For the Roses (45 page)

He noticed her hands were shaking then. Her brothers must have noticed too. Douglas frowned with concern. "Are you feeling all right, Mary Rose? You aren't coming down with Eleanor's ailment, are you?"

"No, I'm fine."

Harrison decided not to wait to find out what was wrong. He took hold of his bride's hand and half dragged her to the other side of the porch.

"What's the matter with you?"

"Nothing," she whispered. "I'm just a little nervous."

"Why?"

"I just got married." She all but wailed out the fact.

Harrison tried to take her into his arms. She glanced over her shoulder to look at her brothers, then backed away from him.

The audience obviously embarrassed her. Harrison held on to his patience.

"I just got married too."

"Yes, of course you did," she agreed. "It happened awfully quick, didn't it?"

"Why don't you want to sleep in your room tonight?" She looked horrified. In a low whisper she said,

"They'll hear, Harrison. My brothers hear every little sound." He nodded. He finally understood. "We need a proper honeymoon."

She gave him an exasperated look. "You have to go to Hammond tomorrow." He nodded agreement. He hadn't forgotten. "Know what I think we ought to do?" He leaned down close to her. She edged a little closer to him and tilted her head back. "What do you think we ought to do?"

"Go tell Corrie."

"Tell her what?"

"That you're a married woman," he explained. "Let's spend the night in the cave. Do you think you could find it again?"

"Yes, of course I could find it. Harrison, do you really want to sleep on a rock floor tonight?"

"I want to get you alone, Mary Rose. Got any better ideas?" He could tell from her expression that she was warming to the idea. "I've been thinking a lot about that cave," he whispered. "I want to go back, but this time, when you start to take off your clothes, I won't stop you." Her blush intensified, and she hastily looked over her shoulder once again to make certain her brothers hadn't heard.

"Go and pack your things," he whispered. "I'll tell Adam where we're going."

"Samuel would be happy to fix a basket of food for us," she said. "Let Adam ask him, please. He'll hide from you."

Harrison still didn't believe they had an actual cook, but he went along with her game. They left for the ridge an hour later. Mary Rose insisted on taking Corrie another basket of gifts, and Adam let her include a book written by a popular fellow named Mark Twain with the condition that Corrie return the book when she was finished reading it. Only then would he lend her another one of his treasures to enjoy.

His bride spent less than an hour talking to her friend, and they reached the cave a little before dark. She'd carried along a thick quilt, and they used it for their mattress. They didn't need extra blankets that night, for the heat of their bodies pressed against each other kept them warm. It was the most romantic night either one of them had ever experienced. It was also quite educational for Mary Rose. There weren't any inhibitions, and because they were isolated from the rest of the world, she felt free to do whatever she wanted to do. Harrison taught her how to pleasure him, and she was eager to learn. She was awkward and timid, but only in the beginning, and when she saw how he reacted to her touch, she became bolder and more sure of herself.

By morning light, husband and wife were too exhausted to move. They slept in each other's arms until nearly eight o'clock, made love once again, and reluctantly returned to the ranch. Harrison left for Blue Belle to meet the judge a short while later. Mary Rose kissed him good-bye and then went up to her room and slept the rest of the morning away.

She walked around in a haze of bliss for the rest of the day. Eleanor was back to complaining about every little thing, but Mary Rose was too happy to be bothered by her grouchy friend. Cole carried Eleanor downstairs for supper. Her fever had finally broken, and although she looked pale, she had regained her appetite.

She made Cole carry her back up to her room after she'd eaten, and he stayed inside her bedroom a little longer than was necessary. He had told Douglas he was going to have a talk with her about his lack of intentions.

Eleanor didn't take kindly to the news that Cole wasn't the marrying kind. She didn't much like hearing he'd only been dallying with her because he thought she'd be leaving soon, either, and by the time he left the room, she was shouting every raucous curse she had ever heard. She threw a porcelain vase at him and clipped him on the shoulder on his way out the door.

Mary Rose decided to give Eleanor time to calm down before she went upstairs to try and console her. She helped Douglas with the dishes. She thought it was odd that her other brothers continued to sit at the table, and after she'd finished the kitchen duties, she was invited to sit back down. Adam explained there was an important matter to talk about.

She sat in Harrison's chair and faced the eldest brother. Her hands were folded in her lap. She leaned back and smiled, relaxed now, for she believed the matter concerned family finances. The brothers only wore such grim expressions when they were worried about money problems. Cole began the discussion. "Harrison came here with two motives in mind, Mary Rose. He wanted to learn about ranching because he wants to eventually retire from law and build up a ranch of his own, either in the Highlands or maybe even around here."

"Yes, I knew what he had in mind," she agreed. "But you say he had another motive as well?"

"He was looking for someone," Douglas explained. "That was his other motive… and, I guess you could say, his primary reason for coming to Montana."

She waited a full minute for her brother to continue before she realized he wasn't going to say another word. She turned to Travis.

"Who was he looking for?" she asked.

"You," Travis blurted out.

He couldn't or wouldn't expound further.

The duty of explaining fell on Adam's shoulders. He cleared his throat and then proceeded to tell her all about a baby girl named Victoria.

She never said a word throughout the story Adam told her. She shook her head several times, silently denying the possibility that she was indeed Lady Victoria someone or other from England, of all places, but she listened with an open mind and tried to make sense out of what he was telling her.

It took Adam a good twenty minutes to give her the full story, and when he was finally finished, all the brothers waited for her to show some sort of reaction.

Cole expected her to be angry. He was somewhat surprised when she continued to look only mildly curious.

Douglas was more perceptive. He concluded she wasn't convinced she was Elliott's long-lost daughter.

"Don't you believe us?" he asked.

"Do you believe I'm Victoria?" she countered.

All four brothers nodded. "There is substantial proof," Adam explained. He then outlined the facts for her once again.

"How do you feel about meeting your father?"

"I don't have a father. I have four brothers."

"Don't be stubborn, Mary Rose," Adam said. "Think this through. I know it's a surprise. Of course it is. You have an entire family back in England. You can't pretend they don't exist. Your father has been searching the world over for you."

"Don't you want to go and meet him?" Travis asked.

She lowered her head and stared into her lap. There was so much to think about, she didn't know where to start.

"I feel compassion for the man. I cannot imagine what it must have been like for him and his wife to lose their infant daughter."

"You were their infant daughter," Douglas gently reminded her.

"Yes, so you say," she whispered. She gripped her hands together and tried to remain composed. "But I don'tknow him, Douglas. I feel sorry for him, but I don't have any love in my heart for him. He isn't my family. You are. It's too late to start over."

"Aren't you curious to know what he's like?" Travis asked. She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. "Not really," she admitted.

"I don't understand Harrison's involvement in all of this. He works for Elliott, doesn't he?"

"Yes, he does," Adam said.

The truth was slow to settle in her mind, but once it did, she began to feel sick to her stomach. "And you're telling me that he came to Montana because of the interview I suffered through with the attorney in St. Louis? All of this started because a woman thought I looked like Elliott's wife?"

"Yes."

"Then… Oh, God, then everything Harrison told me was a lie. From the very beginning he had this other motive. He never said a word to me. Not one word. If I am Victoria, as you all seem to believe, why didn't Harrison tellme ?"

Cole grimaced over the anguish he heard in his sister's voice. "He didn't trust any of us for a long time," he explained.

"No, he never trusted any of us," she agreed.

She seemed to wilt before their very eyes. The desolation on her face made her brothers ache for her.

"Mary Rose, listen to me," Adam ordered. "You had been kidnapped. Harrison didn't know if we were part of the plan to take you from Elliott. We were just boys, yes, and so he discarded the notion that we had planned the kidnapping, but he had to keep silent until he found out who was the mastermind behind it. He was being cautious."

"He betrayed me, didn't he? I'm his wife now, and yet he kept this from me?" The younger brothers looked to Adam, hoping he would be able to calm their sister.

"You and Harrison will have to work this out together," Adam advised. "I want to know how you feel about going to England to meet your father. Harrison has to leave soon, but I had thought to give you more time to get used to the notion of having a family over there before sending you off. Eleanor could go with you. Mary Rose, don't shake your head at me. Try to be reasonable about this. You owe it to the man to at least go and meet him. He's had a lifetime of suffering. Let him see you and know in his heart that you're all right."

"I think maybe we ought to give her some time to think about all of this," Travis suggested. "She looks kind of stunned."

She looked furious to Cole. He knew Harrison's behavior was the reason she was so upset. She knew and loved him. Her father, on the other hand, was still a foreign concept to her, and one that would take time to get used to before she could decide what she wanted to do about him.

"Sleep on it, Mary Rose," Cole said. "You don't have to do anything until you're ready to." She was suddenly too tired to think about anything. Her stomach felt like it was on fire, and all she wanted to do was go up to her room, get into her bed, and pretend none of what she'd just learned was true. Like the ostrich she'd once read about, she wanted to bury her head in the sand and let the rest of the world scurry on by without her.

Tears streamed down her face. Cole handed her his handkerchief before she could ask for it. Lord only knew how many times her brothers had seen her cry before. She didn't have to hide anything from them or pretend to be someone she wasn't.

She stood up, braced her hands on the tabletop, and asked, "Am I supposed to go to London and become a member of a family full of strangers? What do you expect of me? Tell me what the right thing is that you're so sure I'll do."

"We'll talk more about this tomorrow, after you've had a good night's rest," Adam suggested.

"Harrison is your family now, Mary Rose. You married him, remember? You don't hate him, do you?" Douglas asked.

She had to think about his question a long minute before she answered. "No, I don't hate him. How could I? It appears I don't even know the man. Oh, God, Douglas, I'm married to a stranger. I don't know what's real about him and what isn't. Was everything a pretense?"

"Granted, Harrison did have an ulterior motive," Douglas argued, "but after you've had time to think about the situation, I'm sure you'll realize…"

She cut him off. "I'll realize he never, ever trusted me, and I sure as certain can't trust him. He deceived me. He pretended to be someone he wasn't."

She was suddenly too furious to go on. She grabbed Cole's handkerchief and began to wipe the tears away from her cheeks.

Had he been pretending to love her? Oh, God, had that been a fabrication too?

"Harrison wasn't always pretending," Cole insisted. "He did turn out to be real inept, didn't he?"

"Try not to overreact, Mary Rose," Travis suggested.

"Why are all of you defending him?" she demanded.

"We've had time to think about his reasons for proceeding slowly," Adam explained. Travis tried to come up with a suitable parable or comparison that would put it all into perspective for his sister. It took him several minutes to think of something that made a little sense to him. He waited until there was a lull in the discussion, and then said, "Do you remember all of the stories we read to you about the knights who lived back in the middle ages? The baron sometimes killed the messengers who carried bad news. Well, Harrison's sort of like a messenger. None of what happened was his fault. He didn't steal you out of your crib and throw you in the trash. I think you should remember that." Cole liked Travis's comparison. He latched on to it with the tenacity of a child holding on to a piece of forbidden candy.

"If you had lived back in the middle ages, do you think you would have killed the messenger?" She glared at her brother. She thought his question was a stupid one at best.

"No, I wouldn't have killed the messenger, but I sure as hell wouldn't have slept with him either." None of her brothers felt like correcting her unladylike language. They understood how upset she was. If cursing made her feel better, they wouldn't stop her. Their little sister looked stricken, and devastated.

"What about your father?" Adam asked her once again.

"You said we would talk about him tomorrow," she reminded her brother. "If I do decide to go to England, will all of you go with me?"

The younger brothers made Adam answer for them. He leaned back in his chair and shook his head. He

suddenly felt as weary as an eighty-year-old.