The Scottish Bride - Catherine Coulter [51]
He felt instant, corroding fear. He hoped it didn’t show on his face. “And you believe she is here?”
“There is no place else she would go. Of course, her aunt claims that she would never come here, that she would be too embarrassed at her behavior, but I disagree.
“Come now, where is she, my lord? You must tell her that she is to come to me, at once.”
“I’m sorry,” Tysen said slowly, staring at Sir Lyon, whose face was becoming alarmingly red, “but I am afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why would Mary Rose disappear? What has happened?”
“I do not know,” Sir Lyon said.
Tysen said, “You do not lie well, sir. Come into the drawing room and tell me why Mary Rose felt she had to leave your home.”
Sir Lyon bellowed at the top of his lungs, not moving an inch, “Damnation, there is nothing at all to tell, particularly to you, a bloody English vicar! She is my niece, in my care, curse her eyes, and I want her! Now.”
Pouder jerked upright, blinking his rheumy old eyes, then shaking his head.
“She isn’t here,” Tysen said calmly.
“Aye,” said Pouder. “Mary Rose isn’t here. I haven’t left my post for the past three hours and then it was just for a moment or two when I was needed to fold his lordship’s cravats.”
Tysen smiled at the old man, then said again, “Mary Rose isn’t here.”
Sir Lyon knew when most men were lying. And he knew to his bones that this damned young man, who was also a vicar, wasn’t lying. His eyes were clear of deceit, and a man who deceived as well as Sir Lyon did certainly knew deceit when he saw it. No, the young man’s voice was firm and unexcited. Sir Lyon also understood choler, knew what it felt like, what it sounded like. No, the damned young man, the cursed English vicar who was also the new Lord Barthwick, wasn’t lying, damn his eyes. “Then where is she?”
Tysen said very slowly, his fear for Mary Rose rising with his level of anger at this man, “What in God’s name have you done, man?”
“Nothing, I tell you. Nothing at all. The girl—no, she’s not a girl at all anymore, curse her, she’s a damned woman. She is flighty, too flighty for a spinster of her advanced years, and she is stubborn, more stubborn than her madwoman of a damned mother. She turned him down flat, and naturally he didn’t like it.”
Tysen felt his anger turn to rage. It was pouring through him, making his pulse pound, sending his blood roaring, ringing in his brain, making his eyes red. “MacPhail tried to rape her, didn’t he?”
“No! Bloody hell, I don’t know! She jumped in the bloody stream and was quickly swept away from him. He couldn’t find her.”
“Are you telling me that MacPhail just left and came running to you?”
“No, certainly not. He looked for her quite thoroughly, then rode back to where she had jumped in. Her mare was gone. Obviously she’d come back and taken her mare. Besides, even overflowing like that stream is now, it isn’t deep enough to drown a goat, much less a person. But, curse her eyes, she didn’t come home.” Sir Lyon cursed long and low under his breath. Then, oddly, he looked as if he would burst into tears. “I just don’t know where she has gone. Are you certain she isn’t here? Perhaps hiding from you?”
“She isn’t here,” Tysen said, and then, of course, he knew that she was. He waited until Sir Lyon, his ire bursting loose, had ranted even more, until his face was so red that Tysen feared the man would collapse with apoplexy in his entrance hall. Pouder never moved in his chair, never said another word, just kept his eyes on Sir Lyon, no expression at all on his seamed face.
“You will keep me informed,” Tysen said as he nearly shoved Sir Lyon out the front door.
“You will tell me if she comes here?”
“Very probably not,” Tysen said. He didn’t say anything more, just waited at the top of the steps until Sir Lyon had mounted his horse and was gone out the front gates. He turned slowly and walked back to the dining room, saying over his shoulder, “Don’t worry, Pouder. Sir Lyon will calm down.”
“He be a mangy one, m’lord,” Pouder said,