The Laird

by Grace Burrowes

  She let him change the subject, because she had no choice. “Or maybe the sight of my breasts does that?”

  His smile was slow and precious, full of possession, admiration, and pleasure. “Possibly. Show them to me again, and we’ll find out.”

  ***

  “The people in the village resent me for being gone so long.” Michael offered this observation by way of apology to St. Clair, who studied the countryside from the parapets.

  While Michael studied his wife in the bailey below, picking flowers for the bouquets in a great hall nobody used.

  “The people in the village didn’t insult you, Michael, they insulted your wife.” St. Clair was too good a friend—and too careful a commanding officer—to trade a half-truth for a platitude. He at least had the courtesy to stare out across the loch while he delivered his verdict.

  “How could you tell?”

  St. Clair was observant, which was what had made him such an effective and feared interrogator. He was also kind, a secret the baroness had apparently unearthed all on her own.

  “Resentment is in the eyes, mostly, in the silences, and the postures that speak of defeated anger that won’t die. The average crofter has been nursing a grudge handed down to him by his grandfather since the ’45, and your wife is begrudged the very air she breathes.”

  “Not quite that.” But for some in the village—the tavern keeper, the biddies, the shopgirl selling hair ribbons—it was a near thing.

  “The minister mentioned that were it not for the generosity of ‘the castle,’ there’d be nothing in the poor box.” St. Clair offered this casual observation while studying the loch, which was quiet today. A perfect, flat mirror of sky and clouds.

  “The selfsame minister who’d best be preaching about forgiveness, reconciliation, and Christian charity,” Michael said. Above them, the pennant whipped against the flagpole, and in an hour, this vantage point would be chilly. For now, it was beautiful, and a good place to plan a strategy.

  “You’ll take up the cause of your lady’s popularity?”

  “I’m to blame for the disrespect shown her,” Michael said, something he ought to have told Brenna, though she would have argued with him. “If I’d been here, she would not have been robbed of a year’s worth of wool proceeds.”

  St. Clair hiked himself up to sit on the stone parapet, as if a drop of several stories weren’t at his back. “My dear wife mentioned something about this.”

  Interrogators were supposed to be brute animals, torturers without souls, but St. Clair approached his calling differently. He arranged matters so one was motivated to confide in him. Michael had seen him do it time and again, and each time, had felt a sense of sympathy for the poor bastard unburdening himself of his secrets.

  Among whom, he would now number, and be grateful for the privilege.

  “While I was scampering around the mountains of southern France, playing nursemaid to a lot of French recruits, Brenna was trying to establish her authority here. She bargained with the merchants down in Aberdeen for the year’s wool harvest, and was robbed of the proceeds on her journey home. Every crofter who ever raised a sheep has reason to resent her endlessly.”

  “For a Scot does hold his coin very dear,” St. Clair murmured.

  “And his children dearer,” Michael added, because to all appearances, Brenna had used that money to send young people away from their parents. “Would you please get the hell down from there? Your baroness would take it amiss if you were to slip.”

  “Somebody climbs higher than this to get yonder pennant waving in the breeze,” St. Clair said, hopping down.

  “I used to climb up there,” Michael said, eyeing the flagpole. “The view is magnificent, but the slates are slick as ice when it rains. Rather like French mountainsides when a winter storm blows through. I’m off to talk to Elspeth.”

  Down in the bailey, Brenna stuck the pad of her thumb in her mouth, as if she’d pricked it on a thorn. Even at this distance, the sight did things to Michael’s composure.

  “What has the fair Elspeth to say to things, other than that Hugh MacLogan is a doomed man?” St. Clair asked.

  “Noticed that?” St. Clair noticed much and had probably noticed Michael ogling Brenna from four stories up.

  “She watches him the way I watch my Milly and you watch your Brenna. What will this conversation accomplish?”

  “Elspeth likes Brenna. I want to know why, and then I want the rest of the village to know why.” Elspeth was in a position to drop hints, make casual observations, and otherwise counter a steady tide of judgment and scorn.

  “Hard to invade an enemy camp with only one foot soldier,” St. Clair said. “Good God, those fools are going swimming in that lake.”

  “It’s a loch, and they aren’t fools, they’re single Highland gentlemen in want of wives.”

  Down past the woods surrounding the castle’s hill, Dantry and Hugh peeled out of their kilts and shirts, leaving their clothes in a heap on the stony beach.

  “You’d think they’d take their boots off first,” St. Clair said.

  “You’d think that if you were married. I’ll talk to those two, as well.” But not to Neil if he could help it.

  St. Clair turned to rest his elbows on the stones behind them, while Michael remained facing the bailey. “Why question your in-laws?”

  “They were with Brenna when she was robbed, or they should have been. Nobody called in the authorities. Nobody did a systematic investigation. Nobody followed tracks. Nobody did anything except blame my wife for being the victim of a crime.”

  First Hugh, then his younger brother, dove headfirst into the frigid waters.

  “Makes my stones shrivel just to watch them,” St. Clair muttered.

  While Michael wanted to make somebody else’s balls shrivel for what had been done to Brenna—but whose?

  “How is your baroness?” Michael asked, because Brenna had told him, as they’d drowsed in each other’s arms after a second, thorough, sweet loving, that Milly St. Clair had suffered some ill effects from her journey.

  The closeness of that confidence, the intimacy of it, brought a pleasure related to, but different from, the loving.

  “My lady is in need of rest,” St. Clair said, shoving away from the stone wall, turning, and climbing back up to resume his seat. “If you think you’ll be sending us on our way anytime soon, I am bound by concern for my lady to disappoint you.”

  Well, of course. Michael had stuck by St. Clair against all odds, and now the favor was being returned.

  “I could not have the Baroness St. Clair’s welfare on my conscience,” Michael said. “My wife’s situation is burden enough. Matters here could get messy.”

  “So what will you do?”

  “Two things. First, I will enlist what allies Brenna has—Elspeth, the parson, the MacLogans, a few others—to restore her standing in the community.”

  St. Clair rose and traversed the parapets until he reached the conical roof over the staircase. “And second?”

  Michael looked away, because the damned fool was about to scramble up on the roof until he could touch the flagpole, as Michael had many times in his boyhood—his foolish boyhood. The very top of the roof was a flat space maybe two feet across, the flagpole anchored in its center.

  “Second, I’m going to do what my uncle should have done years ago and move heaven and earth to clear Brenna’s name.”

  In a half-dozen nimble steps, St. Clair was up to the flagpole. “The view is unbelievable,” he said. “You are a wealthy man, Baron Strathdee, if you are lord of this vista.”

  All Michael wanted was to be lord of his own castle and of his lady’s heart. “I am a wealthy man, and you are not a mountain goat. Getting down is trickier than getting up.”

  St. Clair traversed the slope of the roof, arms outstretched like a circus performer. He’d trod a similar path in France, disaster on all sides and no margin for error, and as in France, he came to a safe landing and made it
look easy.

  “One is left with a question, my friend,” St. Clair said, his cadence ever so slightly French.

  “I know,” Michael said. “I bloody goddamned know: Why didn’t Angus make any effort at all to bring to justice those who stole from my wife, and from the entire village?”

  Hugh and Dantry had apparently had enough of the frigid pleasures of the loch, for they both climbed onto the shore and used their shirts for towels.

  “You suspect Angus?”

  “I’m supposed to suspect her cousins,” Michael said. “They had motive and opportunity. They were the ones who allowed her to be unescorted on a road not always well traveled. The horse she was riding was found near their holding, and they made no defense of her either.”

  “Complicated,” St. Clair said, a wealth of pity in a few syllables. “Perhaps your uncle conducted no investigation because he did not want to deprive Brenna of her only close family.”

  “Or perhaps he did.” Because Brenna had counted six armed brigands after her money, surely enough to overpower her, as well as Neil and Hugh.

  St. Clair’s eyebrows rose in an eloquent reconfiguration of the available facts. “You suspect Angus of stealing from the entire village and maligning his niece-by-marriage into the bargain? Of casting suspicion on her cousins too? For what purpose? He has no need of coin, he has a Scotsman’s loyalty to clan, and he’s your only close family.”

  That last part, about being Michael’s only close family, was what hurt the most.

  “Somebody took the trouble to get Brenna’s horse up here from Aboyne, left the saddle and bridle on so there’d be no mistaking the animal, and made sure the beast was found near the MacLogan holding. That makes no sense.”

  “If thieves are desperate enough to steal from an entire village, then they sell the horse, saddle, and bridle down on the coast,” St. Clair concluded. “Unless they’re trying to implicate the MacLogans.”

  An unhappy, speculative silence spread, broken only by the pennant snapping and whipping in the breeze.

  “I expect Angus back from Aberdeen tomorrow,” Michael said. “I thought I’d search his quarters before then.”

  “Not by yourself,” St. Clair said in a tone that suggested pulling rank was yet within his abilities. “You’re distracted, you’ll miss the obvious—”

  The door scraped open, revealing Elspeth Fraser looking flushed and unhappy.

  “You’ve missed him,” Michael said. “MacLogan and his brother are already scrubbed as clean as soap and cold water can make them.”

  Elspeth put Michael in mind of that quote about a woman being little but fierce, and she wasn’t having any of his teasing.

  “Never mind the daft MacLogans. I cannot find Maeve, and was hoping she’d taken herself up here to sketch.”

  “She’s not with us,” Michael said, “and she’s not with Brenna, and evening will soon descend. St. Clair and I have been up here for a good half hour, and we haven’t seen her leave the castle. Find Lachlan, search the stables, talk to Cook, and, for God’s sake, hurry.”

  ***

  Dinner was a quiet business, with the Baroness St. Clair carrying most of the conversation. She quizzed Brenna on how wool was woven, the various Brodie plaids, and the accoutrements necessary to create a formal Highland dress ensemble.

  While Brenna was so upset, she barely tasted her lamb and potatoes, and Milly St. Clair took over the duties of hostess for her.

  As a friend would have.

  “You might consider wearing the colors of Clan Sinclair,” Michael said. “Brenna can show you the plaid, and it wouldn’t take long to have a kilt made up. Sinclairs have been in Scotland for centuries.”

  “You’ve sewn kilts, then?” St. Clair asked over a bowl of trifle.

  “I’ve been measured for my share.” Michael’s reply was served with an indulgent smile in Brenna’s direction, a husbandly smile, and yet it would do him no good.

  They were doomed to have a rousing argument, and Michael likely knew it.

  Brenna rose without giving Michael a chance to hold her chair.

  “In the interests of allowing all and sundry to get a good night’s sleep, I’ll suggest Lady St. Clair and I withdraw at this point. We’ll be in the solar, gentlemen.”

  “You’re preoccupied,” Lady St. Clair—Milly—observed as they made their way down the corridor.

  “I’m furious.” One could be honest with friends.

  “Maeve’s a little girl, and far from home. Of course she’ll explore, and she came to no harm.”

  These were the arguments Brenna anticipated from Michael. She did not want to hear them from her friend.

  “She came to no harm this time.” Because Angus was in Aberdeen, because Elspeth had known to keep a close eye on the child.

  Because Michael had raised the alarm the instant he’d realized Maeve was missing. Brenna didn’t want to be fair about that, but in the disagreement she intended to have with her spouse, she’d have to acknowledge that much.

  “We are tired,” Milly observed as they reached the third floor. “Would you be very offended if I sought my bed and left you to the company of the teapot?”

  “You are well otherwise?” This mattered to Brenna, that Milly be in good health. It mattered very much.

  “Fatigued, but otherwise thriving. I suspect Sebastian will abandon the port with unseemly haste.”

  “And Michael will join me soon enough as well.”

  Milly stifled a yawn, then fussed the drape of Brenna’s tartan shawl. “You were terrified for that child.”

  Brenna was terrified for all the children, though in Angus’s absence, she’d relaxed her guard.

  “The little ones can so easily come to harm.” Saying the words provoked an ache in Brenna’s throat, an ache where tears ought to be and never had been.

  “Go to bed,” Milly said, kissing her cheek and enveloping her in a brief hug. “Things always look better in the morning. We’ll sew Sebastian a fine kilt and make a laird of the Western Isles of him.”

  Things did not always look better in the morning. Sometimes, for years, things looked just as bad in the morning as they had the night before. Sometimes they looked worse, because sleep had been interrupted by an unwelcome visitor or bad memories.

  Brenna resisted the inexplicable urge to hug Milly back desperately tight, and took herself off to prepare for battle with her husband.

  Because the night was mild by Highland standards, she did not bother lighting the fire, but tended to her ablutions and then climbed into bed to await her spouse. He arrived quietly less than thirty minutes later, while Brenna feigned sleep and kept her face toward the wall.

  The mattress dipped, the sound of two male feet rubbing together whispered in the darkness, and then Michael raised the blankets and climbed in beside her.

  “You’re not asleep, Brenna Maureen. If you’re too upset to talk, we can have our discussion in the morning.”

  He was brave, and he was braced for a fight.

  “I do not want to argue with you in this bed.” She did not want to argue with him at all, but argue, she must.

  “Not argue, discuss. We’re getting better at sorting things out together, you’ll recall. Maeve’s situation requires sorting out.” His tone made it plain that Brenna’s reaction to Maeve’s situation was what he intended to sort out.

  And yet, beneath the covers, Michael’s hand sought Brenna’s. He linked their fingers, even as Brenna lay with her back to him.

  “She cannot be kept safe here,” Brenna said. “If any harm befell that child, I would never forgive myself.” Michael wrapped himself around her, and while Brenna tried to find some resentment for his presumption, all she located was relief.

  “She was picking flowers, Brenna, and teasing the cat. This hardly qualifies as courting disaster.”

  Maeve had been picking flowers in the walled garden, a place Brenna avoided for the memories it held.

  “She can pick flowers in Ire
land. For all we knew, she might have gone down to the village or wandered to the river.”

  “The river is about two feet deep in most places this time of year. I’ll teach the child to swim if that will ease your worries.”

  Nothing would ease her worries. She turned so she faced Michael in the gloom. “You can’t teach her not to wander off, not to be curious. She has a solitary nature, and you can’t teach that out of her.”

  “We’ll hire a governess.”

  Brenna had had a governess, and even governesses had half days, and retired to their own chambers at night. “That’s an unnecessary expense.”

  “We can afford it. The yearlings were prime horseflesh, and I’ve some funds too, you know.”

  Brenna did not allow that shiny lure to distract her. “We’ll spend the yearling money entertaining the shire Friday next.”

  Michael pulled her into his arms, where Brenna fit with an ease only recently gained.

  “What is this about, Brenna? Will you deny us our marital pleasures because any child you bear might someday come to harm? Children do, you know. This one will fall from a pony. That one will come down with measles.”

  Brenna was worried about measles and broken bones, but she was terrified of Angus. In her husband’s arms, the ramifications of Angus’s continued presence at the castle spread through her like symptoms of influenza.

  Neither her daughters nor her sons would be safe. No tutors, governesses, or nannies would be vigilant enough, because the compulsion that drove Angus never slept, never paused in its desire for gratification.

  And yet, she could not allow that beast to be unloosed on some unsuspecting community on the coast or farther away, where she’d be powerless to protect anybody.

  Michael dipped his head to nuzzle her cheek. “Brenna, are you crying?”

  “I am tired.” Weary unto death of coping, of managing, of holding inside fear and fatigue as well as a rage that would commit murder did she allow it to. “I am so tired.”

  He gathered her closer. “Rest. We’ll talk more.”

  “The child must leave, Michael.”

  And thus did Angus win, again. Any dream Brenna had harbored of a happy married life dissipated in the darkness, because she would choose the safety of children she’d never meet above that dream.