The Laird

by Grace Burrowes

  “Preacher shouldn’t kill things if he doesn’t have to. It’s not nice.”

  Maeve fell silent, absorbed with her sketching. She sat beside Brenna on the bench in the sun, the stones of the castle wall warm at their backs, while Brenna let the familiar peace of the view settle over her. Beyond the village, partway around the loch, one of her cousins was mending a wall while wee Annie “helped.” Cook had gone back inside, and Herman’s farriery had progressed to a second great back hoof on the plow horse.

  Why had she kissed her husband?

  “Have you ever been to Ireland, Brenna?”

  “No, I have not.” And that hurt. Brenna hadn’t been invited to go to Ireland. She’d been told Michael would have expected her to stay and mind his castle. “Tell me about Ireland.”

  Maeve considered the tomcat sitting in the middle of the blank page. “Ireland is rainy. How many butterflies in a flock?”

  “As many as you please.” An entire bellyful. Far below the parapets, Angus emerged from the dower house and started on the path toward the stables. “Do you miss Ireland?”

  “I miss Bridget. Kevin yelled a lot, and Bridget yelled back at him.” Several butterflies, enormous in relation to the cat, took shape on the page.

  “Late for dinner, muddy boots, reading at breakfast, that kind of yelling?”

  “Yelling about me too. Kevin said Michael is head of my family, but how can somebody be the head of your family when you’ve never seen him?”

  Angus always swaggered; Brenna did not imagine that. He was swaggering into the stable yard now, his kilt flapping because he’d eschewed a sporran. She hated when he did that, and suspected he knew it.

  “You ask a fair question, Maeve. Michael is my husband, but I didn’t see him for years.”

  She should not have said that, especially not to Maeve, but the horse, Bannockburn, had seen Angus coming up the path and lifted its great head to the consternation of the groom holding the lead rope. Brenna had been distracted by Angus’s ability to unsettle another, even another of a different species.

  “Did you miss Michael while he was gone?”

  “Desperately.” Though she hadn’t told him that. Not yet. “I miss him right now.”

  Maeve paused in her sketching. “Grown-ups are silly. I like Michael. He doesn’t yell, and he doesn’t smell like dogs or muddy boots.”

  “Fine qualities in a man, to be sure.” He also cuddled wonderfully, and had the patience of a saint. In the stable yard, Angus had begun pointing and gesturing, as if he’d explain to a seasoned stable master how to trim a hoof on a beast that stable master had likely foaled out.

  “Michael likes shortbread, and I like shortbread. Lachlan does too. I think that’s enough butterflies.”

  “That is so many butterflies, Preacher will dive for cover among the pansies. What colors will you make them?”

  “Too many colors. I can’t embroider this.” Maeve set the sketch aside and appeared to take an interest in the goings-on below. “Herman names each big horse for a Scottish victory.”

  “Fortunately for Herman, we don’t have that many heavy horses.” Though Michael coming home had been a victory of sorts. A victory without a name.

  “Uncle Angus is yelling. He was nice to me yesterday.”

  All the pleasure Brenna took in the bright, pretty day, all the preoccupation she’d felt with the doings of the previous evening, evaporated.

  “Maeve, I want you to listen to me.”

  This earned Brenna a cautious, sidelong glance. “I can hear you fine, even with Herman and Angus both yelling.”

  The men were distant enough that their words were snatched away by the breeze. Brenna spoke slowly, so her words would find their target.

  “Avoid Angus, and never be alone with him. If he tries to make friends, then don’t anger him, but slip away as soon as you can.”

  “Bridget said Angus has a sorry temper.”

  Bless Bridget. “That’s part of it. I’ll tell you one other thing. If you ever need to get away from him, you come up here. He’s afraid of heights. He doesn’t even like to be in the minstrel’s gallery in the great hall.”

  Which realization, had given Brenna significant satisfaction.

  “I had hiding places in Ireland, for when Kevin and Bridget got mad at each other when I was little. Prebish told me I was silly, because Kevin would pick Bridget up and carry her to their bedroom. They’d stop yelling then.”

  The horse tried to yank its leg away when Angus picked up a front hoof. More yelling ensued as the beast capered around on the end of its lead rope, and then was taken back into the stables.

  “Bannockburn likes carrots. He doesn’t like yelling,” Maeve observed.

  “He’s a good fellow.” Brenna wanted to say more, wanted to make sure the child had absorbed her warning, but Maeve went back to sketching butterflies, so Brenna rose to stand by the parapets.

  Herman caught sight of her and waved. Angus did not wave, but resumed lecturing the stable master, or trying to.

  Angus was afraid of heights, and Brenna was not. She loved the view, loved the fresh air and the drenching sunshine. Loved seeing the land—part settled, part wild, all beautiful—and the village at peace down below the wooded hill. She had been afraid of kisses, though.

  Had been.

  She offered Herman a jaunty wave, resumed her place by the child, and filled her mind with thoughts of butterflies and kisses.

  ***

  “How does one go about kissing?”

  Brenna’s question stopped Michael mid-reach toward his shaving kit. She stood in her dressing gown on the threshold of the space behind the privacy screen, watching him at his morning ablutions.

  “One goes about kissing tenderly, joyfully, and if he’s a fortunate man, frequently.” Also carefully, if he was Brenna Brodie’s husband, and gratefully. “Shall I demonstrate?”

  As he unrolled his shaving gear, Michael’s heartbeat picked up. He was discussing kissing with his wife, in their bedroom, in the broad light of a beautiful Highland summer day.

  And Brenna looked as determined as a line of infantry preparing to storm a broken siege wall.

  “You may. Demonstrate, that is. Briefly.”

  Michael was also in his dressing gown, which was fortunate, because it hid a reaction to her words that might not aid his cause. He took a steadying glance out the window at the cold, dark loch, at the whitecaps whipped up by a cool, brisk breeze.

  “Come with me.” He led her by the wrist into their sitting room, locked the door to the corridor, then regarded the challenge before him. “You want to learn how to kiss?”

  “I’ve said as much.” While her ramrod posture said she was done talking.

  Ah, but in her silence, Michael detected uncertainty and longing, both of which told him his Brenna had been a faithful wife in even this minor regard. She hadn’t kissed; she hadn’t permitted anybody to kiss her while her husband was off soldiering.

  Michael tugged her over to the desk near the window, the better to count the freckles dusting the bridge of her nose.

  “This might take some patience on your part, Brenna Maureen. I’m out of practice, though I suspect the knack will return to me in time.”

  She wrestled her wrist free of his grip. “You’re out of practice?”

  “One hasn’t much call for kissing when at war.” Murdering in the King’s name being ever so much more enjoyable. He patted the desk. “Sit.”

  Brenna perched on the edge of the desk. “You truly didn’t have much occasion for kisses while you were gone?” She offered her question while arranging the folds of her dressing gown over her knees, then closing the placket more snugly over her middle, then adjusting the drape over her calves.

  “I missed you. That left no time for kissing anybody, save the occasional horse. Oh, and a cat, in London. Shameless fellow by the name of Peter. Hold still.”

  The fussing stopped. “You start off your kisses by giving orders?”
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br />   He started off his kisses by sending up a prayer that he’d get this right. He’d kissed Brenna before, fumbling overtures on their wedding night, and casually since returning home. This was a kiss she’d invited, asked for, even. Michael’s entire marital campaign might flounder and sink on the strength of the next few minutes.

  “Give me your hands.”

  She gave him a cross look.

  “Give me your hands, please, dearest, lovely wife.”

  She surrendered the requested appendages.

  Michael kissed each palm for luck, then placed them where his neck and shoulders joined. “A firm grip is best, so your fellow doesn’t wander off midway through the festivities. If you think he’s entertaining such a notion, you can grab him by the hair instead.”

  “Like this?” She seized him above his nape in a beguilingly firm grip. No wandering off allowed.

  “Exactly. Once you’ve got him in hand, so to speak, you look him over, and don’t be shy about it. Men can be dense, and shy glances won’t penetrate their—are you laughing at me?”

  “You daft beast, you wouldn’t know anything about how to kiss a man, would you?”

  The question flummoxed him, utterly. He stepped closer, between her legs, and dropped his forehead to hers.

  “I want to do this right, Brenna. I want to kiss you so a feeling more blessed than the sun beaming in that window fills your heart and lightens your every step. I want to share a kiss with you that means this desk stays in the family for generations, because long ago, Great-Great-Grandda Michael came home from war and kissed his Brenna while she sat upon this desk, laughing at him.”

  A kiss that would assure her he’d never leave her side again.

  Her grip on him became more fierce. “Such expectations are a kiss in themselves.”

  Her lips grazed his, soft as sunshine. Michael resisted the urge to take her in his arms, resisted the need to wedge his body against hers.

  “Again, please, Wife. Kissing wants practice.”

  She repeated the gesture, this time kissing her way across his mouth, corner to corner. “You taste like tooth powder.”

  While she tasted like hope. “What do I feel like?”

  More kisses came his way, and he endured that torture until her tongue touched his upper lip. This necessitated—much as life necessitates breathing—that he tuck one arm around her shoulders.

  “You’re all bone and muscle and braw determination,” Brenna said, her breath feathering across his chin, “while your mouth is wondrous soft.”

  He dipped his head to brush that wondrous soft mouth across her lips, like one fellow might gently slap a glove across another’s cheek in a moment of high drama. “You’re softer. Marvelously soft.”

  While part of him was growing marvelously hard.

  ***

  “Something tells me you aren’t where you’re supposed to be, child.”

  Maeve was caught, and Uncle Angus, standing in the door of the stall, looked infernally pleased to have found her. Grown-ups were entirely too big sometimes.

  “I’m allowed out of the castle, as long as somebody knows where I am.” Though Lachlan likely did not qualify as a somebody, and “outside” certainly was not an adequate description of her whereabouts.

  “You were peeking at Wee Bannockburn, weren’t you?”

  To be accurate, she was marveling at the size of the droppings in Wee Bannockburn’s stall. Wee Bannock, a huge dapple gray, was the biggest horse Maeve had ever seen, and Lachlan claimed he had the biggest droppings in Aberdeenshire.

  Boys were always interested in things like horse droppings.

  “My uncle in Ireland would like him. Bannock’s a fine lad.”

  In the next stall over, Bannock munched at a pile of hay taller than Maeve.

  “Your uncle would like the damned beastie better at pasture, which is where a horse belongs come summer.” Uncle Angus came into the stall, which caused the horse to sidle away from the hay.

  “Bannock doesn’t like it when you swear.”

  Uncle Angus bent at the knees and hoisted Maeve to his hip. “If you’re going to sneak out of the castle, get your boots dirty, and come to table smelling of horse, you should at least get a decent look at your friend, and Bannock doesn’t give a—Bannock doesn’t care a whit about my language as long as he can get at his hay.”

  Maeve was too big to be carried like this, and Uncle smelled of pipe smoke and whisky. The scent wasn’t entirely unpleasant—some people had whisky with their breakfast even in Ireland—but it was an old man smell. And yet, the view from Uncle Angus’s hip was better than trying to peer between the slats at the horse, or getting her pinafore dirty climbing over the boards.

  “He’s busy with his hay. You can put me down now.”

  “You’re not that heavy. Have you seen the foals in the back paddock?” He walked with her into the barn aisle and didn’t put her down until they were in the saddle room. “We’ll find a bite of carrot, and you can pet their wee noses. Perhaps I’ll sketch them for you one day soon.”

  Admiring horses from a distance was one thing, but Maeve knew as well that horses—especially young horses who had yet to learn their manners—could nip when fed treats.

  “Maybe we’re not supposed to spoil their lunches.” The door to the saddle room was closed, which meant nobody would see them taking the carrots, and yet, Maeve felt vaguely uneasy. Like when Bridget fought with her husband. Like when Maeve hadn’t really told anybody where she would be.

  “Them wee beggars would eat every blade of grass in the shire,” Uncle said, producing three carrots from a sack. “Come along, Maeve, and meet the horses you might someday ride. This excursion can be our little secret.”

  He took her by the hand, and Maeve went, because all misgivings aside, meeting horses she would ride was a wonderful offer, one she could boast of to Lachlan.

  Though she likely would not be telling Brenna or Michael about this outing. Uncle Angus had said it was to be a secret. She let Angus take her hand and lead her out to the paddocks behind the barn.

  ***

  A soldier occasionally left important parts of himself on the battlefield—a hand, a foot, an eye, the ability to hear out of one ear. Casualties were more often intangible, however—a sense of humor, the ability to sleep through the night or tolerate thunder.

  Michael knew of no veteran who’d lost the ability to ask a simple question, and yet, sitting in the pub among his own people, a pint of fine summer ale before him, Michael couldn’t seem to find the words.

  “You were married.”

  Across the scarred table, Hugh MacLogan studied the outline of a thistle gouged into the table. “Aye. For five years.”

  For a widowed Highlander, this amounted to a speech, so Michael was encouraged to try again. “You had a wedding night.”

  MacLogan stuck a finger in his mug and licked foam from the end. He was being courteous, a casual interest in ale being less rude than staring at the poor sod with the unconsummated vows.

  “Aye. We did.”

  Somebody two tables down let forth a magnificent burp, which sparked a spate of admiring comments about the burper, his mother, and his digestion in general.

  “I have not yet had—Brenna and I have not had the pleasure of a wedding night.”

  Michael spoke softly, lest the state of his marriage become common knowledge. The people in this tavern would not understand why their laird had neglected his lady. Despite his glib reasoning before Brenna about not wanting to leave her with child, Michael had never examined too closely why he’d left without consummating his marriage.

  “That explains a few things,” MacLogan observed. “Snug’s in want of use.”

  The snug would be more private, so Michael joined his cousin-by-marriage in the nook at the end of the bar.

  “Your ale didn’t agree with you?” MacLogan asked as he slid onto the bench.

  Michael retrieved his drink from their table, then took the opposite
bench. “The ale is quite good.”

  He’d sounded bloody English with that pronouncement. MacLogan was laughing at him too, but the bastard was silent about it—damned Scottish of him, to laugh only on the inside and make a man squirm with his confessions all the more.

  “You’re looking to me for marital advice, Laird?”

  Such delicate irony. “I’m looking to you for advice regarding your cousin, whom you’ve spent more time around in the past decade than I have.”

  “Right. Here’s some advice, then: treat Brenna right or I’ll kill you. Dantry will dig your grave, and Neil will dance upon it. Fine dancer, is our Neil. He might even pipe you on your way.”

  More courtesy. “Precisely because you do care about her, I’d appreciate any insight—” Bloody damn. Abruptly, Angus’s wifeless state did not loom as such a trial. “Brenna’s skittish as hell.”

  “Maybe she wouldn’t be so skittish if her husband hadn’t turned his back on her for nigh ten years. Just a thought.”

  Michael stalled by taking another sip of his ale. A barmaid, sturdy, buxom, and dark-haired, sauntered toward the table, but something in MacLogan’s expression must have dissuaded her.

  “Brenna is entitled to be exceedingly vexed with me. I was gone too long, I didn’t write enough, and I should be made to pay in the coin of her choosing for as long as she pleases.”

  “Damn right. With interest.”

  “She wants our marriage to work, though. She’s said as much, and yet, she doesn’t…I can’t…”

  Behind them, a series of greetings indicated more custom had arrived for the noon meal.

  “Brenna has her reasons,” MacLogan said. “If she’s said she’ll have you, then you’re as good as had, but you’ll have to talk to her if you want to know her secrets. Her lot hasn’t been easy, and her trust is worth earning. If she does part with those secrets, just recall it’s you she protected with her silence. Dantry! Neil! The laird’s buying a round for the house.”

  A cheer went up, and Michael lifted his mug in acknowledgment. A few pints of ale was a small price to pay for confirmation that Brenna was not merely reticent with him; she was secretive.