreary, but it wasn’t. There were a few more warm, sunny days remaining before the fall weather made itself known. On those days Tysen enjoyed lying on his back, his head in Mary Rose’s lap, in the apple orchard. The afternoon sun was streaming down through the leaves, and it was warm, the light breeze carrying the smell of honeysuckle.
In the distance they could hear the voices of a good dozen children. But here, they were alone.
Tysen leaned over and kissed her belly. “Too much material between thee and me,” he said, and closed his eyes when he felt her fingers stroking slowly through his hair. He sighed. “I don’t suppose I can drape all your clothes over the apple tree branches?”
“Not just yet,” she said and bent to kiss his mouth. She was silent for a moment, her eyes closed. “It’s like we’re out of time here,” she said slowly, leaning back against the apple tree trunk. “Like it’s not only a different place and time, but we’re also apart from the world and all its realities and demands. Do you miss being the vicar of Glenclose-on-Rowan? It’s been nearly three months now.”
Tysen thought about that. He thought about all the people who had wished him and his new wife well. He thought of his children, their smiles, their laughter, the ferocious fights among the three of them, all of them won by Meggie. And he thought of his own laughter and joy just watching them, and just being with Mary Rose. Waking with her in the mornings, at the Vicarage, Ellis and Monroe stretched across the both of them, purring madly, listening to her speak to his children, seeing their smiles, just knowing that she was there and that she was his and his alone, just as he was hers. And the vicarage—it seemed lighter, and not just because the drawing room was now painted a pale yellow and those dreadful dark draperies had been taken down. No, it just felt as if the house itself had shaken off years of gloom and emerged into the light. It was a very happy place, with Samuel Pritchert the only gloomy face to be seen. Even Mrs. Priddie was smiling now. He’d actually heard her singing once while she baked some haddock in the kitchen.
He frowned. “Have I changed, Mary Rose?”
“Not that I know of,” she said, rubbing her fingers over his brow. “You have always been the same to me, always saying just the right thing, taking care of things. And your laughter, Tysen—I have always loved your laughter, the way you tease me, tease the boys and Meggie. Why would you ask such a strange thing? Haven’t you always been as you are now?”
He didn’t want to examine that. Perhaps he was even afraid for her to know that he had been at one time, perhaps, a bit stricter, a bit less humorous, perhaps even a bit on the stodgy side, even pompous and too austere in his notions, with everyone. “How do you like your new family?” he asked, grabbing one of her hands and holding it against his heart.
“Well, Douglas—the earl. When I first saw him I thought he must be dreadful, you know—stern and autocratic and very lord of the manor.”
“He is a natural autocrat.”
“Perhaps, at least until Alex happened to tickle him under his left arm and he laughed and grabbed her and then he pulled her down behind that settee and her petticoats went flying.
“Your laugh is a lot like his, Tysen. As for Alex, she is amazing, truly.