The Scottish Bride - Catherine Coulter [33]
Tysen felt as if he was listening to a language he had never heard before. He simply didn’t understand. He rose slowly and placed his palms on the tablecloth. “I will not allow this man to rape an innocent young lady.”
“I told you that he would rape her only if he were forced to. I have knowledge of this. I don’t approve of it, but Mary Rose is very stubborn. She doesn’t appear to accept what she is. Well, she does, I suppose, in a sense, but she has this stubborn pride that is completely misplaced. She gives herself airs. She believes herself to be above Erickson, which is utter nonsense. She won’t listen to him. She won’t accept him. She insists that she will not have him. She must be made to realize that Erickson MacPhail represents a tremendous triumph for her. Even her mother—when her wits are unclouded, which isn’t often nowadays—hasn’t said anything against Erickson.
“Perhaps you can assist us, my lord. Mary Rose must be made to see that if she weds him, mouths will be closed. All talk of what she is will stop. Erickson, as her husband, would ensure that all talk would end. If the lad has to force her, why, then, that is what will happen, and the consequences—namely, her marriage to him—will, by far, outweigh the rough-and-tumble methods.”
“Of course I will not assist in this. She doesn’t want to marry him. Trust her, she isn’t being coy. I tell you, she is terrified of him. Do you really want your innocent niece to be raped? To be forced into a union she fears?”
“You grow melodramatic, my lord. Erickson wants to marry her. It is a wondrous thing for her to wed with him. To gain that end, I approve whatever it is he must do.” Sir Lyon cocked his big head to one side, frowning until the light dawned. “My God,” he said, blinking at Tysen, “you don’t fully understand her situation, do you?”
Tysen was as baffled as he was angry. His voice was as cold as his brother’s when he donned his magistrate’s robes. “Understand what? This entire business should be distasteful to any civilized man.”
Sir Lyon threw back his head and laughed and laughed. He took a sip of wine and spewed it out, and still he laughed. Finally he managed to say, “I apologize for not realizing that you are new here and thus do not understand. Ah, it is amusing. Of course Mary Rose is my niece, but here is where you labor under a severe misapprehension, my lord.
“Mary Rose isn’t a lady. She is as far from a lady as it is possible to be.” Sir Lyon just shook his head at the young man’s obtuseness.
“Mary Rose is a bastard, my lord. She is an embarrassment. She has no worth, no value. She is not a lady, she can never be a lady. For reasons unfathomed by either myself or her aunt, Erickson MacPhail is willing to marry her. Since she refuses to have him, I have told him he may do what he must to bring her to the altar. If she does not wed him, she will never have anything, never be anyone, never have respect or recognition or even a civil nod from the local gentry. Nothing. Don’t you understand? She is and always will be a bastard.”
“She will have her mother and her good name.”
“She never had a good name.”
“Of course she does. Just because her parents were not man and wife, she isn’t to blame. Why can’t you leave her be? Let her do what she wishes to do? Respect her for the good and honest person she is? Perhaps, if her situation is so very dreadful here, and will grow only worse as she grows older, then she and her mother could live elsewhere, where no one would ever know about her being a bastard.”
Sir Lyon looked at Tysen with pity. “You are an optimistic man, my lord. You have high ideals. You believe the best of your fellow man. I, however, am not so sanguine. In my experience, some rare men are truly worthy, even selfless upon occasion, but usually men are weak and greedy and brimming with ill will toward those more vulnerable than they are.
“Ladies, too, aren’t all that benevolent, my lord. They