"I am sorry about Mrs. Beach. However, I am here to see the vicar, Mary Rose."

"Ah. May I ask why? You see, Tysen is dreadfully busy right now, or at least he's trying to be busy. Every time he looks at Rory, he still must pick him up and toss him over his head just to hear him shriek with laughter. That's why the sermon is lagging behind."

"I don't plan to keep him from either Rory or his sermon for very long. I just want to ask him if I can marry his daughter."

Mary Rose didn't hesitate, gave him a big smile, and said, "Oh, I am so very pleased, Thomas, so very pleased indeed. Meggie has been so unhappy, although you wouldn't readily see it, but her father and I know her very well, and we've worried so much about her since we didn't know what was wrong. Then you came and wooed her, and just look what has happened. Oh my, both Rory and Tysen will be delighted to see you. Come this way, Thomas."

Thomas set his hands on her shoulders before she turned to dance away down the corridor. "I hope the vicar will accept me. He is a fine man. I think you would make a magnificent mother-in-law."

"Now that's a frightening thought," Mary Rose said. "I will try not to become a shrew and a tyrant, like my own mother-in-law, who, I am convinced, will outlive even her grandchildren. Tysen! Come here, Thomas Malcombe wishes to speak to you."

When Tysen asked her to come in a few minutes later, Mary Rose said, "We will have champagne, in just a moment. How delightful that Meggie will live here. We had always feared the day she wed that she would move to a faraway land and we would scarce see her."

"Well," Thomas said, "we won't be living here all the time, Mary Rose. I have other homes."

When Meggie followed the commotion into her father's study, she realized that Thomas had already done the deed.

"Well," she said from the doorway, dangling her straw bonnet by its ribbons, "will my father allow this business to proceed, Thomas?"

"Oh yes," Mary Rose said, and rushed to enfold her stepdaughter in her arms.

The champagne was quite delicious. Rory, who'd never left the study, and who hadn't really cared that he would gain his first and only brother-in-law, was allowed a small sip.

Tysen drank the champagne, smiled, said all the right things, but worried. He worried that he didn't know a damned thing about Thomas Malcombe. He worried that Meggie was marrying the first acceptable man to ask her when she still loved Jeremy Stanton-Greville, something he wasn't about to tell Mary Rose.

As for Thomas Malcombe, Tysen would find out everything about the damned man-down to his birthmark-before he allowed his precious daughter to walk to the altar. But Meggie was smiling, grinning like a fool, actually. She'd always had excellent instincts. He'd always trusted her, but this was for life, no reprieves if the man turned out to be a gambler or a womanizer. And what about her feelings for Jeremy? Had he put the nail in her feelings before he'd left? Were they gone now? Was this a sign of it? He wished he knew.

When he thought about it later, Tysen knew he would be very surprised if indeed he found a skeleton lurking in the back of one of Lord Lancaster's closets. He was an excellent young man.

Still, he would look.

Chapter 11

WHEN TYSEN FINALLY managed to snag his daughter away from the rest of the family, particularly Alec, who wanted to show her a new racing cat training technique that involved a bucket, he led her through the vicarage garden, to the gate, and down the path to the cemetery, where few parishioners chose to spend any time when not absolutely necessary. He needed privacy. He unlatched the very old black wrought-iron gate, slowly pulling it open for her to step onto the path that led into the depths of the cemetery.

The air was different here. Still and soft, as quiet as fingers stroking a racing cat's back. Meggie stopped, breathed in deeply, and said over her shoulder, "You come here when you wish to think, Papa. I remember you sitting on that one particular bench from my youngest years. I used to wonder why you so admired Sir Vincent D'Egle, a medieval warrior who likely wasn't an overly religious man. I picture him in battle, yelling and swinging his sword and finally being cleaved in two himself at far too young an age."

"Cleaved in two? Actually, I also rather fancy that might have happened to him. However, no matter how he died, there is something about his grave that draws me back," he said, smiling down at her as he took her hand. "I don't know why this should be so, but I know that when I sit there, and I hear Mr. Peters ring the church bells, I feel peace and calm seep into my very bones. You still bring flowers to his grave."

Meggie nodded, and said, "It will rain soon. Can you feel how heavy the air has suddenly become? How it is already wrapping itself about your head, wanting to soak you? I've decided that it rains too much in England. Everyone is so tired of feeling damp to their toes and-"

"Meggie, I must speak to you."

"I know, Papa. You're being very gentle with me. When you do that, I know there is something you're dreading to tell me. I can take it. Has Leo done something awful at Oxford? Will I need to go there and fix things? Try to teach him what's what?"

"I devoutly hope not. No, it's something else, Meggie."

She looked at him steadily. "This is about me, isn't it? And about Thomas."

"Oh Meggie, my sweet girl, let's sit here beside Sir Vincent on his bench. Yes, this is about Thomas. I am your father and you know down to your bones that I will always want what is the very best for you."

She didn't say a word, just looked at him and waited for the ax to fall.

He realized in that moment that she just wasn't ready to be blighted. He was willing to wait, and when he paused, she quickly said, her hand lightly closing over one of his, all forced smiles and enthusiasm, "I was listening to Mary Rose read Rory the story of Renard the Fox."

"It is his favorite," Tysen said, running his fingers over the smooth worn gray stone. "But Mary Rose must read it to him only in Latin." He shook his head, looking a bit bewildered. "How very strange it is. We live in the modern world, yet two of my sons and my wife speak Latin. Latin. It boggles the mind, Meggie. Now, my dear-"

Meggie said quickly, "I meant to leave, but then she started reading him Chanticleer the Cock. Mary Rose can even cock-a-doodle-doo in Latin."

"Rory is only four years old, Meggie. At least he doesn't announce his age yet in Latin."

Meggie laughed. "He will. Give him a couple more years. You know that Mary Rose is very smart, Papa. I believe she was learning Latin at Rory's age." Tysen looked at his daughter while she spoke, so Sherbrooke in her looks-blondish brownish hair with all the shades in between, and clear light blue eyes the color of the summer sky. In short, she looked like him, only her features were more finely drawn. Her chin, he thought, was very possibly more stubborn. As for her temperament, his daughter saw something that needed to be done, and she did it, no shilly-shallying about, no excuses, never procrastinating. She felt strongly about things, many times too strongly. No middle ground for her. He remembered she'd been three years old when she saw old Mrs. McGilly struggling with several packages on High Street and had immediately tried to help her. But she wasn't strong enough, and so had fetched two men from the tavern to tote the bundles. One of them, Tysen remembered, had been very tipsy and proceeded to drop the packages. Meggie had scolded him.

He grinned with the memory. Yes, his Meggie knew only one direction-forward. In this, she was just like her aunt Sinjun. And, he knew, she wanted to move smartly forward with Thomas Malcombe, Lord Lancaster.