The Scottish Bride - Catherine Coulter [44]
Meggie knocked and peered around the door an hour later. She grinned at her father and ducked a sweet curtsy to Miles. “I am here to fetch you to tea.”
Miles, Tysen quickly realized, wasn’t immune to his little hussy of a daughter, who was flirting shamelessly with him. Since she was ten years old, her twinkling eyes and smiles were given to a man she was ready to accept as a favored uncle. This appeared to delight Miles. Tysen just shook his head at her.
It was while Tysen was sipping his tea that he realized he had the solution to his estate problem; it was staring him in the nose. “Oliver,” he said aloud.
Meggie turned to him, her head to one side. “What about Oliver, Papa?”
“Your uncle Douglas wants him to assist in the running of Northcliffe. I, however, believe it’s Scotland where Oliver will make his way. I think Oliver might be just the man to run Kildrummy.” Tysen rubbed his hands together, then told Miles exactly who Oliver was. “. . . so you see, my brother Ryder Sherbrooke has always taken in abused children—loved them, cared for them, and ensured that they were placed with excellent families or given the skills for the trade they wished. Oliver Dalrymple was one of his first children. He is now—is he twenty yet, Meggie?”
“Oliver is twenty-one, Papa. He just came down from Oxford in early June.” She said to Miles, “Do you like his name? Dalrymple?”
“It sounds quite noble,” Miles said. “There have been several Dalrymples who have figured prominently in the government.”
“Yes, that is what Uncle Ryder told him. My uncle Ryder selected it for him, you see. Oliver didn’t know who his papa was; then his mother died—it was due to something called blue ruin, Uncle Ryder said. I don’t know what that is, but it killed her. All he knew when Uncle Ryder found him was that his name was Oliver. Now he sounds ever so elegant.” She frowned a moment, then added, “And complete. Oliver is now complete.”
“He is a very lucky young man,” Miles said. “Just imagine, finding abused children and taking them in. It is an excellent thing your brother does, my lord.”
“All of my uncle Ryder’s Beloved Ones are lucky,” Meggie said and poured him another cup of tea, beautifully executed because of the lessons her aunt Alex had given her.
Tysen was rubbing his hands together again. “I must write a letter. Miles, I will join you later. Meggie, keep out of trouble.”
Tysen wrote a letter to Oliver and one to Douglas, and dispatched Ardle, one of his stable lads, with the packet to Edinburgh. Now, he thought, striding to the stables, it was time to beard the MacPhail laird in his den.
He found the MacPhail manor house without difficulty. It was about the same size of Sir Lyon’s holdings, but Erickson’s holding wasn’t as nicely kept up. The lawn in front of the manor house needed a half a dozen men with sharp scythes, walls needed paint, stone needed to be replaced.
Erickson MacPhail wasn’t at his manor house. The laird was riding, he was told by a pinch-mouthed housekeeper whose sleeves and hands were dirty.
Where would he be?
It was late in the afternoon. Mary Rose had ridden back to the rushing stream. When Erickson came some ten minutes later, she knew he’d seen her and followed her. “Marry me,” he said.
“I don’t want to marry you, Erickson.” Mary Rose spoke calmly, her voice slow and patient, although her heart was beating so fiercely in her chest she thought it would surely burst out of her.
“You have told me that, Mary Rose,” he said, his voice just as calm as hers, perhaps a bit patronizing because he believed her to be toying with him, and he thought it naught more than a silly woman’s game, and he’d tired of it. He’d more than tired of it the day she’d raced back into the forest and he’d lost her.
She really was quite lovely, he thought now, knowing he would get his way because