The Scottish Bride Read Online Free

drawers. Marigold finally realized what everyone was staring at and ran screaming after her before she could get too far outside the vicarage gate.”
    Tysen thought, You are indeed a rat-faced little idiot, Leo, but naturally he didn’t say that. He said very quietly, “I am vastly disappointed in you, Leo. The good Lord can only imagine what your mother would have said.”
    Max said matter-of-factly, “Mother would have shrieked, pounded the wall with her fists, and had hysterics for at least two hours. Leo prefers Meggie’s punishments. Why, just two days ago, she took Leo’s neck between her hands and nearly squeezed the life out of him.” Max was silent for a moment, then said, “About Mother and hysterics, that’s what Mrs. Priddie said Mother would do whenever one of us didn’t mind. I don’t remember, myself.”
    Tysen didn’t remember the pounding fists, but he did remember the hysterics. He said, “I will not be here to enforce your punishment, Leo, but here it is. You will not stand on your head for six days. You will not do any flips down the corridors of Northcliffe Hall. You will not cut anything at all with your scissors. You will treat your sister like a royal princess. Do you understand me?”
    Leo bowed his head. “Yes, Papa. I understand.”
    Max looked perplexed for a moment, but the look was gone so quickly that Tysen wasn’t at all sure he’d even seen it. “You boys will obey your aunt and uncle. You will enjoy yourselves when it is allowed. You will notaccept any gifts from young ladies who come to Northcliffe Hall to bestow them on your cousins or your aunt and uncle.” Then he hugged both of them and even patted Leo’s head.
    He heard Leo say to Max as he closed the bedchamber door, “Papa didn’t say anything about me not standing on my head at night—he just said six days.”
    â€œLeo,” Max said, “you will surely go to hell.”
    â€œNo, Papa wouldn’t allow that,” Leo said. “Why couldn’t Papa at least inherit a title that would make us lords? Surely there must be a dukedom lying about not being used. We’ll be just the same. Maybe Uncle Douglas has an extra title or two hidden away in some old book that he doesn’t need.”
    â€œUncle Douglas,” Max said in his lecturer’s voice that drove both Leo and Meggie right over the brink, “has only one extra title, and James has it. You know that. He’s a viscount—Lord Hammersmith—because Uncle Douglas is an earl and he doesn’t need it anymore. Well, no, actually, he’s also a baron of some sort. I don’t remember the name.”
    Leo said, “Poor Jason. He’s nothing at all. He’s as bad off as we are.”
    Tysen was smiling, he couldn’t help it, even though he knew he should give a token frown. He didn’t sleep well that night. He’d looked briefly into Meggie’s bedchamber, but all the lights were off and she was obviously asleep. He hated to disappoint her, but there wasn’t a place for a little girl on this trip. The good Lord only knew what awaited him in Scotland. He looked forward to seeing Sinjun and Colin and their children.
    He left the following morning at dawn, his driver Rufus and a stable lad tiger as his to ride behind the carriage and pay all the tolls, both provided by his brother and both sharp at their positions. His own gelding, Big Blue,was tied to the back of the carriage under the watchful eye of the tiger, whose unlikely name, Rufus had told him, was Pride.
    He didn’t realize that his tiger wasn’t really one of Douglas’s stable lads until they were in Edinburgh five and a half days later.

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    Taurum per cornua prehende.
    Take the bull by the horns.
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    August 22, 1815
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    I T HAD BEEN a long journey. Tysen was riding Big Blue when at last they entered Edinburgh. He had written