For the Roses

'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't know 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 tell me?'

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