The Scottish Bride by Catherine Coulter

Author:Catherine Coulter
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc.
Published: 2001-12-12T23:00:00+00:00

16

Vallance Manor

“SHE WON’T MARRY me.”

Sir Lyon was disgusted with the young man who was sitting in front of him, his hands clasped between his knees, looking bewildered and defeated. He’d had such faith in him, not only in his good looks but in his ruthlessness. He’d believed him utterly dedicated to this task, but he’d failed.

Sir Lyon said, “Stand up and pull your shoulders back, damn you. You have hardly tried. Good God, man, get her away from that cursed vicar, and it will be done.”

Erickson raised his head. “He won’t even allow me to be alone with her. Neither will his daughter. She was practically crouched over Mary Rose to protect her from me. What am I supposed to do? Pound a man of God into the bloody ground? Lock the little girl into a closet?”

“No, of course not. If you did that, you’d be hung up by your heels.” Sir Lyon drank down a snifter of his fine French brandy. He rubbed his chin. He felt a clump of hair that his valet, Mortimer, blast the fellow, had missed when shaving him that morning. Sir Lyon said slowly, rubbing his palms over the brandy snifter, “There has to be a way to get to her, to spirit her away from Kildrummy Castle. Then the vicar would be out of it. What could he do? Nothing at all. Damnation, boy, I can’t believe she actually jumped into the stream. I always believed Mary Rose an obedient, diffident little thing.”

“She’s changed, sir,” Erickson said, and for a moment, he was puzzled by it. But it was true. Rather than freezing like a doe in a hunter’s sights, just days before, she’d run away from him into the pine forest near Kildrummy. He said slowly, “I can remember her as a little girl. She was quiet, obedient, just as you said. I remember that she was always standing on the outside of things, watching, listening. Maybe she’s changed slowly, small things that I just haven’t noticed. But she’s managed to keep herself away from me for a very long time now. I have tried every tactic, but nothing has worked.

“As I told you, she escaped me last week. She actually managed to run away from me. And she escaped me again yesterday. She moved very fast. I was reaching for her, and then she was in the water, being swept downstream. She’s a strong girl. She pulled herself out, since there was no one else about to do it.”

Sir Lyon wasn’t much impressed. “She’s a female. Find a way to get her. Hold her down so she can’t run away.”

Erickson looked toward the fireplace, its grate empty now, and the painting of Sir Lyon’s great-grandfather, William Thatcher Vallance, hanging above it. He’d been a terrifying old man who had left more bastards in the area than anyone before or since. He said, “When Ian and I were boys, we were always searching every nook and cranny of Kildrummy, trying to find secret passages.

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