The Scottish Bride - Catherine Coulter [53]
What to do? Mrs. MacFardle had some medicinal cream he could apply after Mary Rose was bathed. No, he wouldn’t say anything about her to Mrs. MacFardle. He didn’t want her to know that Mary Rose was here. Further, she obviously didn’t approve of a bastard being treated like a person of value. He cupped his hand against her breast again, pressing more firmly to feel the beat of her heart. And he couldn’t help himself. He looked at her in those few moments as a man looks at a woman, and he saw that she was nicely made, so very white, her flesh smooth and her breasts wonderfully shaped. His fingers flexed against her flesh, then he grunted at himself and quickly jerked his hand away. He closed his eyes for a moment. He couldn’t think like this, couldn’t allow himself to see her as a man who wanted her. She was very ill. He heard a soft knock on the door. He pulled the nightshirt back up and covered her again.
Meggie was there, holding a basin of hot water, several cloths over her arm, and a bottle of ointment clutched in her hand. “Excellent, Meggie. How did you ever get that ointment from Mrs. MacFardle?”
“I had to lie to her, Papa. Since she doesn’t know me as well as you do, she believed me when I told her that you had cut your hand.”
“You did well. Now, I want you to go back to your bedchamber.”
“Papa, please let me help you. Mary Rose is—”
“Mary Rose is what?”
Meggie frowned toward the young woman lying in the middle of her father’s bed. She struggled to find the words. “It’s just that she’s very alone, even though she lives in a houseful of people. I don’t think there’s anyone for her. Not even her mother. She needs me.”
Just as I need you, Tysen thought, and smiled down at his precious daughter. He cradled her cheek in his hand. “I promise I’ll take good care of her. No one is to know yet that she’s here. If anyone asks about me, just tell them that I am not feeling well and am here in my bedchamber. Now, I don’t want you to stay, sweetheart. Go now.”
“You will call me if she worsens?”
“I most certainly will. I promise.” Tysen waited until Meggie had slipped out of his bedchamber.
He locked the door, then walked back to the bed. Tysen hadn’t ever taken intimate care of another person, except his children, of course, after their mother had died. He’d rocked them endlessly when monsters had invaded their dreams, wiped their foreheads when they’d been downed by fevers, held them when they vomited, rubbed their stomachs when they had belly cramps. But Mary Rose wasn’t a child. She was a grown woman, and she wasn’t his wife.
There was no choice. It was either that or ask Mrs. MacFardle to see to her, and that he couldn’t, wouldn’t, do. He remembered how she had purposely hurt Mary Rose’s ankle just because she hadn’t believed she belonged here at Kildrummy Castle, in the drawing room, in the same company with her betters.
“All right, Mary Rose,” he said, staring down at her. “I’m all you’ve got.”
He stripped her down, examined every inch of her, bathed her, rubbed the ointment that smelled like pine and lavender mixed together into every scratch, abrasion, and cut on her white body. No, he wouldn’t think of her as having a white body, as having soft white flesh. He realized that she was shivering and quickly put her into his nightshirt again. He took his well-worn dark-green brocade dressing gown and wrapped that around her as well. He pulled the covers to her