The Scottish Bride - Catherine Coulter [132]
“But it wasn’t that, was it? Something had already happened to blight you again. What the hell was it?”
Tysen looked blindly at his brothers.
“I don’t want you to be the old you,” Ryder said, more gently now, seeing the ravages of pain in his brother’s eyes. “I want to see the new you, the new you I met at Chadwyck House, the man I had never before realized I loved quite so much—the father who shows his love to his children, who shares his contentment and happiness with them, who teases them and shouts with laughter when Leo tries a new acrobatic move and falls flat on his face or when Max spouts some new Latin, especially a curse word.”
They were his own personal Greek chorus, Tysen thought, taking turns, getting it all out.
It was Douglas’s turn, and he said now, “And what about Meggie? She worships you, her little face lights up from within when she sees you, but now the light is gone. Where the hell is that Tysen? What happened to make you bury him away again? What happened to freeze him back up?”
“He does not belong here,” Tysen said quietly. “He is not what God wants. That man wasn’t a man of God, he was a man of the world, a man swallowed by the temp-tations of the world, content to wallow in his own indul-gences, his own wants and desires—no, not a man of God.” He pushed past his brothers and left by the garden gate, closing it quietly behind him.
They stood there, staring after him. Douglas said slowly, “Something is very wrong here, Ryder. I’ve never seen a more miserable man. And it has come about so quickly. What the hell happened?”
Ryder said, “Before, when Tysen acted like he did at church—all uncaring and remote and stern—you and I both knew that he truly believed that cold, distant man was who and what he saw himself to be. Nothing more, nothing less, and he was content with that man. We weren’t, but we’d finally accepted him as the humorless prig he was. Yes, that man was comfortable being who and what he was, and he was smug in his belief.”
Douglas said something very crude and strode back to the vicarage. Ryder remained in the garden, wondering what the hell would happen now. He felt very sorry for Mary Rose and the children. For his brother he felt deep, strangling pain.
Mary Rose sat in front of her dressing table, a small brooch that her mother had given her before she’d left Scotland held loose in her hand. Her dressing table had been moved back in here, along with her brushes, her clothes, her shoes.
While she’d been sitting in church listening to that grim stranger speak, everything of hers that had been in Tysen’s bedchamber had been brought into Melinda Beatrice’s. Dear God, it was a dreadful room, and now Tysen had sent her here.
It was so dreadful a room that she hadn’t even considering placing any of their guests, even the children, in here.
It was late afternoon. Mary Rose went looking for her husband. She found him in the graveyard, sitting on a bench, his hands clasped between his knees, just staring at a very old grave. She walked up to him, and stood there, watching him, saying nothing.
“Is there a problem?” he said finally, not looking at her.
“Yes, I believe there is,” she said. “You have never spoken to me so coldly before, Tysen. Won’t you please tell me what is wrong? Did something happen?”
“No, nothing happened. Please go attend to our guests. I have an appointment very shortly.” Even as he spoke, he rose. He looked at her briefly, then turned on his heel and made his way through the graves to the far cemetery gate.
She stood there, looking after him until he was gone from her sight. She returned to the vicarage and asked Mrs. Priddie to have all her things moved from Melinda Beatrice’s bedchamber back to Tysen’s.
Mrs. Priddie said, “I don’t know if we should do that, ma’am. The vicar didn’t say anything to me about moving you back into