The Scottish Bride - Catherine Coulter [43]
“Goodness, how ever did she manage that?”
“She played a ghost and terrified the old besom.”
“I should like to hear all about that. Meggie seems very resourceful. Mrs. Griffin has been about Kildrummy Castle forever. Mr. Griffin, I have heard, was quite the rake in his younger years. Irresistible, he was, I’ve heard it said. But you see, it is now Mrs. Griffin who holds the reins of power. She has for as long as I remember. No one knows how it came about. Is his deference to her merely an act? I don’t know.” She paused and smiled. “She’s never paid me any attention at all, since I am a bastard. I wasn’t even invited to have tea with her. Just Donnatella was.”
“Mary Rose, do you want to marry Erickson MacPhail?”
She nearly slid into the stream, she jerked about so suddenly.
He grabbed her arm to steady her. “I’m sorry, but I had to ask you that. You see, your uncle believes you will come around once Erickson has the chance to really speak to you. Your uncle is certain Erickson can talk you into it.”
“I would sooner be sent to Botany Bay than marry him,” she said, that stubborn jaw locked, and he believed her.
She added, “He looks like such a charming young man, but he isn’t. Actually, he isn’t really a young man at all. He is nearly thirty.”
Suddenly Tysen saw a pain in her eyes that came from something that had happened long ago, perhaps an awful memory. He said, “What, Mary Rose? What are you seeing, remembering?”
She slowly turned to face him. “Once, about ten years ago, I saw him accost my mother.”
10
TYSEN SAT AT the laird’s very old, scarred desk in the airless library, Miles MacNeily beside him. He had expected the estate manager to be a wizened old man with tufts of gray hair encircling his head, but he wasn’t. He was older, certainly, but not over forty-five. He was tall and lean, very smart and quite fine-looking, his hair the burnished red so common to Scotsmen and his eyes very blue. He dressed well. Tysen wondered why he had never wed.
“Yes, my lord, you understand this all very well. It is because you come from great landholdings in England. All of this, well, it must seem paltry in comparison.”
Tysen merely smiled at that intelligent face and shook his head. He would miss Miles MacNeily. He had learned a great deal from him in just the past day. It appeared that MacNeily’s mother had left him all her holdings near Inverness. Mr. MacNeily would, unfortunately, be leaving within the month. He would be his own master. Tysen thought he would do very nicely as his own master.
“Actually, Miles,” Tysen said, “it is my brother who is the earl, the lord of all he surveys. Don’t forget, I am a vicar, I have always been a vicar. Anything I know I suppose I have simply absorbed over the years.”
Miles gave him a charming smile. “Perhaps, but you have a fine brain, my lord. I have no doubt that I am leaving Kildrummy in good hands.”
“Thank you. Even a vicar enjoys hearing such things said about him. Did you work well with the former Lord Barthwick?”
“Ah, Tyronne, the old laird, he could yell like no man I have heard in my life. I learned to move away from him quickly when I knew he was working himself up to a fury. I didn’t wish to lose my hearing. It never took much to have him screeching his head off. Yes, my lord, we worked well together. It did not take him more than a dozen years to come to trust me. Kildrummy has been my home nearly all of my adult life. I have been happy here. I will miss it.”
They worked for another hour, reviewing the situation of all the Kildrummy tenants, the problems they either faced now or would probably face in the near future. They spoke of all the Kildrummy holdings in the village, the number of flocks of sheep and herds of cows, improve-ments to be made. And on and on it went. It wasn’t an immense task, but there were many details that Tysen knew he would have to commit to memory if he were