The Laird

by Grace Burrowes

  “I will never intentionally strike you, Husband. Will you sit with me?” Because her knees were weak, and the last thing she wanted, the very last thing, was for him to leave her alone just then.

  He held out a silver flask to her, one engraved with the Scottish thistle. “Ladies first.”

  Brenna helped herself to a bracing tot of fine potation, watched as Michael did the same, then took a seat on her sofa. That shared nip of good whisky restored something to her, and Michael’s taking the seat beside her restored something more.

  “Do I need to kill somebody, Brenna Maureen? Somebody who presumed in my absence to pester you with attentions you’d not encouraged?”

  His trust in her was every bit as startling as his embrace had been.

  “You’re sure I was so loyal?”

  He grabbed her hand and kissed her knuckles. “I love you.”

  “Husband, your flask please.” For the day had indeed taken a disconcerting turn. Several of them. “What has that last declaration to do with anything?”

  She wished she’d had warning he was about to gift her with this pronouncement, so she might have anticipated his words. He’d said them once before, and she hadn’t known they were coming then either.

  He passed her his flask, and Brenna had to disentangle their hands to uncap it. The second sip tasted every bit as fortifying as the first.

  “More for you?”

  He shook his head and set the flask on the table before them. “Did you tat that lace?”

  The table runner was russet blond lace, not particularly intricate, but pretty. “The first winter you were gone. Why did you say…what you just did?”

  “I love you, Brenna Maureen, and I know you. I know you are loyal to your bones, and that you are deserving of my loyalty as well.”

  Brenna did not have a strong head for drink, and she had even less ability to withstand the inebriating effects of her husband’s forthright speech and affectionate manner.

  “You’ve implied you remained faithful to me when you went soldiering, and I thank you for that.”

  The words were inadequate, because as handsome as he was, as charming as he could be, Michael had had offers. Brenna knew he’d had many offers.

  “Faithful and loyal are not the same thing. You are my wife. You deserve both, and while I was keeping my breeches buttoned, you were without benefit of my protection here. This brings us back to my earlier question: Who needs killing? Please tell me the bastard has taken ship for the New World, lest I mark my return here with a bit of homicide, upon which the fellow’s relatives and the justice of the peace would surely frown.”

  Abruptly, entire casks of the finest aged whisky were not sufficient to fortify Brenna against the confusion of the moment. She had never, not once, foreseen that Michael might invite her confidences this way, much less that she’d want to surrender them.

  For which Angus would, inevitably, have his revenge.

  “There’s nobody you need to kill. I’ve lived at the castle without family, more or less, since your father died, and I’m skittish, is all.”

  The word had his brows twitching down. “I do not care for this skittishness, my lady. Do you know how to defend yourself?”

  “I know a man is vulnerable behind his sporran.”

  “I told you that when you were fifteen.” This recollection seemed to settle Michael, though he reached for Brenna’s hand again, and this time kept his fingers entwined with hers. “I’ve learned more tricks since then, the camp followers being extremely resourceful women when needs must.”

  Brenna stroked her fingers over his knuckles. He’d scraped his middle finger sometime this morning, and pinched some heather, guessing by the scent of his hand. “They used these tricks on you?”

  “They did not, but among the soldiers—some of the soldiers—the attitude toward the women was that their lot was not so difficult. The most trying fate to befall a wife was that her fellow might be struck down in battle, in which case, she could choose from every other worthy in the regiment and be married again the next week.”

  “Were they married, these sentimental fools who viewed women with such compassion?”

  “Some were.” He leaned forward to move his flask off the table runner, but did not turn loose of Brenna’s hand. “War can bring out the worst in men, as well as the best. I was glad you were not there, Brenna. I missed you badly, but I was glad I’d spared you that life.”

  Brenna didn’t take that gladness away from him. Maybe someday, but not on this startling, disconcerting, bewildering day.

  “You brought ledgers here. Was that the reading in bed you mentioned earlier?”

  “Ledgers are a way to catch up, though an imperfect way. Will you show me yours?”

  Subject safely changed, for which Brenna could only be glad. “Of course. Anytime you please.” Though she hoped he didn’t intend to read her ledgers in bed.

  “Right now, I please to have a different discussion with my wife.”

  And maybe someday she’d learn to recognize when Michael was teasing, and when he was in deadly earnest.

  “About?”

  “Did you know that a man’s eyes are nearly as vulnerable as his ballocks? That you can put him on the ground by striking the backs of his knees?”

  Brenna fell in love with her husband at that precise moment, or realized she’d already fallen. As Michael prosed on about where exactly to strike a man’s ribs so he might gasp for breath, Brenna became a bit breathless herself.

  Michael’s flask sat at a corner of the table, his ledgers were in a haphazard stack on her desk, and his hand was wrapped around hers. He would kill to protect her or avenge her honor, he offered her undying loyalty, and he knew precisely how to cheer a lady up when she’d made a complete hash of her husband’s flirtations.

  She loved him, and because she loved him, she would never call upon him to wreak the vengeance he so enthusiastically contemplated.

  ***

  “So you don’t dine at the castle, even now that the laird has come home? And you being his closest kin?”

  Davey MacCray sounded reasonably sober, for which Angus was grateful. Drunk, Davey could be merry or mean; sober, the man maintained a shred of discretion.

  Angus took his time tapping his pipe into his hand, letting all and sundry know he answered because he chose to, not because he owed the village drunk a reckoning.

  “The laird and his lady are newly reunited after years of separation. Do you think they’d want me underfoot at such a time?”

  A chair scraped back across the common, pretty young Dantry MacLogan getting comfortable for some eavesdropping.

  Davey gave a humorless laugh. “Nobody wants you underfoot, auld man. You should learn to play the fiddle, and then you’d serve a purpose other than cantering about on your fancy black horse and tormenting the crofters with your greed.”

  The barmaid came around, topping up tankards—another pair of eager ears. Davey patted her fanny, which earned him a clonk on the side of the head with the pitcher. Something about the exchange made Angus feel more of an outsider than Davey’s taunts ever could.

  “How do you know I didn’t win that horse in a card game?”

  Davey took a considering sip of his ale and revealed the performer’s inherent sense of how to grab an audience’s attention.

  “Are you saying you diced for that horse?”

  “I’m asking a question.” Because Angus hadn’t won the blasted animal in any card game, and as sparsely populated as the Highlands were, gossip yet managed to travel from village to village and tavern to tavern with astonishing speed.

  “And we all know”—Davey gestured with his mug toward the room in general—“that when Angus Brodie asks a question, we are bound to answer, lest we find ourselves strolling down to Aberdeen, our worldly goods upon our backs and winter hard upon our heels.”

  Coming here for a pint without Michael was a mistake, but Angus had wanted to gauge the mood in the vil
lage and had been thirsty for some summer ale.

  “Your sons chose to leave the shire, Davey MacCray, very likely to get away from your drunken temper.”

  And now, no chair scraped, no barmaid swished by. The room went quiet, suggesting Angus had made another mistake.

  “Did you need to burn them out, Angus?” Davey asked softly, contemplatively. “Did you need to burn out two families, two hardworking young men just starting out with their wives and children? So you could run more sheep on their land and afford your fancy horse?”

  Davey’s boys had been gone for three years, three years that had seen a substantial increase in Davey’s consumption of spirits.

  “Your sons did not pay their rent. Honorable men pay their rent.”

  Davey took another sip of his ale, the quiet becoming so dense that Angus found it difficult to draw a full breath.

  “When I see you on that fine, fancy beast,” Davey said, “I do not think about being honorable, Angus Brodie. I think of my wee granddaughter, forever scarred in her mind and on her arms by the flames you had the King’s man set. I think of my wife, crying herself to sleep for months after the boys took ship, boys who would have made a go of it, had you shown the least lenience with their rents. I think of Herman Brodie, coming back from selling the yearlings and telling us you spent good coin on a horse you didn’t need—a gelding, not even fit for breeding stock. I do not regard honor for a moment when I contemplate these doings of yours.”

  Davey had the poet’s ability to threaten murder without mentioning death, and yet Angus was more weary than worried.

  “You’re a drunk, Davey MacCray, and if your woman cried, it was because she was left behind by her own sons. What I spent on that horse was a pittance compared to what the laird’s own lady cost this village, coin she has never repaid.”

  The quality of the silence changed, as Angus had known it would. Brenna’s famous misstep had paid all manner of interest over the years, and at the appropriate time, Angus would put it to greater use yet.

  Michael liked his wife, which couldn’t be helped—he saw Brenna through a boy’s adoring eyes, and in some ways, Brenna was still the girl he’d left behind. Angus could permit the liking up to a point, but he could not allow it to become trust.

  Never that.

  “Another round for my friend,” Angus said to the serving maid. “Hatred works up a man’s thirst, almost as much as an honest day’s work can.”

  He left his half-finished ale on the table, mostly as a display of arrogance—it was superior ale—and rose to leave. Neil MacLogan had come in at some point and sat with his brother Dantry. He’d grown into a fine-looking man, had Neil, and that was just a pity all around.

  “Gentlemen.” Angus nodded. He paused by the door to button his coat, the night having turned damp and cool. Neil MacLogan rose, and for the first time, Angus felt a prickling of unease.

  MacLogan did not approach him, but rather went to the table Angus had vacated and picked up the crockery mug Angus had been drinking from.

  Angus slipped out the door as the sound of a mug smashing to pieces on the hearthstones shattered the chilly night air.

  ***

  A woman’s ledgers revealed a lot about her. What she kept track of, how often she made entries, the accuracy of her tallies, and even the nature of her penmanship all merited study.

  As did the nape of her neck.

  “When will you allow me to dress your hair, Wife?” Michael stood behind his spouse as she sat at her vanity, his hand itching to take the brush from her. Another lady might have allowed it, might have regarded such high-handed behavior as the opening moves in a romp that left them both winded and spent on the bed.

  Not his Brenna. She kept track of every penny; she made journal entries daily; her hand was always tidy.

  “You’ve enough hair of your own,” she said, tying off her braid with a green satin ribbon. “Why not see to it?”

  He’d given her a ribbon of that exact color for her thirteenth birthday. Had saved up to buy it for her, had fretted over the perfect shade of emerald.

  “Why don’t I ask my wife to brush my hair? I’m particularly tired tonight.”

  She glanced at him in the mirror, though the view was likely of his bare belly. “You don’t tie your hair back at night, so it will just become messy. I’ll brush your hair out in the morning.”

  He put his hands on her shoulders—slowly, gently, lest he surprise her—and bent low to address her left ear.

  “One of the many traits I admire about you, Lady Strathdee, is that if you say you’ll do something, the thing is as good as done.”

  She didn’t flinch away, so Michael had to be the one to straighten and busy himself banking the fire. As the Baron St. Clair’s combination valet, man of business, and self-appointed bodyguard, Michael had dwelled in a household full of London servants. He hadn’t realized how much he craved the sort of privacy he had with Brenna in their chambers.

  “Did you find anything of interest in my ledgers?”

  He’d found confirmation that a careful girl had become a meticulous woman, one who ran a household with efficiency and common sense.

  “I found that reading over numbers makes my eyes cross, and I found out why quartermasters were invariably difficult. Window open or closed?”

  She’d want it open. Brenna was a lady who craved fresh air.

  “Open, but wait until the candles are blown out,” she said, rising. “The nights will soon be getting longer, and I’m not sorry for it.”

  A husband could only be cheered by that pronouncement. He waited until Brenna had warmed the sheets and pillows before unpinning his kilt. In a state of breezy undress, he opened the window and lingered for a moment. “No moon tonight.”

  Perhaps his wife had coughed; perhaps she’d snickered.

  “Come to bed, you daft man. You’ll catch your death by that window.”

  A zephyr off the loch blew out the candle on the sill, but Michael made a slow tour of the room, blowing out the others.

  While Brenna watched him. She did not peek at his semierect cock; she frankly studied it, and his chest and belly and flanks too. A woman who kept tidy ledgers could be expected to take inventory.

  “You are a handsome specimen, Michael Brodie.” Brenna’s tone rendered this observation something less than a compliment, not quite a complaint.

  “I’m a tired specimen,” he said, climbing in beside her. “Will you cuddle up, Wife?”

  She answered him by draping herself along his side, her head on his shoulder.

  “You want to have relations,” she said, sounding as prim as a Presbyterian minister winding up for his second three-hour sermon of the day.

  “Aye. With you. Eventually.” Often too. “How are the preparations for the gathering coming?”

  He’d thrown her off stride with that question, which wasn’t what he wanted to ask her. He’d wanted to ask if she’d take his cock in her hand and relieve his sexual frustration, except she likely did not know how. He wanted to ask her to use her wide, lush, prim mouth to pleasure him, and to tell her—to hell with asking—to sink her fingernails into the muscles of his tired arse as she did.

  The room was cooling down as the night air wafted in. Michael tossed back the covers so his left side was available to the chilly breeze while Brenna nattered on about some damned thing or other.

  “…and heaven only knows if Davey will show up sober or drunk,” Brenna was saying. “He’s always worse this time of year.”

  Her hand caressed Michael’s chest, her nails drifting through the hair trailing down the center to his belly.

  “Why is he worse?”

  “His sons left in high summer. Angus would not allow them to pay rent after harvest, like everybody else. They’d taken possession of their crofts in high summer, and Angus said the rents were annual. Without a crop ripe to sell, they could not make rent, and so they emigrated. Angus had their crop harvested by the remaining tenants.”<
br />
  The chilly breeze barely registered against Michael’s lusty inclinations, but something cool in Brenna’s tone did distract him.

  “You are angry about this.” Michael was angry about it too, if the situation had been as Brenna said. Angry, furious, and heartsick.

  “Angus wanted the land for his damned sheep, so he burned Davey’s boys out. If Davey hadn’t run into the flames to retrieve the youngest, the girl would likely have perished.”

  This went on all over the Highlands, had been going on all over the Highlands for decades if not centuries.

  With one difference. “If they could not afford to pay the rent, how could these families afford to take ship, Brenna? How is it they did not join the hordes of Highlanders starving in the cities or trying to live off kelp and salted mackerel on the coast?”

  “They could afford passage to Baltimore.”

  Nowhere in Brenna’s careful ledger had she tracked the funds that would allow such an undertaking, and yet, Michael was sure she’d provided these families what they needed to leave the shire, and likely to find a decent start in the New World.

  “Angus should not have burned them out,” Michael said. “My father never burned out anybody who was making an honest effort. Never. If the old laird made an example of the rare slacker, he made sure the family was provided for first. We don’t burn out our own because they’ve fallen on hard times.”

  Angus would have known that.

  “We should not speak of upsetting matters when it’s time for sleep,” Brenna said. “You had best kiss me to take your mind off burnings and mayhem.”

  Daft, dear woman. “You think a kiss good night will settle me down?” The topic under discussion had settled him down—some.

  “Perhaps a kiss good night will settle me down.”

  Michael seized on this opportunity, because the nights were, indeed, getting longer.

  “Brenna Maureen MacLogan Brodie, if you’ve a mind to kiss your husband, you needn’t go mincing about, hinting and suggesting. I am yours to kiss at your whim and pleasure. God knows, you did without my kisses long enough. I’d never begrudge you such a small thing now.”

  He expected her to roll over in puzzled silence. He expected he’d have to go sit in the windowsill until his ballocks froze to the size of raisins. Perhaps a swim in the loch—