The Laird

by Grace Burrowes

  When he opened his eyes again, it was to see that Lady I-Want-to-Take-Your-Measurements Strathdee had also surrendered to the arms of Morpheus. She was curled on her side, her tartan shawl wrapped around her, a four-leaf clover in her fingers.

  They had passed a night in slumber, but that had been in pitch darkness. In the bright sunshine of a pretty summer day, Brenna asleep was an intriguing picture. She looked less severe, less busy, and less formidable—also tired.

  What had sent her looking for lucky clovers?

  Michael extricated her little treasure from her fingers and folded it in his handkerchief, then considered what a man was supposed to do, when he’d endured as much talking as he could possibly stomach in the course of one picnic and he found himself on a blanket with his pretty, sleepy wife.

  ***

  Brenna had been dreading the business of measuring her husband for his new kilts, and so, of course, she dreamed of his knees, which somehow managed to be handsome, for all they were knees. She dreamed of the way sunlight caught the red in the hair on his arms, and of the way his back curved down from broad, muscular shoulders.

  And between one thought and the next, her awareness became filled not with adult masculine muscle and contours, but with a particular combination of panic and nausea familiar to her from long acquaintance.

  She tried to sit up and strike out in one motion, though something prevented her from rising. “Get off me! Get off me now!”

  She flailed about wildly, and had just recalled that a stout kick in a certain location would win her free, when reason intruded.

  “Brenna Maureen, cease!”

  Michael had flattened her to the blanket with the simple expedients of his weight applied to her person and his hands manacled around her wrists. “You’ll unman me, you daft woman.”

  “Get off me.” She’d meant to crack the words over his idiot head, but they’d come out as a whisper.

  “Nothing I’d like better.” He rose up, first on his hands and knees, then to kneeling, his expression suggesting he feared for her sanity.

  Brenna scrambled away to sit up and wipe the back of her wrist over her mouth. “What were you about? Did you try to kiss me?”

  “Yes. Yes, I did try. On the cheek. You looked so pretty, and there’s nobody about, and a man should kiss his wife every now and again, because she sure as hell isn’t showing any signs of kissing him.”

  For all his faults, and for all the errors and omissions he had committed, Michael wasn’t wrong about this. He was also sporting a red patch along one side of his jaw.

  “I’m sorry if I struck you. I don’t like kissing.” While she positively loathed the seething dread suffusing her every limb and organ.

  And yet, if she’d asked her husband to rejoin his regiment, he could not have looked more confused. “I kissed you last night.”

  “On the—” Brenna touched her finger between her brows. “Here, and I was awake.”

  Michael settled beside her on the blanket, sitting tailor fashion, his bare knees much in evidence. “You don’t like kissing, or you don’t like my kisses?”

  “Kissing isn’t sanitary.”

  “For God’s—” He peered over at her, likely to see if she’d spoken in jest. “You’re serious.” Another look, full of consternation. “Kissing is just kissing, Brenna. It’s harmless. It’s sweet and tender and arousing and—”

  If he kept up with that litany, Brenna would soon cry, but he fell mercifully silent.

  The river babbled by, and a breeze riffled the grass. The scent of horses in the next field graced the air, and Brenna’s shawl—woven with a goodly complement of lamb’s wool—was soft beneath her fingers. She concentrated on those simple realities while her breathing gradually slowed and despair edged out panic.

  “So no kissing you awake of a morning,” Michael said. “In case you’re interested, I would not object if you sought to take a comparable liberty with my person.”

  As if she could. “I’ll remember that.”

  They gathered up the remains of the picnic, Brenna carrying the blanket and Michael the hamper. In a fit of contrariness Brenna could not explain to herself, she wished Michael might take her hand as they walked.

  And when he didn’t, she wished she might have the courage to take his.

  ***

  “You’ll be pleased to know, Uncle, that a party is being planned.”

  Michael wasn’t pleased. Roughly twenty-four hours ago, his very own wife had nearly kneed him in the ballocks, and not entirely by accident. The notion still upset him.

  Angus pulled a pipe from between his teeth. “A gathering, ye say? Imagine that. Best start sobering old Davey up now. If he arrives drunk, then we’ll no’ be dancing after midnight. Man plays a mean fiddle, and he’s the best piper in the shire, drunk or sober.”

  The first of the tenant calls lay ahead of them, and for Michael, another difficult night beside his difficult wife lay behind him.

  “I’m sure Brenna will see to Davey’s state of sobriety. Tell me about these cousins of hers.”

  Angus slipped his pipe into his pocket, a mannerism that had fascinated Michael as a small boy. He’d waited in vain for the day when his uncle’s jacket caught fire.

  “They’re hard workers.”

  When a man could say nothing else complimentary about another fellow, he offered that very observation. Among the English, “he can hold his liquor” was a similar sort of damning with faint praise.

  “What are their names?” Because this was another of the many topics Brenna had been unforthcoming about—or perhaps Michael hadn’t had the fortitude to ask her directly.

  “Three remain, two having gone for the fair woods of Pennsylvania. The oldest is Hugh, and the other two take their direction from him. The middle one’s Neil, and the youngest is Dantry. Stubborn, the lot of them. Typical MacLogans. They think to raise cattle, and yer da gave them good bottom land to do it.”

  “Cattle? Up here?”

  “Aye.”

  Many a female would have said Angus was in his prime, and yet he had the elderly ability to put contempt in a single syllable.

  “There’s demand for beef.”

  “Let the Lowlanders raise their beef. Cattle require fencing, and fodder in winter, and they take nigh a year to produce a single calf. Cattle produce no wool, and a good sheep hide will answer most any need for leather.”

  Michael turned the topic rather than listen to another panegyric to the ovine.

  “Other than a profane interest in cattle, have you any complaints against the MacLogans, or will they have any against me?”

  Campbell tried to snatch a mouthful of grass, for which Angus whacked him smartly on the shoulder with his crop, sending the animal dancing sideways.

  “The MacLogans keep mostly to themselves,” Angus said when he’d brought his horse under control. “Hugh lets Lachlan help out around the castle, because he knows Brenna will give the boy a few coins and will teach him to read, though you ask me, reading isn’t always a good thing. Letters put ideas in a fellow’s head, and there’s no dealing with a female who reads anything other than her prayer book or her recipes.”

  Brenna read. Michael had found her with a book more often than not when she’d been a girl.

  “Has Hugh MacLogan only the one child?”

  “He also has a daughter.”

  Again, the way Angus said only a few words suggested having a daughter ranked along with raising cattle and allowing a son to learn to read, though clearly, the worst transgression was—as it had been for centuries in the Highlands—having the wrong last name.

  “Hugh, Dantry, and Neil. The boy’s name is Lachlan. They’re interested in raising cattle, and they’ve good land to work with. What else?”

  Angus drew up at the foot of a track that lead off to a pair of whitewashed stone crofts. “You forgot stubborn, contrary, and independent.”

  “Now that’s odd,” Michael said, nudging Devil down the track. �
��Those are the very same qualities that distinguished many a Highland soldier when the fighting was at its worst. We stormed walled cities, climbed mountains, marched on nonexistent rations, and beat the damned Corsican’s men clear back to France—all on the strength of stubborn, contrary, and independent.”

  None of which, in Michael’s mind, had to necessarily result in the sort of close-minded, judgmental pontificating Angus was in a mood to dole out. The idea that Brenna had endured years of Angus’s tiresome sermonizing added another dreary dimension to an already dreary day.

  “You’ll see,” Angus muttered. “Can’t tell a MacLogan a damned thing. Never could. The lot of ’em are contrary and half-daft.”

  Because Michael knew little about raising cattle, he didn’t try to tell his tenants anything. Hugh MacLogan had Brenna’s red hair, her height, and the lanky build of many a crofter. Hard work and Highland weather had planed him down to muscle and bone. Being a MacLogan on a Brodie holding likely accounted for a lack of small talk and smiles.

  “You don’t interbreed the Highlands with the Angus?” Michael asked as he and Hugh walked along a stone wall between two pastures. Country-fashion, they traveled opposite sides of the wall, each man stopping occasionally to replace a tumbled stone from whence it had fallen.

  “They have different purposes, the Angus and Highland,” Hugh said. “Though the Angus are tough for all they gain weight more quickly than the Highlands.” He slapped a sizable rock back onto the top of the wall as if it weighed nothing.

  “MacLogan, is there a reason you keep glancing back at the crofts? Do you expect Angus will steal your chickens?”

  Something crossed Hugh’s craggy features, something between disgust and despair. “He’s your uncle.”

  “Yes.”

  “Ask Brenna why I might want to keep an eye on Angus Brodie.”

  A girl child with hair as red as her father’s came scampering out of the croft. At the sight of her, Hugh turned back, though he and Michael hadn’t walked half the perimeter of the pasture.

  “You’ve no wife,” Michael said. “Who looks after your daughter?”

  Hugh stopped and hefted another rock. “We do. She’s sensible, is my Annie, and a good girl.”

  The good girl scampered directly to Angus’s fancy black gelding, which brought Angus from his perch on a nearby stone wall, pipe in hand.

  “Hugh, are we in a hurry?”

  “Yes.”

  Another red-haired fellow had emerged from a cow byre halfway up the hill, and he, too, was apparently in a hurry to reach the crofts.

  “One of your brothers?”

  “Dantry. Boy has a temper and a mortal dislike for sheep.”

  And Angus was in a mood to sermonize. Michael nearly tripped over a loose stone at his feet, but didn’t stop to stack it back where it belonged.

  ***

  “Tell me about your cousins.”

  Brenna fussed as she tied a ribbon around the bottom of her braid, because this was not a topic she could have anticipated. “What do you want to know?”

  Michael turned down the covers on their bed, sat on the edge, dusted the soles of his bare feet together, and scooted back to arrange himself against the pillows. He was again wearing only his drawstring breeches, which Brenna took for a measure of husbandly consideration.

  “Do the MacLogans typically raise cattle? I know little about cows, though I enjoy a good cut of beef.”

  He wanted to talk about cows, while Brenna wanted to talk about kissing.

  Or the lack of it.

  “My uncle Seamus MacLogan had a fold of handsome Highlands. Ferdie and Amos MacLogan emigrated to Pennsylvania, where the winters aren’t so harsh. They think the Aberdeenshire blacks will do well there.”

  “Hugh plans to export cows?”

  Brenna blew out her last candle and draped her night robe over the foot of the bed. “You must ask him about his precious cows when Angus isn’t on hand to scowl and fume and pace about.”

  “I tried that. You’re leaving the window open?”

  “It’s a soft night. I like the fresh air.” Needed it, in fact. Brenna climbed onto her side of the bed. “Hugh is shrewd. If he thinks there’s a market for cows, then you can bet he has a reason for it.”

  Angus had reasons for criticizing anything Hugh or his brothers put their hands to, and Brenna did not want to discuss those reasons any more than she wanted to discuss cows.

  “When did your cousins come into Brodie tenancies?”

  “The spring after our marriage, as a condition of the settlements.” Brenna lay on her side, facing her husband, though she could not see him well.

  He shifted about, making the bed heave and rock. “You read the settlements?”

  “You didn’t?” In the pained silence following her question, Brenna realized she had insulted him without meaning to. “I’m sorry. That came out wrong. I know you read the settlements, because you signed them, as did I. I’ve had occasion to refer to them from time to time, while you could not.”

  He was silent, and the darkness abruptly took on an oppressive quality. No breeze stirred in through the window; no moonlight illuminated the bedchamber.

  “Brenna, if you had three wishes, would one of them be that you had never married me?” His tone was gentle, not accusing.

  “Michael, you’ve not been home three days. What are you asking?”

  His hand settled on her cheek, which caused her to flinch—but only flinch.

  “You startle whenever I touch you. Even in sleep.” His fingers traced her jaw, bringing her a whiff of vetiver and despair. He could not have asked her that fanciful, brave question about wishes in the broad light of day.

  “You surprised me, Husband, yesterday by the river. I’m not keen on surprises.” The way Michael had probably not been keen on French victories.

  He withdrew his hand. “So if I tried to kiss you now, you might let me survive with my manhood intact?”

  She could not guarantee that. “The conception of children doesn’t require kissing.”

  “You’ve made a study of this?”

  She had, in fact, to the extent that asking old women for specifics was a study, though worse than despair, she now heard mockery in Michael’s tone.

  “Maybe I could kiss you.” Brenna’s suggestion was unplanned and not at all likely to succeed. “You mustn’t expect much. I haven’t the experience you do.”

  Michael rolled across the mattress, so the warmth and bulk of him pressed against Brenna’s side.

  “The vast majority of my experience was gained before I married you, Baroness, and I would not object had you no experience at all. I am available to be kissed at your earliest convenience.”

  He was eager to mash his mouth against hers, eager to slobber all over her. “Maybe you should just swive me and have done with it.”

  “Brenna Maureen, you would sound more enthusiastic about selling Boru to the English. I’ll kiss your cheek now, despite your woeful lack of interest.”

  He kissed her cheek so quickly, Brenna barely had time to tense up in preparation—and then he rolled away.

  “Good night, Wife. I will dream of your kisses.”

  Brenna shifted to her side, so they were again back-to-back in the big bed. That kiss had been nothing. No slobbering, no enduring his tongue down her throat, no…nothing.

  And he had warned her.

  Brenna fell asleep wondering at Michael’s question: If he had three wishes, would one of them be that he hadn’t married her—or might he wish that his wife could someday kiss him with the enthusiasm any soldier home from the wars deserved from his lady?

  Five

  From the warmth of the big bed, Michael watched as his wife began her day. Brenna was inherently considerate, making little noise as she brushed out her hair and laid out her clothes. She was also inherently decent, too decent to admit she regretted marrying him.

  Because what, after all, could they do about it now?

  H
e struggled up against the pillows. “I’ve been thinking.” And thinking, and thinking.

  Brenna’s hands did not pause as she organized her hair into a thick braid.

  “Good morning. What have you been thinking about?” She remained facing the mirror, which of course meant she could keep surveillance on Michael in the mirror’s reflection.

  “I never wooed you. We never wooed each other.”

  She whipped a green ribbon around the bottom of her braid, tied a knot, and yanked the ends tight.

  “My da wanted a place to stash me. Your da needed a bit of coin. Wooing wasn’t necessary. I was eight years old when the betrothal contract was signed, for pity’s sake.”

  The way she batted the brush at the end of her braid suggested the topic—like many topics—annoyed her.

  Michael rose, retrieved their tray from the corridor, and placed it on the hearth. While Brenna tidied up the bed, he poured a mug of tea, added cream and honey, and brought it to her.

  “Wooing,” he said, extending the mug to her. The cup was the same one she used every morning—blue with pink roses. He wanted to tell her to leave the damned bed for the maids, except Brenna was a woman who needed to move about.

  And he’d yet to see a maid in this wing of the house.

  “Explain yourself,” Brenna said, accepting the cup but not taking a sip.

  “We are stuck with each other, why not make the best of it?”

  He caught bewilderment in her expression before she took to studying her tea. “Did you put honey in this?”

  “I did.”

  She took a drink, then set the mug back on the tray and resumed making the bed. “We could get an annulment.”

  Must she sound so hopeful?

  “Not likely. We’ve spent three nights in the same bed, we’ve had years and years to repudiate our vows, and I, at least, was an adult when we went through a ceremony the import of which I well understood. Under Scottish law, you were of age as well.” Though under English law, she’d been too young by years. “Based on the betrothal contracts, the union also had your father’s blessing while he was alive.”