The Scottish Bride (11 page)

She was swept directly beneath an oak tree branch that was bobbing up and down in the water. She managed to wrap her arms around the thin branch, praying it would hold her weight. Thankfully, it was still attached to the tree. She was sodden and cold, her fingers nearly numb, her body aching, but she wasn't about to let go of that branch. She took a deep breath and pulled herself slowly, every inch she gained sending waves of pain through her body, up out of the churning water. It frothed around her, pulling, pulling. She didn't know if she could do it. She saw Erickson in her mind, pulling her legs apart, looking at her, and she gripped the branch with all her strength. In the next instant, she was free of the water, her legs up and wrapped around the branch. Then she managed to pull herself onto the branch. It was bending dangerously low, nearly touching the water.
Please, don't break, don't break
. She pulled herself along the length of it for at least six feet. She nearly fell, flattened herself on the branch, then pulled herself along again. She made it. At last, she
was hugging herself against the tree, taking huge breaths, thankful that she was alive and that Erickson likely wasn't close by. By now surely he had ridden farther down to where the trees fell away to reveal the myriad waterfalls, all of them at least a dozen feet high. She was grateful she hadn't had to go over them.

She was shivering violently as she climbed down the tree, going from branch to branch, her feet numb now inside her boots. Her gown kept tangling between her legs, making her slip, making her knees buckle with the weight. She was a mess. Her hair was hanging in her face, sodden and heavy. She pushed it back and kept moving slowly down the tree.

How far downstream had she been swept? A mile, perhaps more? She prayed it was much less. She was so tired and cold she was shaking now, her teeth chattering.

She panted for breath. When she felt the ground beneath her feet, she hugged the tree trunk for a moment. She was exhausted. She was also stupid. She couldn't believe she had jumped into that raging stream. Actually, truth be told, she would have jumped off the top of Ben Nevis to get away from Erickson MacPhail. Anything was better than being raped by him.

She began to walk back to where she'd left Primrose. Suddenly she heard Erickson yelling, heard his horse pounding through the underbrush. She froze in her tracks. No, he wasn't close. He was a goodly distance away, thank God. All she had to do now was find Primrose and get away from this place.

But where would she go?

She wondered if her uncle would allow Erickson in the house now when she told him what he had threatened to do to her.

Her head ached ferociously. Finally she found Primrose, lazily chewing on some slimy water reeds. She led
her mare away into the thickness of the pine trees. She waited there, even though she knew she risked becoming ill. She couldn't risk running into Erickson.

Finally, when she felt like a pillar of ice, she mounted Primrose. When she neared Vallance Manor, the first thing she saw was Erickson MacPhail's horse being held by one of her uncle's stable lads in front of the manor.

She knew then, all the way to her bones, that she was no longer safe here in her own home. No, she thought, it wasn't her home, it was her uncle Lyon's home. He wouldn't protect her.

She didn't know what to do, but then it didn't matter. She turned Primrose south, toward Kildrummy Castle.

 

Nunc, vero inter saxum et locum durum sum.

Now, I really am between a rock and a hard place.

 
 
 

“
G
OODNESS
, M
ARY
R
OSE
, what are you doing out here? You are all wet and shivering. What happened? Did your mare throw you? Oh, my, look at all those cuts on your hands and face! Let me get Papa.”

Mary Rose grabbed Meggie's arm as she slid off Primrose's back. “No, no, Meggie. No, please, I don't want to involve your papa in any of this . . . well, I guess it's a muddle. Nothing is good right now. I didn't know where to go. I can't see your papa, don't you see? He doesn't deserve any of this and—”

She knew she wasn't making sense. Meggie was only ten years old, she shouldn't be involved in this mess either, but now it was too late. She realized in a flash that this child was probably the only one who could help her. She got a hold on herself and said, “Listen, Meggie, I'm not hurt all that badly, just cut up and bruised a bit. But this isn't good. I've got to hide. Can you help me?”

Meggie didn't hesitate. She clasped Mary Rose's hand between hers and said, leaning close, “Yes, of course. First, let's take your horse to the stable. I will tell MacNee and Ardle to keep their tongues between their teeth. But why don't you want Papa to help you? At home he is involved in everything. All his parishioners call him whenever they have problems. He's really quite good at fixing things, even when a wife wants to hit her husband over the head with a board.”

Mary Rose nearly laughed at that, but the hopelessness of her situation was sitting heavy as a board on her own head.

“Actually, Mrs. Crow did hit her husband on his head, and he lost his memory for a while. Papa thought he was just pretending, but it got Mr. Crow a lot of sympathy from his wife.”

“I cannot, Meggie, trust me.” She wasn't going to spit out that it would compromise him, place him between her uncle and Erickson MacPhail, or perhaps place him against the two of them. No, surely her uncle didn't know what Erickson had planned to do. Surely he hadn't given him permission to do what he had to do to gain her agreement to marry him. She just didn't know, and not knowing, she couldn't take the chance that her uncle would simply give Erickson the key to her bedchamber and tell him to do what he wanted. Her voice wobbled a bit as she said, “I just need to hide for a little while, until everything calms down. Your papa doesn't need to know I am even here.”

“All right, Mary Rose. We'll figure all this out,” Meggie said.

Mary Rose watched her hand over Primrose to Ardle, who just nodded, never stopped staring at her, which wasn't surprising, since he'd known her forever, and she knew she must look like a madwoman, all frowsy and
wet. “Thank you,” she said to him. “Really, Ardle, thank you.”

“I'll take foin care of ol' Primrose, Mary Rose. Dinna ye fache yerself now, lass.”

She was very grateful to him. She smiled, remembering Tysen saying the same thing to her in his starchy, clipped English accent. No soft lilt to his voice. “Thank you,” she said again and lightly touched her fingers to Ardle's brown woolen coat.

Meggie whispered, clasping Mary Rose's hand, “Come, Mary Rose, you're terribly wet and cold. I know just where to hide you. You are beyond cold, aren't you? You're freezing. I don't want you to become ill. Hurry.”

Meggie led her up the servants' back stairs, pausing at each landing to see if anyone was around. They heard Mrs. MacFardle humming a goodly distance away. “That sounds pretty,” Meggie whispered. “I didn't know any sound she made could sound that nice. I'm glad we didn't see Pouder. He usually sits right by the front door but you can never be certain. I suppose you already know that.”

“Oh, yes. Pouder has occupied that spot since before I was born.”

“I have nearly tripped over him several times. He is Papa's valet-in-training, something he says he always wanted to be.”

“I have always liked Pouder. He was always kind to me. He was very old even when I was a small child.”

She wanted to giggle at the thought of Pouder seeing her, clutching his meager chest in shock, and expiring right there in his chair. She was becoming hysterical. It wasn't a good sign. She drew a very deep breath, trying to calm herself. She realized, of course, that what she really wanted to do was sink into oblivion, simply lie down in some corner and fade into the wainscoting. But she did neither. She docilely followed Meggie Sherbrooke
to her bedchamber in the north tower. It was one of Mary Rose's favorite rooms. As a child she had spent many happy hours playing in this wonderful room. It had been Ian's bedchamber, but she didn't tell Meggie that.

“Take off your clothes, quickly, Mary Rose, and climb into my bed to get warm. I'll find more blankets. Goodness, I don't think I have anything you can wear. You're a bit larger than I am.”

“Yes,” Mary Rose said, managing a slight smile. “Yes, I am a bit bigger than you.” She was stripping off her clammy clothes even as she spoke. Within two minutes her boots were on the floor beside all her wet clothes, and she was in the bed, shivering under all the blankets Meggie was piling on top of her. Meggie said, after she gently laid her palm against Mary Rose's cheek, “I'll find some clothes for you, don't worry. Yes, I will figure something out. You just stay there and I will fetch some hot tea. Hot tea is many times the best mediator. That's what Papa says. I don't know exactly what that means, but I think he's right. He usually is.”

Meggie slipped out of the bedchamber, closed the door quietly behind her. Mary Rose lay curled up, trying to get warm, but the cold was very deep. Even her blood was cold, the very marrow in her bones was freezing her from the inside. She tried to take deep, slow breaths. She tried to calm herself. She was out of that stream, she was safe, Erickson was nowhere about.
Breathe slowly, yes, breathe very slowly. You can do it, Mary Rose. You're safe now. Breathe
.

It seemed like forever until, finally, she began to warm. She realized then that her old riding hat was still atop her head, the plume tangled in her hair. She must look ridiculous. She reached a hand out from under the mound of covers and pulled it off. Then she tried to spread out her hair over the pillow. It required both hands to draw most
of the tangles out, and then she was cold again, so cold that she pulled the covers to her nose. Once she was warm, she quickly realized that every inch of her body hurt, fiercely. Well, it wasn't unexpected. The rushing water had slammed her against every boulder, every rock, every pebble in that wretched stream. She wondered if there'd been some fish she hadn't seen who'd taken a nip of her when the water had ripped her past them. She hoped none of the cuts or scrapes was bleeding. She didn't want blood on Meggie's bedclothes.

Her brain stopped when she heard footsteps outside the bedchamber.

Meggie, she thought. Please, it had to be Meggie. But of course it wasn't. It was boots, a man's boots, coming closer, coming to this bedchamber. There was a light tap on the door. Then Tysen's voice, and her heart nearly stopped along with her brain. “Meggie, are you there?”

Oh, God, what to do?

Then she heard Meggie say, her voice all delighted, so falsely full of pleasure that surely no one would be fooled by it, “Papa! Whatever are you doing here? Did you need me? Is there something you want me to do for you?”

Tysen hoisted an eyebrow and looked down at his daughter. “Actually I wanted to see if you would like to play a game of chess with me before dinner.”

Absolutely nothing came out of his daughter's mouth, which was so unusual that, so far as he could recall, it had never happened before. Tysen said slowly, eyeing that tea tray, “Well, now, why do you have a tray with tea on it? Are you having a party in your bedchamber?”

“Yes, Papa, I would love to play chess with you.”

“Meggie—”

“Oh, the tea tray. Well, you see, I was trying to write a song and decided that my throat was too dry to sing.”

There was a moment of silence, and Mary Rose, whose
brain was still frozen, wondered if Tysen would believe that nonsense. Naturally he didn't.

“Meggie, what is going on here? No more of your storytelling. The truth, if you please.”

Mary Rose knew she'd spill her innards if he asked her anything at all in that calm, utterly gentle tone of voice. She was getting cold again at the power of that voice. She held her breath, knowing that he would stride in at any moment and see her, and ask himself why the devil he had ever come to Scotland in the first place. If she'd had the strength, she would have slithered out of the bed and crawled under it. But she didn't have the strength. She just lay there, the covers now nearly to her eyelids, staring at that bedchamber door.

Silence, far too much silence, then a very small voice, Meggie's voice, saying, “Papa, don't make me tell you, all right? It's a promise I made to someone, a secret, and my soul will surely be damned to that bad place far below my feet if I tell anyone, even you.”

More silence, then Tysen said, a hint of approval in his voice, “I suppose you will eventually let me know what you are up to?”

“As soon as I can, Papa. I swear.”

He believes it is something inconsequential, Mary Rose thought, a little girl's whim, and she nearly yelled with the relief of it. She still didn't move, and evidently neither did Meggie, not until Tysen's footfalls had faded away down the long corridor.

Meggie was flushed to her eyebrows when she came back into the bedchamber. Mary Rose watched her turn the large key in the lock, then carry the tray over to set it on the small table beside the bed.

“Thank you, Meggie. I'm very sorry.”

“I didn't have to lie to him,” Meggie said, slowly pouring the very hot tea into a large, heavy mug, “and that's
a relief. I hate to lie to Papa because he feels it so very much when I do, do you know what I mean?”

“Yes. His disappointment makes you want to sink into the ground, doesn't it?”

“Yes,” Meggie said, handing her the mug, “it does. One would think that if you lied enough, you would not feel it so much, but it doesn't change. Oh, my goodness, Mary Rose, look at your poor hand, and your face. There are scratches all over you.”

“Yes, I know, but they're not that bad.” Actually Mary Rose didn't want to look. She just wanted to down every drop of that delicious, scalding tea in the chipped mug that Meggie had doubtless filched from a kitchen cupboard. She didn't say a word, just poured it down her throat. When she finished, she lay her head against the pillow again and sighed. “That was delicious, Meggie. I believe you have saved my life. You see, I jumped into a very fast-running stream and got swept over rocks. I got some cuts and scratches here and there, nothing to worry you.”

Meggie poured her another cup of tea. She didn't say anything, just watched Mary Rose sip slowly. “It's Mrs. MacFardle's favorite mug. It's the biggest one.” Meggie saw that Mary Rose's awful pallor was lessening and breathed a sigh of relief. “How long were you in the water?”

“Not more than ten minutes,” Mary Rose said. “Too long, but I managed to catch onto a tree branch and pull myself out. Everything is all right now. Don't worry, it would have been difficult to drown, the stream isn't deep enough, even now when the banks are nearly overflowing.” Surely Erickson realized that, surely he would never have left if he'd feared she could drown.

“But you couldn't go home?”

“I rode immediately to Vallance Manor. Then I realized I couldn't go inside.”

She saw that Meggie was frowning. Obviously she wanted to know what was going on, she wanted to know why Mary Rose couldn't stay at Vallance Manor. How to explain to a little girl that this man would have raped her if she hadn't jumped into the stream? That he was there at Vallance Manor when she'd ridden there, and she didn't know why? She closed her eyes. “I don't feel very well, Meggie. Do you think I could just lie here for a little while, perhaps sleep a bit?”

“Yes, Mary Rose. I will go play chess with Papa. Perhaps it will distract him. Perhaps he will forget that I am keeping something from him.”