The Scottish Bride - Catherine Coulter [139]
“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.
Ryder Sherbrooke shouted with laughter.
Epilogue
Bleaker’s Bluff
Kildrummy Castle
September 15, 1816
THE SUN WAS a ball of fire, warming the land as it slowly rose to fill the sky and turn the sea red.
“It is the most beautiful sight in the world,” Mary Rose said as she leaned closer to her husband. She was sitting against him, cradled between his arms and legs, and he tightened his arms around her, pulling his cloak closer around her, just in case, since it was still early morning.
“It is one of them,” he said, and kissed her ear. His fingers splayed over her swollen belly. “Our babe does well this morning? He is not kicking you?”
“He is fine. Mayhap he is resting after performing Leo’s acrobatics all night.”
“We must leave next week, love. I don’t wish to, but I don’t want you too far along in your pregnancy before we go back to Glenclose-on-Rowan. Also, Dr. Clowder has threatened me to ask that you be there for him to deliver our child.”
“Dr. Clowder told me that since Max and Leo and Meggie are such marvelous children, if we don’t want this one, he will be delighted to adopt him or her.”
Tysen laughed, then said more soberly, “Well, the poor man had two sons, both of them rotters. One got sent to Botany Bay for beating two men and stealing their purses; the other was killed in a duel for sleeping with a man’s wife.”
“We can give him very liberal visitation rights,” Mary Rose said.
“Did you enjoy your mother’s birthday last evening?”
“Oh, yes, everyone was in such high spirits. Isn’t it grand, Tysen? She’s so very happy with Miles. All those years playing a madwoman, and now all she does is sing and laugh, just like we do.”
Tysen wasn’t sure what he felt about Mary Rose’s mother. He supposed he wished her well now. He was kissing Mary Rose’s ear when she said, “Isn’t it odd that Donnatella was married to Erickson for three months and his mother just up and died so suddenly, in her sleep? At least that’s what my mother told me.”
Tysen thought of Donnatella. It didn’t take long for him to say, “No. I don’t find that particularly odd. Donnatella, I think, was born knowing how to land on her feet.”
“You don’t really think that she—”
“I think it best not to visit that notion. Oh, yes, love, I got a letter from Samuel Pritchert.”
“Oh, my, I don’t like the way you said that. All right, Tysen. I’m ready. What did Samuel write to you?”
“Actually, he’s pleading with me to come home. He said that Mr. Gaither, as the congregation’s representative, came to see him. It seems that everyone is despondent, nearly miserable. We have been gone for three months, much too long a time, it seems. A great cloud of melancholia has descended over the town, and all because they were so used to leaving the church smiling, perhaps even grinning a bit at something the vicar had said during his sermon,