The Scottish Bride - Catherine Coulter [77]
“Yes. She wanted me to come back with her to Vallance Manor. It seems that everyone wants me back there. How is your back?”
“I believe I will put you down in the drawing room and pour tea down your gullet. I am too blown to make it back up those stairs carrying you.”
Sinjun could but stare after her brother as he walked back up the steps into the castle. He wasn’t acting the way he usually did. He wasn’t being depressingly serious with nary a smile anywhere near his mouth. He was actually smiling, a beautiful smile, and it seemed to suit him very well.
Now he was amusing, he seemed to understand wit very well. But the most remarkable thing—he seemed happy. He was overflowing with it. So many years since she’d seen him like this, nearly more years than she could remember. She’d been so very young when he’d decided he wanted to be a man of God and had become as serious as an abbot and so pious she’d wanted to shoot him. Sinjun decided on the spot that she would kill for Mary Rose if ever the need arose.
When they walked into the drawing room, there was Colin standing next to Donnatella, who was leaning toward him, her hand on his sleeve.
Sinjun recognized the signs immediately. Donnatella was extraordinarily lovely, however, and it appeared to Sinjun that Colin wasn’t looking at all hunted, like he usually did when the ladies tracked him down and cornered him.
Sinjun said, “Would you mind if I stuck my fist in your cousin’s face, Mary Rose?”
“Perhaps you’d better not. You know, Sinjun, his lordship is very handsome,” Mary Rose said. “Donnatella very much likes handsome gentlemen.”
“Not this handsome gentleman,” Sinjun said and marched right up to her husband and the little hussy who was clutching at his sleeve, laughing overly much at something Colin had said, something that probably wasn’t all that amusing at all. Still, he was looking down at her like he indeed was the most charming, the wittiest male in the known world.
She said sweetly, “Colin, my dearest love, the love of my life, the man who praises my beauty endlessly. Do you remember how you promised me that we would visit that cave Meggie told us about? The one that is quite hidden, ever so private? The one where we can—well, never mind that. I do not wish to be indelicate. I am quite ready to please you now.” She moved closer until she actually pushed Donnatella away from him. She stood on her tiptoes and whispered in his mouth, “I have plans for you that will curl your toes.”
“You are transparent, Sinjun,” Colin said, caressing her cheek. “The truth is that you are jealous. No matter the amusement I am currently enjoying, your jealousy still pleases me. A cave, you say? You will curl my toes?”
“Harrumph,” Sinjun said, grabbed his hand and turned to face Donnatella, a sunny smile on her mouth that would, hopefully, offset the murder in her eyes. “Do forgive us, but we are still newlyweds and must hie ourselves off to dark, cozy places. My husband is a demanding gentleman. Good day to you, Miss Vallance.”
“I thought they had several children,” Donnatella said, staring at the now empty doorway. “I shouldn’t mind making love with him. He is a beautiful man. Ah, well. Mary Rose, you are looking ever so well again. Are you ready to come back with me to Vallance Manor?”
“Miss Vallance,” Tysen said easily as he lowered Mary Rose onto a dark-blue brocade settee, “not just yet. You will have to amuse yourself without your cousin’s company.”
“For how much longer, sir?”
“I haven’t yet decided,” Tysen said. “We will see. I will send a message when Mary Rose is ready to return home. You may return home now.”
Donnatella looked undecided, an expression that Mary Rose had hardly ever seen before on her cousin’s face. Donnatella always knew what she was doing—but not now. She merely nodded to Mary Rose and walked out of the drawing room.
Nothing much was said until Pouder, leaving his post by the front door, walked sedately