The Laird

by Grace Burrowes

  “I can do that,” Brenna said. “I can also bake shortbread. I don’t recognize that coach.”

  Because Brenna was not preoccupied with the bathers, she’d seen what Elspeth had not noticed. A heavy traveling coach, luggage lashed to the roof and the boot, was heading for the castle along the road from the east.

  “Michael’s baggage?” Elspeth suggested.

  “Maybe.”

  The coach clattered over the drawbridge spanning the dry moat. Footmen and grooms came out to meet it, as did Michael and Angus.

  “Is he spending more time at the castle?” Elspeth asked.

  The breeze dislodged a strand of Brenna’s hair and whipped it against her mouth. “Yes. With Michael.”

  The coach came to a halt, the sweat on the horses and dust on the carriage testifying to a long journey.

  “Tell Angus he’s not welcome.”

  “Angus is Michael’s family. I cannot tell my husband to refuse his uncle the castle. Michael would think me ridiculous.”

  “You tell Angus. Tell him his every wicked deed will be laid at Michael’s feet if he doesn’t keep himself away from you and your husband.”

  An older woman, plump and plain, climbed out of the coach. Michael hugged her, then Angus bowed over her hand.

  “You told me, Elspeth, to listen to my husband, and I will certainly make the attempt, but what’s to say he would ever listen to me? He loves Angus, he trusts Angus, and Angus is making himself appear indispensable.”

  Elspeth did not point out that all of those factors had applied between Angus and Michael’s father, too.

  “You have company, Lady Strathdee. Best go welcome them.”

  Brenna left, and when Elspeth resumed spying on the beach, the bathers were nowhere to be seen.

  ***

  “I’m not coming out.”

  An odd feeling skittered down Michael’s spine as he beheld his sisters’ old nurse standing in his very own bailey. “That is a child’s voice.”

  A tired, unhappy child’s voice.

  “So it is,” Prebish said, still beaming at him as if he were her long-lost son—which, in a sense, he was, or as good as. “Miss Maeve, come ye out and make a proper curtsy to your brother.”

  The odd feeling curled more tightly around Michael’s vitals, despite the pleasant lilt of Prebish’s County Mayo brogue. “You brought Maeve?”

  He was going to kill his sister Bridget, or the King’s mail, because either a critical letter had been lost, or Bridget hadn’t done him the courtesy of writing.

  As Michael had neglected to write regularly to his own wife?

  “I’m not coming out. Scotland is cold and bumpy, and all they have to eat here are scones, bannocks, and fish.”

  And there was Angus, watching Michael with thinly veiled curiosity.

  “Ye could haul the little blighter out by her heels. Begin as ye intend to go on, I always say. Children need to know who’s in authority.”

  How would Angus, a confirmed bachelor, know what children needed?

  Before Michael could raise that salient point, Brenna came down the castle steps, skirts swishing and no smile in evidence. Michael climbed into the coach.

  “Hello.” His youngest sister was young indeed. He’d never met her, but she was the image of Erin at her age, all big blue eyes, freckles, and coppery braids. “I’m Michael.”

  “I know. It’s your fault I had to leave Ireland.”

  The girl looked exhausted, rumpled, and stubborn. Exhausted and rumpled were easily remedied.

  “How do you figure it’s my fault? I had no idea you were coming.”

  Which was the wrong thing to say. Maeve gave him a look his mother often gave his father, and not when they were in charity with each other.

  “Bridget is having a baby, and she said you’re a baron now, so here I am, and my backside hurts.”

  He could haul her bodily from the coach, because the way her arms were crossed and her chin was jutting suggested nothing less would pry the child from her tantrum. Because her backside was not the only part of her aching, Michael shifted to sit beside her.

  “Did Bridget give you a letter for me?”

  “No. She was crying.”

  A little catch in the girl’s voice portended tears looming much closer than County Mayo, so a change in tactics was in order.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “I am full of scones and cold tea, and I nearly retched halfway up from Aberdeen because of the stupid roads.”

  Which was worse? A nauseated child or a tearful child, and why was it his business? Michael was on the point of reaching for his sister when a form darkened the coach door.

  “Well, thank goodness you’re here, then.” Brenna climbed into the coach and took the seat opposite. “You look like you could use a trip up to the parapet.”

  “No more trips. I hate trips.”

  “Come here,” Brenna said. Her smile suggested great mysteries lay on the opposite bench, which for Michael, they rather did. “Look up. Way, way up.”

  The girl switched seats and gawked out the window as Brenna pointed at the battlements. “Bridget said I’d live in a castle, like a princess.”

  Live? As in grow up here? Next to where resentment stirred, Michael felt a curious pleasure, to know Bridget had entrusted their youngest sibling to his permanent care.

  “I’m Brenna, and I live in that castle. So does your brother Michael.”

  “Brenna the Baroness,” the child said, still craning her neck to see the stone walls soaring over the bailey. “The castles in Ireland are mostly falling apart.”

  Brenna slipped an arm around the child. “This castle is in excellent repair, though it hasn’t any princesses. It does have a wonderful big kitchen, though.”

  “I hate scones.”

  “You are tired,” Brenna observed, and three words had never held such compassion. “Coach journeys are the worst.”

  Maeve leaned against Brenna’s side. “They’re long.” Her weary, wistful tone suggested even nine years on the Continent couldn’t have been as long.

  “And bumpy,” Michael added. Both females glanced over at him as if they’d forgotten he was in the coach.

  “Very,” Maeve said.

  Now what to say? Michael did not want to bodily overpower a small child with half the footmen, Angus, Prebish, and Brenna looking on, and yet, he wasn’t about to humor the girl much longer. She was his responsibility, after all.

  “What’s needed here,” Brenna said in a considering tone, “is shortbread.”

  Maeve peered up at her. “Shortbread? Not scones?”

  “Shortbread,” Brenna said. “Have you ever had it with lavender in it?”

  “Is it purple?”

  Of course it wasn’t purple, but it was delicious.

  “I haven’t had lavender shortbread since I went to Portugal,” Michael observed, casually, of course.

  “Then I think it’s time we made some,” Brenna said. “Though that will require a trip to the kitchens.”

  “Are the kitchens up there?” The child pointed aloft at where, oh joy, Elspeth Fraser and two other maids appeared to be watching the drama below—or watching the footmen.

  “No, those are the parapets,” Brenna said. “That’s where I go to think. We can take our shortbread up there and feed crumbs to the birds.”

  Lucky birds.

  “I like birds. We had lots of birds in Ireland.” As if she were a bird, the child fluttered out of the coach without another word. Michael followed then turned, intent on assisting his wife from the coach. When he extended a hand to her, she hesitated then placed her fingers against his palm. That inspired him to haul her down the steps so she careened into his chest.

  What he should have done was express his gratitude that she’d handled the child so well. Perhaps he should have kissed her knuckles or beamed a husbandly smile of relief at her.

  “Save me some shortbread.” He growled the words right in her ear, nothing hus
bandly or beaming about them.

  “A small bite,” she said, smirking up at him.

  The last of the resentment Michael felt to have a child thrust upon him—and a cranky, stubborn child at that—evaporated in the pleasure he felt at his wife’s smirk. He set her on her feet and swung the child up to his back.

  “Come along, Maeve Brodie. You’re old enough to learn to make your own shortbread.”

  Because a man could never have too many women mixing up batches of shortbread in his castle.

  They left Angus in the bailey, his expression bemused.

  Six

  “Come along,” Michael said, picking up the plate of shortbread with which the evening meal was to have concluded.

  Brenna did not like his tone, but she would wait to tell him that until they were in the privacy of their rooms. He came around the table and held her chair for her, so she added that to the list of items they’d discuss in private.

  “I don’t recall either of my sisters having a sense of self-possession to match Maeve’s,” Michael said as they climbed the stairs. “It unnerves one.”

  “A girl without parents faces a choice. She can either cower away from life, wondering which loved one will be taken from her next, or she can meet life head-on.”

  Michael paused on the landing, and by the flickering light of a mirrored wall sconce, Brenna caught him studying her. She plucked a bite of shortbread off the plate and marched up the steps.

  “Maeve is bright,” Brenna added. “She’ll manage.” Or she wouldn’t, and there was nothing Brenna could do about it. The thought ached bitterly.

  “She’s young, to be shuttled back and forth like this.”

  “She’s likely the same age I was when I came to the castle.” Brenna shoved the shortbread into her mouth lest she make more irrelevant observations.

  “Nearly. She will be very pretty.” His tone suggested a brother’s wary concern, rather than a stupid man’s glee that another pretty female would be larking about the realm.

  Brenna waited while Michael opened the door to their sitting room. “So it’s a good thing her brother is a baron, right?” she asked.

  “It’s a good thing her brother’s a big fellow with a stout right arm. In ten years, I should also be able to dower her adequately, if we can enforce a few economies.” He closed the door behind them and set the shortbread down. “Would you object very strenuously if I put my arms around you right now?”

  Men were a fickle lot. Brenna placed her uneaten bite of dessert back on the plate. “Not very strenuously.” Not at all, in fact.

  Michael enveloped her in a simple sturdy hug. He smelled of good things—the outdoors, cedar, and clean wool—and his embrace offered the same sanctuary it sought. “We’ve had an eventful day.”

  Brenna’s fingers drifted through the soft hair at his nape.

  “Another eventful day, but guests are a pleasure, and your wee sister should know her only brother.”

  Something about his embrace shifted, and then he drew away.

  “Maeve is not a guest. Prebish had a letter for me from Bridget, all brisk and sensible. The good Lord has finally seen fit to bless my sister’s union with the probability of a child, and the baby must claim Bridget’s focus.”

  He accepted that reasoning? “Balderdash. A woman can love more than one child, particularly her little sister and her own baby.”

  Michael took a lit candle down from the branch on the mantel. “She can, but Bridget’s husband does not approve of Maeve’s forwardness, and isn’t about to take on the expense of tutors, governesses, a pianoforte, and the other necessities of a young lady’s upbringing.”

  Brenna felt cold without her husband’s arms around her, and yet, a fire this time of year would be an extravagance. “Are we to incur those expenses?”

  “We’ll find a way to manage them.”

  He disappeared into the dim recesses of the bedroom. Brenna had no choice but to grab the plate of shortbread and follow him, because the discussion was not finished.

  “This castle is no place for a little girl. She’ll have no playmates.”

  “You managed. In a house notably devoid of girls your age, you managed just fine. Besides, Hugh’s Annie is about Maeve’s age, and there are bound to be other girls in the village Maeve can play with. This isn’t England, where the lord in his castle doesn’t associate with his own people.”

  Brenna put the shortbread on the night table, when she wanted to pitch the entire plate at her husband.

  “I did not manage. I endured, and I had no choice. Hugh will never let his Annie spend time under this roof.”

  As if nothing were amiss, as if Brenna’s words mattered not at all, Michael unknotted his cravat and draped it over the open door to the wardrobe.

  “When a man doesn’t pay his rent, he’d best not disdain the hospitality of his laird’s home.”

  “What?”

  He pulled his shirt over his head. “Angus says if the tenants paid timely, we’d not be short of cash. Your cousins are among the delinquent accounts.”

  Brenna took his shirt from his grasp.

  “They pay, Michael. What is your uncle going on about? Every family pays, though many pay in kind, and some need a little extra time.”

  He sat to pull off his boots, the candlelight illuminating the powerful musculature and bones of his back. “I can’t pay taxes with blankets and bread, Brenna. Angus was very clear about that.”

  Angus. Of course, Angus was clear.

  She hung her husband’s shirt up, needing to turn her back on his casual nudity and on the fatigue his posture revealed.

  “You’re to evict the slackers and run more sheep?”

  “Brenna, please come here.”

  Please. He held out a hand to her, as if in entreaty, though he’d issued an order. She put his boots in the hallway first, for show, then approached the big rocker where he sat wearing nothing but his kilt.

  “Here,” he said, patting his bony knee. “I was in the middle of a rousing argument with Angus when Maeve’s coach pulled up. He tried to resume hostilities before dinner, and I am not capable of having any more differences of opinion with my family just now.”

  This could not end well. Angus was Michael’s family, but Brenna was his family too. She crossed the room on dragging feet, uncertain what exactly Michael had in mind.

  He rose, scooped her against his chest, and sat. “I tried to tell Angus that diversifying our sources of income is smart. If all we have are sheep, then one year some stupid blight or disease can come through and wipe them all out.”

  “Or a fancier breed with finer wool can become more popular,” Brenna said, finding her husband’s lap an oddly comfortable place to be. “The tenants work hard, they’ve been loyal when you were not here, and Angus is set in his ways. He’ll say his way is the only way to avoid ruin, but his way is what has brought matters to the present pass.”

  More than that, she could not say, especially not when cuddled against Michael’s bare chest.

  “I told Angus I will make no decisions for the present. He ranted and stomped and lectured, but I can recall him carrying on with my father in a similar vein. Angus needs a wife.”

  God pity any woman foolish enough to marry Angus Brodie.

  “Can we also delay a decision regarding Maeve, Michael? She may not settle in here well, and she really will be lonely.” To posit the decision as one they shared was presuming, but for the child’s own sake, Brenna could not afford to waver.

  Michael’s cheek rested against Brenna’s hair. “Bridget has made a decision, and my place as head of the family is to provide for my younger sister.”

  “See if she settles in,” Brenna said, unwilling to let Michael think the battle over. “A small child can be very disruptive, and she’s not yet been here a day.”

  “While I’ve not yet been here a week.”

  A moment of thoughtful silence passed, while Michael set the chair to rocking slowly and Brenna h
eld a growing list of problems at bay: Maeve could not stay at Castle Brodie, taxes could not be paid in blankets and bread, and Angus could not stop bullying and annoying what few tenants remained.

  And that was the least of the problems Angus Brodie could cause.

  “Promise me something,” Michael said.

  Another softly worded order. “I’ve already made promises to you, Michael Brodie, and I’ve kept them.”

  He kissed her temple, and without bothering to warn her.

  Neither did Brenna bother to object.

  “I’m glad you kept your vows. If I haven’t said that previously, I’m saying it now. I want another promise, though, and I’m happy to give it back to you.”

  He did not tell her he’d also kept his marriage vows, though he didn’t lie to her about it either, which was something.

  “What promise?”

  “When we come up here, to our private rooms, can we agree to leave our differences at the door? Can we set aside a few rooms of our castle to be free of strife and carping?”

  Our castle? He’d been home less than a week, and it was our castle? She wished it could be so, but how could it be ours when it had never been hers or even his?

  Though she wanted Maeve’s situation to be our decision.

  “I cannot give you such a promise, Michael, for if I never take issue with you before others—and I will try very hard not to—then where are we to air our differences?”

  “Shrewd,” he said. “Also a valid point, so I will make this promise instead: I will promise to listen to what you have to say, not only in these rooms, but especially in here. I will listen with an open mind.”

  The words were not complicated, but their effect on Brenna was. She felt grateful, humbled, and despairing, for he’d guessed so easily that in her life, somebody to listen to her had been a critical lack.

  If only he’d offered to listen to her on their wedding night nine years ago. “I will make you the same promise, Husband.”

  “That will serve.” He gave her bottom a brisk pat—and when had his hand found its way to her fundament?—then rose and set her on her feet. “Let’s get you undressed, and I have another question for you.”

  “You are a font of interrogation,” Brenna said, moving behind the privacy screen lest she behold him unfastening his kilt.