The Scottish Bride - Catherine Coulter [22]
“Pouder? It is hard to imagine that. I can’t see Pouder even able to flatten a fly. Of course, Old Tyronne was eighty-seven, but Pouder can’t be more than a decade younger.”
“I shall ask Pouder about it,” Meggie said, grinning. “It must have been quite a sight.”
Tysen said, “Old Tyronne’s melancholy is understandable. Every one of his heirs was dead. Still, it is a pity that he died so embittered.”
“Oh, no, he wasn’t sad about that, Papa, at least according to MacNee and Ardle. They said he was angry at Miss Donnatella Vallance because she wouldn’t marry him. Ranted that he could get another boy child off her and it was all her fault for being so selfish. Not his fault, never his. He’d done his best, but now he claimed he didn’t care, and that was why he wanted to burn Kildrummy Castle. He wanted to burn it to the ground, make it hot enough so the devil would accept it in hell.”
“Donnatella is Mary Rose’s cousin, I believe.”
“Evidently she is also a handful, at least according to MacNee, who is quite a handsome man, and I think perhaps he would like to flirt with her himself.”
“Meggie, you will not delve into those particular matters, all right?”
“I was just listening, Papa.”
Tysen let that go. He said, “I remember Old Tyronne as quite amiable. Of course, that was at a time when he had more heirs than any man I’ve ever known of.” He wanted to know what else she’d learned, but he was her father, a vicar, and he didn’t believe in gossip, really he didn’t. And then his sweet daughter said, “Mary Rose and her mother live with Donnatella. Mary Rose’s mother is mad, has been for nearly forever. Evidently Donnatella is very lively and terribly beautiful. She is spoiled, but she is so beautiful that no one minds too much when she throws a tantrum.”
Tysen stared, mesmerized. Meggie’s sources of information never ceased to amaze him. She’d learned all this just by distributing almond sweetmeats?
“Donnatella is younger than Mary Rose,” he said slowly. “The old man was well into his eighties, and he actually expected a young girl to marry him?”
“That’s right,” Meggie said, and sidled farther into the room, sniffing the air. “Ardle said that Lord Barthwick believed Donnatella had the finest pair of hips in all of Scotland and was sure that birthing more heirs would be no problem for her. He also said that Lord Barthwick had more self-confidence than a man with two brains. Papa, I think we should open those windows. It is dreadfully close in here.”
“You’re right,” Tysen said, knowing he should say something to Meggie about speaking of a woman’s hips and childbirth, but he just wasn’t up to it. Instead, he walked to the bank of heavy velvet draperies and jerked them open. Dust billowed into the air, setting him to sneezing. It took him a while to get the latch to open on the large glass doors. Finally, with a creak and a groan, the doors flew open, and father and daughter stood side by side looking out into a small garden, no more than the size of the library. It was completely overgrown—wild rose bushes, yew bushes, ivy, daffodils, and bright-red rhododendron bushes were all tangled together, choking each other to gain the bit of available sunlight.
“I had thought the entire manor formed a large square, what with the enclosed inner courtyard,” Tysen said as he walked slowly out onto moss-covered stones outside the library. He turned and looked back. “Oh, I see. The library was simply cut in half to make this garden. Because it is facing the sea, it isn’t obvious that it’s here. A pity it has been let run wild. I wonder how many years since those glass doors have even been opened? Probably longer than you’ve been on this earth,” he added, smiling down at her.
As for Meggie, his smile meant that he was no longer upset with her. It was a vast relief. He had, she thought, smiled more since they’d arrived here at Kildrummy than he had during than the entire past month in England. She said as she