“Not just yet,” she said and bent to kiss his mouth. She was silent for a moment, her eyes closed. “It’s like we’re out of time here,” she said slowly, leaning back against the apple tree trunk. “Like it’s not only a different place and time, but we’re also apart from the world and all its realities and demands. Do you miss being the vicar of Glenclose-on-Rowan? It’s been nearly three months now.”
Tysen thought about that. He thought about all the people who had wished him and his new wife well. He thought of his children, their smiles, their laughter, the ferocious fights among the three of them, all of them won by Meggie. And he thought of his own laughter and joy just watching them, and just being with Mary Rose. Waking with her in the mornings, at the Vicarage, Ellis and Monroe stretched across the both of them, purring madly, listening to her speak to his children, seeing their smiles, just knowing that she was there and that she was his and his alone, just as he was hers. And the vicarage—it seemed lighter, and not just because the drawing room was now painted a pale yellow and those dreadful dark draperies had been taken down. No, it just felt as if the house itself had shaken off years of gloom and emerged into the light. It was a very happy place, with Samuel Pritchert the only gloomy face to be seen. Even Mrs. Priddie was smiling now. He’d actually heard her singing once while she baked some haddock in the kitchen.
He frowned. “Have I changed, Mary Rose?”
“Not that I know of,” she said, rubbing her fingers over his brow. “You have always been the same to me, always saying just the right thing, taking care of things. And your laughter, Tysen—I have always loved your laughter, the way you tease me, tease the boys and Meggie. Why would you ask such a strange thing? Haven’t you always been as you are now?”
He didn’t want to examine that. Perhaps he was even afraid for her to know that he had been at one time, perhaps, a bit stricter, a bit less humorous, perhaps even a bit on the stodgy side, even pompous and too austere in his notions, with everyone. “How do you like your new family?” he asked, grabbing one of her hands and holding it against his heart.
“Well, Douglas—the earl. When I first saw him I thought he must be dreadful, you know—stern and autocratic and very lord of the manor.”
“He is a natural autocrat.”
“Perhaps, at least until Alex happened to tickle him under his left arm and he laughed and grabbed her and then he pulled her down behind that settee and her petticoats went flying.
“Your laugh is a lot like his, Tysen. As for Alex, she is amazing, truly. Max has said that he now approves red hair. He said that an aunt and a stepmother have overcome his reservations.” She laughed. “They’re coming around, Tysen. They are grand children.”
“What do you think of Ryder and Sophie?”
“I think Ryder could seduce any woman between the ages of eighteen and eighty.”
“Even you?”
“Oh, no, I’m the only woman who wouldn’t succumb to him with a lovely sigh. You have some of him in you as well. You’re both so filled with kindness and laughter, and everyone seems to shine brighter when you’re near. You walk into a room, and everyone just seems to turn toward you, ready to smile. It’s the same with Ryder.”
He was like Ryder? His fun, carefree brother who’d enjoyed seven mistresses at one time?
“But there’s some of Sinjun in you as well, or perhaps you in her. Sophie manages to hold her own with Ryder—very difficult, I imagine. She’s quiet, just gets things done with no muss or fuss, and I believe that Ryder would crawl on his belly if she wanted him to. Such love and patience both of them have for all the children.”
“Oliver was one of Ryder’s first children,” Tysen said. “He knew only his first name, and hunger and endless cruelty. When Ryder found him in an alley in London, he was dragging his broken leg, trying desperately to find a pocket to pick so he could get some food.”
“But look at Oliver now. He is a man and he is smart and knows he belongs. Ryder did very well by him. And just look at you, a man of God, who cares for everyone in Glenclose-on-Rowan, prays with them, helps them overcome tragedy and unhappiness, and shares happiness with them. You are an excellent man, Tysen. Have I told you that I am the luckiest woman in all of southern England?”
“No, you hadn’t yet told me that.”
“I would be certain of it if only I could manage to get a racing kitten.”
“Hmmm,” Tysen said. “I will write to Rohan Carrington and see what the Harker brothers have to say.”
“I will be philosophical about it if I am rejected by them. Perhaps Leo is right. Perhaps Ellis would make a good racing cat. I saw him running from Mrs. Priddie once, and he flew across that kitchen, skidded on a polished patch, turned an entire flip in the air, and was gone again.
“Now, Tysen, I saw a good dozen of the children climbing all over you this morning.”
“It’s because I had the wit to stop in Lower Slaughter and buy all of them presents. They hope to get more out of me if they swamp me with attention.”
“If I swamp you with attention, what will I get?”
“Ah,” Tysen said, raising an eyebrow and looking up at her, “I just had a very great desire for the private gardens at Northcliffe Hall.”
“I have an excellent imagination.”
“And I have an excellent memory.”
26
Eden Hill House
Glenclose-on-Rowan
SAMUEL PRITCHERT, TYSEN’S curate for three years now, a stickler with a rigid soul, a man with a face so morose it was rumored that his own mother cried when he was born, said in his flat, deep voice, “Reverend Sherbrooke, I regret to report that the local ladies—so many of them—feel cut adrift from you, their pastor. They do not feel that you are truly back to minister to their needs. As the lovely and very young Mrs. Tate said, ‘Our dear reverend seems inattentive since he finally came back after his months and months of absence. He no longer cares about us.’ ”
Tysen just stared at him. He’d always thought it amazing how everyone spilled their innards to Samuel Pritchert within minutes of his appearing, despite the fact that Samuel always looked nearly ready to burst into tears—that, or simply sink into a pit of gloom. But everyone did speak to him, frankly, many times too frankly.
Tysen himself trusted Samuel implicitly to keep his finger on the emotional pulse of his flock. Samuel had just given his prologue. He was ready to move forward with but a nod from his vicar. Tysen didn’t want to hear this. Truth be told, he was afraid to hear more, but he knew he had no choice.
And so Tysen lowered his quill to his desktop, leaned back in his chair, and rested his head against his crossed arms. He said mildly, “I have only been home for eight days, Samuel. It is true that this will be my first sermon in three months, but you did an excellent job. I felt particularly moved by your sermon this past Sunday, for you presented it quite well. It would seem to me that any flock would like an occasional change of the guard in the pulpit.
“Now, tomorrow is Sunday, and I will once again be before them, my time away from them over. Why, Mary Rose and I visited with everyone before we went to Brighton and then on to visit my brothers. I have been home to stay for a week now, and everything is back to normal. I have seen everyone in these past days, spoken to everyone, commiserated with everyone, prayed with everyone. Surely both Mary Rose and I have taken tea with nearly everyone yet again, and I will say that everyone has been quite civil. So please tell me, Samuel, how could they possibly come to this conclusion, a conclusion that is nonsense, of course?”
“Be that as it may, sir,” Samuel said, not answering the question because he deemed it irrelevant, “I must tell you that I always strive to communicate God’s word to his flock, and to communicate the flock’s words and feelings and thoughts back to you.”
“Very well. Tell me what I haven’t seen.” At Tysen’s nod, Samuel gently cleared his throat. Tysen could see that he was striving to find a tactful way of delivering the blow. He sa
id finally, reluctantly, “I feel it my duty, sir, to remind you that you are no longer in Scotland, surely a place of sufficiently strict Protestant ethics, a place that surely holds no more sinners than we have here. But nonetheless, the Scottish people are still not our sort. Perhaps they changed you, sir, presented you with problems that made you think differently from the way you’ve always thought, made you yell and howl when normally you would speak quite calmly, perhaps even whisper, made you perhaps question—perhaps even deny—all the spiritual and pious philosophies you have hitherto always firmly believed and espoused.”
“Although your words flowed quite nicely, Samuel, I am not entirely certain I understand what you just said.”
“You would have understood before you left for Scotland, sir. You would have answered me in the same vein—before Scotland. Ah, it is difficult, Reverend Sherbrooke. I will endeavor to clarify my sentiments. The Scottish people, sir—they are, quite simply, not like us. They do not share the exact breadth, complexity, and depth of our beliefs. They do not comprehend or appreciate the ways we look at ourselves and at the world. They are different from us, sir.”
“Ah. What sort are we, Samuel?”
“We are Englishmen, Reverend Sherbrooke.”
“I begin to see. And my wife isn’t.”
“That is correct, sir. From what I’ve learned, our people are striving out of respect for you to tolerate her if you will but return your former self to them. That means, sir, that they want you the way you were before you left for Scotland. They want the real you to come back to them.” As Tysen’s eyebrow was still elevated, Samuel added, near desperation in his voice, “They very much want you to try very hard to be yourself again. No one else, just your old self, the very introspective and devout self that was in full bloom here before that old and revered self left for Scotland.”
“The way I was before I went to Scotland,” Tysen repeated slowly. “What do you think they mean by that, Samuel?”
“I have even spoken at length with many of the men and the ladies in our flock, Reverend Sherbrooke. They have sought me out, actually, many of them. They wanted to speak to me. Mr. Gaither, who now owns the Dead Spaniard Inn—he just purchased it this past week from his older brother, Tom the Wastrel—something you didn’t know and it would have been nice if you had but known and commented upon it.
“Ah, yes, my point is that Mr. Gaither was the men’s spokesman. He told me that they have all discussed the situation amongst themselves. I have to say it, sir—though it smites me to have to—they have even gone so far as to smirk and leer. They are jesting at how a pretty woman has brought you—a devout man of God—as low as a young man rutting his first female, as low as a young man who has no thought, no caring for anything save his own fleshly desires. Mr. Elias even reported that he saw—actually saw—you kissing your wife, sir. He said it nearly knocked him on his, er, arse.”
Tysen nearly roared out of his chair then, ready to separate Samuel Pritchert’s head from his shoulders. He caught himself with effort, and simply nodded.
“It has quite bothered me, sir, because they now see you as one of them—no longer a man of God who has always been set apart from them, set apart from the base desires that seem to plague men and bring them low time and time again.
“They see you, quite frankly, as now being as weak and as much of the flesh as they are, as consumed by matters of the flesh as they and their neighbors are, as all their friends and enemies are. They fear for you, sir. You have fallen low. You are, in their eyes, no longer their spiritual leader. You have fallen from grace.”
Matters of the flesh. Tysen froze. He thought of the last three months, all the glorious nights and glorious mornings, each and every one of them filled with endless delights, endless tenderness and discovery, and dear God, endless lust that bowed him to his knees, made him heave and pant and yell with the utter joy and wonder of it, and emptied his brain of what he was, what he used to be.
Samuel was right. He wasn’t the same man now as the one who had traveled to Scotland. He realized that he’d been smiling for at least three months now, smiling at nothing in particular, something he hadn’t done since he’d been a very young man, since before he’d decided to become one with God, a spiritual man of the Church, before he’d met Melinda Beatrice.
He saw himself clearly then, the before and the after. After that decision so long ago, he’d become dour, so very serious, that he was humorless, unable to see anything that brought simple joy to life. From that point, he’d had only one goal, only one focus. Over the years, that focus had been on the people for whom he alone was responsible. They were to look up to him, to depend on him to tell them how to solve their problems and to succor them in their time of need and pain. And these people expected certain behavior from him, he’d known that very well, and he’d never let them down, before he’d gone to Scotland, before he’d wed Mary Rose.
Certainly he’d always loved his children, but he’d never given them his unstinting attention or the unfettered joy he now lavished on them and on himself and on his new wife.
Mary Rose. His wife. He’d made love to her that very morning, kissing her awake, his hands all over that smooth, warm body, feeling such pleasure, such overwhelming need that seemed to grow greater each time he became one with her. He’d awakened, he remembered, with a wondrous smile on his face, and hard as the oak planks of the bedchamber floor.
Tysen rose and walked to the windows. It was gray and cold outside, a nasty, dreary drizzle streaking down the glass. It had moved from fall to winter in such a short time. He realized he was cold, cold all the way to his bones. He said nothing to Samuel, just walked to the fireplace and built up the fire. Then he drew in a deep breath and turned back to his curate, who hadn’t moved, just stood there, silent and still.
Samuel said at Tysen’s nod, “I will be blunt, sir. Our people do not want a foreigner here. They want you, but they want you the way you were before you went to Scotland and brought her back.”
“Go away now, Samuel.”
“There is just a bit more, sir.”
“Very well.”
“It seems it is your laughter, sir.”
“My what?”
“Your laughter, sir, your unconcealed lightness of spirit, your unexpected flow of charm, your wit. It makes them uncomfortable, it makes them feel as if their spiritual leader has become a stranger. It is your lack of seriousness, sir, that alarms them, your lack of proper gravity and conduct, of proper perspective on what is important in life. You have changed into a different man. All have remarked upon it. You are no longer their spiritual leader. You have diminished in their eyes. Their faith suffers because of it. There, I have said it. I hope you will forgive my bluntness.”
“I thank you for your bluntness, Samuel. Go away now.”
Tysen didn’t move until Samuel was out of his study. He turned to stretch his hands to the fire. He rubbed his neck, feeling knots he knew hadn’t been there ten minutes before. Then he realized that it was only eleven o’clock in the morning and he was again hard with lust for Mary Rose. He’d made love to her three-and-a-half hours before, and now he wanted her again. She filled his mind, she filled his heart—perhaps even his very soul, which, until she’d popped into his life, had been filled only with God and with God’s mission for him on this earth.
No, she didn’t own his soul. No, that wasn’t possible. He hadn’t sunk that low yet. But she’d changed him by giving him her body, by giving him her trust, by giving him all the love that filled her, and it was abundant.
He knew she loved him, although she hadn’t yet said the words. She was open, guileless, her love for him shone in her eyes. And what did he feel for her, his wife? The woman who had changed him utterly?
He didn’t want to think about it, he simply couldn’t. He’d become single-minded, a man lost in his own appetites, in the gratification of his own selfish needs.
It repelled him even as he accepted that it was true.
/>
Even at twenty years old and newly wedded to Melinda Beatrice, he’d never felt this overwhelming intensity of need for another person, this frantic desire. Yes, call it by what it is—lust. But it was more than that. Melinda Beatrice had tried to yield to him because she’d loved him, had told him she loved him countless times, and she’d wanted to be his wife and his clerical helpmeet, but it hadn’t lasted. Very quickly he’d visited her bed only when he realized he had to so that children could be conceived. And life had become, he’d supposed, what it had needed to become, what it was meant to become, and he had gained what he’d sought.
He was surely respected, surely admired, surely needed, since he’d tried with all his being to fill his role as the spiritual adviser to nearly an entire town of people.
Ah, but now here was Mary Rose. She was his. Just to be near her, to touch her, to feel her pleasure when he touched her with his fingers, with his mouth, was something he’d never even considered before, but with her it had seemed so very natural, so important somehow to share her own pleasure with her, to know that he was giving her pleasure. And when he came into her, when he heard her crying out his name over and over when she reached her climax, he’d felt blessed. He’d felt beyond himself. He’d felt more than he was.
She made him feel like a man who was cherished, and surely that was something blessed.
Not only was she loving and giving to him, she was dealing well with his stubborn boys, even telling Max the previous evening at the dinner table to eat his broccoli—in Latin. Max laughed so hard he had to hold his stomach. In fact, Tysen had heard Max mumbling several times at the breakfast table just this morning so he wouldn’t forget: “Aut id devorabis amabisque, aut cras prandebis.” Mary Rose, when asked by Meggie what that meant, gave them all a sunny smile and said, “It means ‘You’ll eat it and like it, or you’ll have it for breakfast tomorrow.’”